Methods of Acclimation

[GaryZ]

I'm getting ready to start adding livestock to my tank. I was talking to my LFS guy today and he said that most fish aclimate in about 30 mins. This seems too quick to me.

I plan on doing a slow drip into a bucket, but for how long?

Also, how do you acclimate for temperature. Since your doing a slow drip, your bucket temp will be lower than your tank temp of 80ish. Will this stress the fish too much.

Whats the worst thing that can happen to a improperly acclimated fish? Quick death? Slow death? Disease? All of the above and more?

[charlie]

Gary,
If you don't have a quarantine tank, I don't either, it usually takes me about 2 hours to acclimate a new fish. I float the bag in my sump for a while to temp. acclimate. I then get a 5 gallon bucket, seem to have alot of those for some reason, put the fish in there, and add a shot glass full of water every 5 minutes for at least 90 minutes.
The down side to not having a "Q" tank is if the fish does get sick, everybody gets it.
Yes the fish can die, slowly, quickly................
Just try the best you can on the acclimation, the slower the better.
Good luck!

HTH

[GaryZ]

You know the addiction has taken hold when you find yourself logging on real quick before you leave for work.


What about lights, I read somewhere to turn the lights off for a few hours.

[charlie]

You know the addiction has taken hold when you find yourself logging on real quick before you leave for work.


What about lights, I read somewhere to turn the lights off for a few hours.

Depending on what is already in your tank, that could be a good idea. If you already have fish in there, I would say yes, turn the lites off and let the new guy in there. It stops alot of the aggression between the inhabitants. I usually just turn off my halides, and go with the actinics.

ADDICTION???? WHAT ADDICTION.

[GaryZ]

Ok, cuz the site that said to turn your lights off made it sound as if the bright lights could cause some kind of severe trauma. Wether thats true or not, it seems like a good idea, 'specially after you mention the agression factor, I never thought of that.

[charlie]

Alot of that depends on what lighting the critter came from. Also, if you purchased on line, the thing has been in the dark for God knows how long, I think that may be the reason for the lites off too!

[Ninong]

I'm getting ready to start adding livestock to my tank. I was talking to my LFS guy today and he said that most fish aclimate in about 30 mins. This seems too quick to me.

Some fish may acclimate in 30 minutes under some conditions. Other fish and other conditions may require one or two hours or more -- sometimes much more. And we're only talking about fish here, not mollusks or echinoderms that require lengthy slow-drip acclimations.

This is how I usually acclimate fish. I float the unopened bag in the tank (with the main lights turned off) for about 15 minutes. I then open the bag and remove about one-third of the water and discard it. I begin adding tankwater to the bag, usually about 1/4-1/2 cup at a time every 5-10 minutes, until I have doubled the amount of water in the bag. Then I remove half of the water in the bag and resume adding small amounts of tankwater every 5 minutes or so. This procedure will almost always take more than an hour. It all depends on the size of the bag.

Once I am satisfied that the water in the bag is at least 80% tankwater, I removed the bag from the tank and take it to the kitchen sink. I also fill up a nice sized Tupperware bowl (one with a lid) about 3/4 full with tankwater and take that with me. I make sure the sink drain is covered and then, using a pair of scissors, I cut a small hole or two in the bottom of the bag. I want the water in the bag to flow out as fast as possible without the hole being large enough that the fish might flow out one of the holes. Once the water is out of the bag, I slide the fish out of the bag and into the Tupperware bowl. I place the lid on the bowl and then I take the bowl back to the aquarium where I pour the fish into the tank. I did this with my very first fish because it was a Foxface Rabbitfish with venomous spines and I didn't want it to spread it's fins and get the spines caught in a net. Then I decided that I liked this method and have used it ever since.

Here are some points to consider. I almost always check the salinity of the water in the bag before I begin adding tankwater. In fact, I have been known to check the salinity of the LFS's water BEFORE purchasing the fish. This can result in some really startled looks on the faces of the LFS employees, but, what the heck. I'm too old to worry about what they think and I actually enjoy shaking them up every now and then. I just whip out my trusty refractometer and test their water. The amazing thing about this is that one LFS owner actually told me that refractometers were known to be unreliable, which is why he never uses them, or sells them.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't have purchased the fish if the salinity of the LFS's water was only 30 ppt (or as high as 40 ppt) but at least I would have known what I was getting into. The LFS where I purchased all three of the fish that I have right now runs around 34 ppt salinity. And they don't run copper in their fish holding tanks. A different LFS where I once purchased some livestock, runs much lower salinity and they run copper all the time in all of their fish-holding tanks. I didn't know that at the time that I made my purchase.

Anyway, getting back to the question at hand, you will want to do a decent acclimation regardless of the difference in salinity between the bag water and your tank water but if there is a really big difference, you will want to do a slower, longer acclimation. That's why it's a good idea to know what you're dealing with.

