"Zero minute" acclimation method (myths thread related)

Samala

Samala

mmm RNA..
Jan 17, 2003
95
0
0
Outer-Philly (n. DE)
home.comcast.net
Hi all,

So I saw on the "myths of fishkeeping" thread that someone posted that you dont always need to float bagged fish before introducing them into your tank - ie. acclimation periods. This is, at least in my practice/experience, true! The necessity of the floating procedure is the myth!

I only floated fish back when I first got started with keeping. Since six years ago or so, I've never floated anything and have been following a quick method without any problems or undue stress on the fish.

So what do I do when I get fish home? Open their bags, check their water's temperature. Its only a problem if the tank water is colder than the bag water. This is far more stressful than the fish going from a cold environment to a warm environment, especially if the warmer temperature is more within his natural range. If your tank is colder, add some hot water treated to dechlorinate. I then squirt in some AmQuel - or similar NH3/NH4 'destroyer' - into the bag and the tank, and then net out the fish and place him in his new home! I know, it sounds radical and as if it would be really stressful, but it works. I read this method in an article ages ago, I cant locate it, so I'll paraphrase the reasons here.

Reasons not to float the bag:
1) Ammonia is more harmful to fish's gills at higher pHs. The longer your fish is in the bag, the more CO2 he's producing and the lower the pH should go, to a certain point, due to his exhalation. Now, he's also possibly producing more ammonia within the bag as well. The thing is - if you start adding aquarium water from your tank to the bag, in an attempt to equilibriate all the water parameters, you are undoubtedly raising the pH and not decreasing the overall amount of NH3/NH4 in the water, and running the risk of doing more damage to his gills.

2) Since your tank is most likely going to be warmer than the bag water, as the bag water warms up the oxygen requirement for the fish is going to increase. However, the amount of oxygen available to be exchanged within the bag will not increase. (There is some debate that gases exchange across the plastic surface, but if you plop the bag in water, you stop this possible exchange source as well.) So, if your fish requires more O2, but isnt getting enough, he will probably breathe faster, and exacerbate the O2 problem.

3) Stressed out fish tend to wildly move about inside floated bags (afterall, they cant see the plastic and think they can get out into the tank and behind plants - away from you!) So, this will also increase the oxygen requirement, and lead back to #2.

4) Also, adding an air stone or bubbling into a bag increases the O2 content, solving some problems, but it will drive off some CO2 as well, increase the pH and lead back to the ammonia problems we had in #1.

I hope all of that makes sense, and if memory serves its all reasonably backed by chemistry. ;) Any arguments with the theory behind this, reasons not to do this, post em. I was a major skeptic of this method too until I started using it - and not on common fish either, mostly breeding stock or wild-caught specimens.

>Sarah
 
well, how your LFS acclimates fish to their tanks is this:

1) open the box and remove the fish
2) cut the bag open and dump the fish into a net
3) dump the fish into the tank

We do this where I work, and have very few fish losses. Far less than one percent.

Witnessing this, I have come to the conclusion that acclimation isn't all it's cracked up to be. Far from absolutely neccesary.
 
ChicoRaton said:
well, how your LFS acclimates fish to their tanks is this:

1) open the box and remove the fish
2) cut the bag open and dump the fish into a net
3) dump the fish into the tank

We do this where I work, and have very few fish losses. Far less than one percent.

Witnessing this, I have come to the conclusion that acclimation isn't all it's cracked up to be. Far from absolutely neccesary.
Click to expand...

Since you speak from experience, I tend to believe you. But, ever since I started visiting this site, I've read that pH fluctuations are BAD . Do you see where I'm going with this?
 
Actually, going from cool water to warmer water is far more stressful for a fish than the other way around, simply because the cooler water does have more oxygen than warmer water.

I'd say that the length of time that this fish has been bagged is important, in addition to determining what the difference is between the LFS water and the tank conditions. While a straight dump may work for some fish, it won't work for all fish, even with the realm of FW. And of course, hopefully the fish is going into a quarantine tank, simply to avoid the potential for infecting your other fish with an ailment or parasite. For fish that have been bagged for an extended period of time, ie, more than an hour or two, removing them from a potential toxic environment is quite important. For fish that have been bagged for less time, it just makes sense to me to acclimate them to my conditions.

