How do you acclimate or not? Why?

How do you acclimate your new fish?

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I found that the need and reason for acclimation is very subjective and very dependent upon regional water supply differences or self induced water chemistry differences. Generally if you buy a fish locally and you and the LFS are both using the same unaltered water supply, acclimation is beginner handbook elementary. However if your water is altered or supplied differently (well-water) or the fish is shipped from a different region where water chemistry is much different (PH, GH, TDS, toxin exc, exc) you may have quite a challenge keeping them alive if you do not know how to acclimate them for the specific chemistry difference. In those unusual circumstances you usually only have 1 shot to test the water differences correctly and take the correct acclimation procedure or youll have dead fish before you can figure out what went wrong.
 
Depends on what it is, and where I got it. Snails get chucked in. Delicate stock gets dripped. Tougher fish and shrimp get acclimated to temp. Stuff from MsJinkzd gets dumped in with the water, everything else is netted out of the water and put in. I do not trust most places water, as I have gotten diseases that way before.
 
I picked both drip acclimation and plop and drop methods. It really depends on the situation. For the most part, when I buy from one of the LFS, I drip acclimate. With shipped fish, due to concerns with the toxic water they're in, I want them out of it as soon as possible, so I plop and drop. I don't mix in any of the water from the LFS or shipping. With larger fish I'll actually use my hands instead of a net. I've yet to lose a fish from acclimation either way (except my male clown, not sure if that got him or something else).
 
Drip acclimation gives a false sense of "safety". It can be dangerous. If there's ammonia in the bag, it'll likely be rendered harmless through low pH from dissolved exhaled CO2. Open the bag, the CO2 starts to gas out, pH rises and the ammonia goes toxic. Add in more alkaline (i.e. low CO2) tank water and the same thing happens. If the fish have been in the bag any length of time then equalising temperaturs (temperature does matter with poikilotherms) and plop and drop is the way.
 
I done many ways to acclimate new arrivals in both hobby & commercial level and there are others ways to drip other than mentioned in this thread.

Whatever methods works better for you, one should continue as I believe in dont fix something that's not broken principle to some degree. But always room for improvements to make it better imo..
Especially In case where one has continued problems w/o explainable/acceptable reasons, one should consider the possiblity of other reasons regardless of what most may believe/claim.

Rachel,
Although quantity you handle is lot more than what most will ever go thru, if there was a way to reduce losses lower than 5%, would you want to try? Like I said, there are ways to improve one's technique if one keep their mind open.

I am not saying this due to fact that I used to bring in similar amt on weekly basis on f/w & s/w fish, not including inverts, I always tried to modify/improve my techniques as per situation.

As far as the posting by Kmuda, I would like to point out hius/her closing statement.
Where does one draws line to determine sensitive fish? List of fishes provided are merely dozens of common species. I even kept Zebra pleco & others with tang cichlids/Tang minnows (hard and high pH than natural biotope) upon long acclimantion processes, sometimes weeks/months. But I would never claim it is OK to expose zebra pleco to such extreme condition unless I know one's ability (mostly local hobbyists)

To some degree, sensitivity of fish may be determined by the knowledge/facts & experiences obtained by each individual keepers. For someone who may not know much, any fish can be sensitive fish, imo.

Although I find some articles to be true but If I was to post such finding/belief, I would have a confidence in saying no pH shock effect on any fishes.

My conclusion: Try providing an ideal conditions for fishes being kept, especially newly arrived fishes. Upon stablizing, one may try different ways to keep at ones discretion. But one should not say that there are no pH schock effects as many newbies may find such remark to be true for all fishes, even to newly arrived fishes.
Adaptability all depends on each fishes general health/condition/environment, etc, etc at that specific situation, IMO.


My best way to acclimate is to test the water in the bag before determining what needs to be done.
 
5% is just my average. Many species I lose none. I am always happy to improve my techniques and try new things.

Often the biggest losses are the more overcrowded bags (800-1000 per bag vs 100-200 which I prefer).

It would be more helpful to share your techniques than to be vague about their existence ;)

I mentioned earlier as well that I find testing the bag water moot for me unless doing a direct import as transhippers change the water and rebag the fish to their source water, not the water the fish is from.
 
msjinkzd said:
5% is just my average. Many species I lose none. I am always happy to improve my techniques and try new things.

Often the biggest losses are the more overcrowded bags (800-1000 per bag vs 100-200 which I prefer).

It would be more helpful to share your techniques than to be vague about their existence ;)

I mentioned earlier as well that I find testing the bag water moot for me unless doing a direct import as transhippers change the water and rebag the fish to their source water, not the water the fish is from.
Click to expand...


One too many and I thought Ive been doing that as per case/posting. lol!

I dont know how/where youre bringging your shipment but I learned that by omtting rebagging procedure, I had less losses/complications.
Even with rebagging done @ LA/FL for most shipments, I always did testing first in order to ananlyze bag water to determine path of actions since water chemistry changes differ per bag and sometimes per shipment as rebagging staffs are not always trust worthy although FL rebagging tend to be more efficient in their procedure.Perhaps less time involved in transit.
Perfect example: Old associate went to Cal to set up his own rebagging station for his own shipments only. Hopefully he would venture into collection/propagation as well near future where I may find an opportunity to relocate myself to such localities (MI, FIJI, Bali, etc). Perhaps just a wishful thinking!

What do you use to detox possible exposure to NH3/NO2 and possible cyanide in marine fish?
 
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