Floating the bag first and then adding tankwater directly to the bag works for most fish most of the time, but there are exceptions. It will work quite well for fish that you purchased locally and it may work for most fish that you ordered online. Unfortunately, some fish are much more difficult to ship than others and require special handling, both in transit and after they are received. A good example of this would be any of the Cirrhilabrus spp. fairy wrasses. Mature fairy wrasses are difficult to ship. They require much larger shipping bags with large water volumes and then when you receive them, they require careful handling and slow acclimation procedures. It may be a good idea to use an air bubbler in the acclimation container to guarantee adequate oxygen. If the fairy wrasse is only 3" or so in length, you can probably acclimate it in three hours but if it is 5" or so, you are better advised to do at least a five hour acclimation. I'm talking about fish that have been shipped, not fish that you picked up locally.

Here is another trick that I have used when acclimating several shipping bags at once: I set up a large, relatively shallow, container on the kitchen counter. I then do a 5-gal water change in my tank and use that water to fill this container. I place a heater in the container to maintain the water temperature the same as my aquarium's temperature. I do all of this a couple of hours before the expected delivery of my order. When I receive my shipment, I place all of the unopened bags in this pre-heated tank water and then proceed as usual. I like doing this when I have to acclimate echinoderms and mollusks and other critters than require lengthy acclimations because it's easier to deal with the container than it is to worry about the bags moving around in my aquarium.

I use the tank water that is in this temporary container to add to the shipping bags. As the water in the container goes down, I simply get more tank water from the aquarium to replenish it as necessary. I like this method because I can sit on a barstool at the counter and watch what's going on a lot easier than I can when dealing with my 27.5" tall aquarium on it's 36" high stand. It's just something to consider.

[Ninong]

What about lights, I read somewhere to turn the lights off for a few hours.

I always turn my halides off whenever I'm acclimating anything. Most of the time I will leave the two 55w PCs on but sometimes I turn those off, too. It all depends on what I have that I am about to introduce to the tank.

When I added new fairy wrasses to my tank that had a resident fairy wrasse, I added them very late at night after all of the lights had been off for three hours. All hell broke loose the next morning but that's a different story.

I have never had to add any of the so-called detritivore kits to a tank that already had fish but if I ever did, I wouldn't add them until at least two hours after all lights had gone off at night. You don't want your resident dottyback to eat your expensive wormy critters before they even hit the sand bed.

[charlie]

Here are some points to consider. I almost always check the salinity of the water in the bag before I begin adding tankwater. In fact, I have been known to check the salinity of the LFS's water BEFORE purchasing the fish. This can result in some really startled looks on the faces of the LFS employees, but, what the heck. I'm too old to worry about what they think and I actually enjoy shaking them up every now and then. I just whip out my trusty refractometer and test their water. The amazing thing about this is that one LFS owner actually told me that refractometers were known to be unreliable, which is why he never uses them, or sells them.

Great info George!!!!! I would love to see the faces on my LFS if I tried the refractometer in their store. I guess I'll never have that chance, They won't let me in the door.:eek3:

[brooke]

Great info George!!!!! I would love to see the faces on my LFS if I tried the refractometer in their store. I guess I'll never have that chance, They won't let me in the door.:eek3:

[charlie]

What seems to be the confusion???

[brooke]

What seems to be the confusion???

No confusion, just wondering if there was a story behind that? ;;

[charlie]

No confusion, just wondering if there was a story behind that? ;;

Oh yeah, there's a story, but not in this thread!

[Reefland]

Well start a new one then. I'd love to hear about this one!

[dougc]

If I am getting fish locally, I find out the salinity of the store's tanks, although I have never pulled a refractometer on them. I use a quarantine tank, so I adjust the q-tank to match the store's salinity. This eliminates one stressor from the acclimation process.

[charlie]

Well start a new one then. I'd love to hear about this one!

It will have to be in the protected area Scott, it's liable to be a grinder!!

[GaryZ]

Ok, I acclimated a Yellow Hawiian Tang and a Algae Blenny today. It went great. Here's what I did.

Picked up a HD bucket and rinsed it thoroughly. Turned off all of my lights. Floated the bags for twenty minutes. After the twenty was up, emptied the livestock and water into the bucket. Bought some small tubing and tied a few knots in it to control the siphon. Started the siphon and restricted the flow until it was nice and slow, just a bit quicker than a fast drip. Let the bucket fill halfway. Emptied the bucket until I had a little less than what I started with. Repeated the process until the bucket was half full. Netted the fish and put them into the tank.

The whole process took about an hour and a half. The tang looks great. He's loving the space and looks very happy and healthy. The blenny ran and hid, which is pretty much all I could expect from him. I've been trying to spot him, but he blends too well in the dim light. Plus he's pretty small, which doesn't help. All in all, the process was pretty painless and worth the time. I got my blues on now, won't fire up the whites for another few hours.

Thanks for all the insight.