Drip rate and time to bring shipping water up to tank parameters gently enough for inverts.
Float the sealed bag for fifteen minutes to match temperature first, then open it and start the drip. Keep the container out of the light and never pour shipping water into the tank.
time = (1,000 − 500 mL) ÷ (2.0 drops/s × 60 × 0.05 mL) = 83 min
Drip acclimation dilutes the shipping water with tank water slowly enough that the animal tracks the change. Doubling the volume gets you halfway to tank parameters, quadrupling gets you three quarters of the way.
A drop is taken as 0.05 mL here, the standard figure. Two drops per second is 6 mL a minute, which doubles a 500 mL bag in roughly an hour.
Inverts need the most care because they have very limited osmoregulation. Shrimp, snails, urchins and starfish moved too fast often look fine for two days and then die, which is why the deaths get blamed on something else.
Fish need less. A fish moved between similar salinities can go across in twenty minutes without harm, and the greater risk is leaving it in a small volume of deteriorating water.
Open the bag and the clock starts. Shipping water accumulates ammonia while the fish is in transit, and the low pH of a sealed bag keeps that ammonia as relatively harmless ammonium. Opening it lets CO₂ out, pH climbs, and the ammonium converts to toxic free ammonia within about an hour. This is why very long acclimations can do more harm than short ones.
Match temperature first by floating the sealed bag, and keep the acclimation container shaded. Never pour shipping water into the display, whatever the store says.
Corals need less salinity care and more light care. A coral moved from a shaded shipping box straight under full intensity bleaches. Put new corals on the sand bed for a week and move them up gradually.