This past weekend, I successfully transported 6 frags dry in my carry on from billy bishop in Toronto, to Sault Ste Marie. It was my first time attempting this. I had just had 6 basic frags, a couple of millis, an acro, a paly and a cyphastrea which I wasn't too sure about. They all were fine being out of the water for about 3-4 hours. Within minutes polyps opened up.
I dumped the water right before I went through security and wrapped them in wet paper towels and plastic bags.
Everything went great, as I've moved out to the country a year ago I find it hard with no reef shops, but I don't necessarily want to ship 100s of dollars of corals to me, nor did I want to pay $30 to check $100 worth of coral. I was in Toronto for other reasons but wanted to do a little coral shopping too.
I made a brief video of the experience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lhGErvPlsM&t=1s
I see now there are companies that make TSA approved coral carry on containers, which have the water level marked and apparently are allowed more than the 125ml max since the container contains living animals. Does anyone know if you can carry these on in Canada? TSA's website actually says you can carry on living corals but you cannot check them.
When asked about the liquid I just told security it was wet paper towels without getting into the corals, she opened it up and sent me on my way.
Depending on the type it's fine to carry them on dry but if it was a micro or a blasto for instance I'm not sure how they would do several hours without water. The cyphastera was the first test since I don't believe they are exposed at high tide like the other corals I got. Also I felt a little silly going into the family washroom because I was too embarrassed to do this in the regular washroom at the airport.