Acclimating...big pH difference

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kwl718

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Feb 2, 2007
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I posted earlier about my issues with the LFS and pH. The guy convinced me I should lower mine from 7.8 to 6.5, but because I've got a good buffer going on, it jumped right back up.

We went and got three more little danios today (there were two in the fishless cycled tank for a week...0 amm 0 nitrite 5 nitrate this morning).

I was really paranoid about moving the fish from the 6.5 ph store to my 7.8 ph tank, so I think I might have gone a little overboard on slow acclimation.

I stuck the fish and their bag water into a bucket and setup a drip from the tank with some airline tubing. It took three hours to get the pH to 7.8! I removed 1/2 cup of water from the bucket every time it got back to the mark I'd started on. They were in there so long that I had to put the bucket in another one with warmish water in it to keep the temp close to that of the tank (my house is cold).

Geez...that was an ordeal, we won't be getting fish often it this is the way it is!

The danios are in the tank now and have been for three hours, they seem happy and are active. Do you think I could speed up my drip next time, or is this an appropriate amount of time going between these two pH levels?
 
Depends on the fish. If those were neon or cardinal tetras, you may have been a little too fast! If they were SA Cichlids, you probably could have tossed 'em in from across the room.
 
i stick to a minimum of 3 hours for a drip acclimation, and it has proven to have the best results for me. (less than 5% loss, which can be attributed to outside forces) patience is key. ive been hasty before, and my losses went thru the roof. and besides, if you take your time, you will maintain your population much easier, and you wont NEED to go get more fish as often. :) i wouldnt bother modifying your pH. it causes more stress than anything else, and like in your case, chances are it wont turn out as expected. fish can acclimate to a VERY wide range of pH if properly cared for.
 
It does come down to the fish. Danios are pretty tough, so you actually could have gone even faster. But I wouldn't dare try that with a lot of others.

Don't play with lowering your pH unless you plan to do it knowledgeably, carefully, and naturally with peat.
 
I've had a bunch of very experienced discus breeders tell me not to bother with acclimating pH, especially when going from low to high. They just equalize temperatures, net them out of the bag, and plop them in.

And discus ain't exactly known as tough fish.

I tried that with a group of cardinals I bought a few weeks ago. They went right from 7.0 bag water to 7.8 tank water, and they're all doing fine. And I've found cardinals to be picky about water quality (e.g., they don't do well with high nitrate levels).

More and more I'm coming to the conclusion that the most imprtant thing is that keeping water clean and low in nitrate levels is the most important thing, and as long as the chemistry is reasonalby stable, whatever it is, is OK. If you think about it, in the wild, chemistry will vary a bit with the seasons, sudden storms and floods, etc. But no living thing does well living in their own waste.
 
My understanding is that with dramtatic changes in pH. e.g. moving from 7.8 to 6.5 that was mentioned can have a 'rebound' effect where the nature of the tank tries to equalise such a dramtatic change.

What you could end up with is big swings in pH until it all settles down.

This is stressful for the fish and may well end up in losing fish.

I would suggest (if you really want to change pH) that you do tiny and gradual changes to your tank. However, I appreciate the other advice here that simply says, just leave it and focus on good clean water!
 
Yeah, despite the advice of the LFS, I decided last week NOT to mess with my pH. He told me to lower it, but when I did, it jumped right back up in 24 hours, so forget that idea! The two danios who experienced that fiasco are still fine, thankfully. The new guys I got yesterday went into the tank that is 7.8 and will probably always be 7.8, it stayed there for the entire 5 week fishless cycle.

I read somewhere that going from low to high ph isn't necessarily what does the fish in, it's that ammonia is more toxic at high pH. I still want to be conservative, even though my tank has no ammonia and even the bag water didn't (I checked as soon as it was in the bucket to see how much time I had to acclimate...if that water was suspect, I'd have sped it up to get them out)...the LFS is only 20 minutes away and I made sure to come straight home, so the water hadn't deteriorated much...I also asked for one bag for each danio, so I'd have plenty of water for my bucket and they wouldn't be peeing all over each other and making more ammonia during the ride.

I think I'll stick with this approach, even though it means I have to stay close to the tank all afternoon, it seems to have gone well. I'll just have to plan LFS trips ahead to make sure I've got the time. Besides...it's a good exercise in patience for my 4 year old...no instant gratification because the animals need things done for them.
 
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