Of course, for SW fish, there's another important variable--very few LFS maintain their salinity at the 'normal' level, and dumping a fish into higher salinity water can cause serious problems and death. Since many people prophalactically salt their FW systems, this would be a concern for them as well.
 
Of course, for SW fish, there's another important variable--very few LFS maintain their salinity at the 'normal' level, and dumping a fish into higher salinity water can cause serious problems and death.
Click to expand...

I did forget about that. Where I work we keep the fish only systems at about 1.019-1.020, for parasite control I believe. If you were moving them to a tank with 1.023 salinity, acclimation would probably be neccesary and beneficial.

The reasoning behind the "dump quickly" type "acclimation" method is, I believe, most applicable to cases where the fish has been in the bag a long time. this reason:
Ammonia is more harmful to fish's gills at higher pHs. The longer your fish is in the bag, the more CO2 he's producing and the lower the pH should go, to a certain point, due to his exhalation. Now, he's also possibly producing more ammonia within the bag as well. The thing is - if you start adding aquarium water from your tank to the bag, in an attempt to equilibriate all the water parameters, you are undoubtedly raising the pH and not decreasing the overall amount of NH3/NH4 in the water, and running the risk of doing more damage to his gills.
Click to expand...

In any case, I don't claim to be certain either way is better, as I have seen both work with highly effective results.
 
If you just bought the fish from the store, I see no reason to just plop them in and cause more stress than they're already going through. Floating them so the temperatures equalize then adding water to the bag (if your tap is different from your LFSs) so that they can adjust more slowly is better when fish have only been in the bag for a little while.

On the other hand, if you got fish that were shipped to you and are obviously distressed over ammonia levels, I agree, plopping them in the Q-tank is the best way to do it as long as the water temperatures aren't at extremes of each other.
 
Chico,
I would tend to dis-agree with you, Or at least agree more with OG however I will go as far as to say.
#1. I have never lived far from an LFS so my fish aren't in the bag very long, #2. I have never tried adding them directly to the tank so I don't know if it would work.
#3. I have no sceintific info to say one way or the other.

O2 and ammonia are something I worrry about a lot. I tend to give the fish 5-10 minutes for temp matching and then start adding tank water. I add tank water to the bag in a pretty forceful manner in order to oxygenate as much as possible. Of course nothing can be done for the ammonia , but the O2 is there. As a rule when I bring home a fish they have had less than 15 minutes in a bag, and except for animals known to be hard to acclimate, they are never in the bag more than 1 hour, and during that hour their water volume is usually doubled at the least. I tend to do low volume water changes with the bag in order to change over to tank water. In other words I pull out 1/4 cup and put in 1/4 cup every 10-15 minutes. If the bag is large enough I start by just adding, but as it fills I do the water changes.
dave
 
1) open the box and remove the fish
2) cut the bag open and dump the fish into a net
3) dump the fish into the tank
Click to expand...

we use to the the bag place bag in tank after 5 half empty bag fill bag with sypthoned tank water-10 minutes net fish discard bag and water place fish in tank etc

for discus net fish tip bag water into esky then place fish in esky with air filter and small filter slowly add water for tank 2 cups every 5 minutes till the esky was full(1 to 1.5 hours) then place fish in sectioned off part of tank for .5 of an hour then remove divider NEVER LOST A DISCUS ive heard of place takeing upto 5 hours to get the fish into tanks :eek:
 
Something from my files on this topic:
"Squirt & Dump Method

Those of you who have known John Kuhns since his invention of the product
NovAqua (marketed by Kordon) have known of his now famous "squirt and dump"
method of introducing new fishes into tanks. "Famous" because the method
has now been written about in The Complete Fishkeeper. This book, written
by Joseph S. Levine is subtitled: "everything aquarium fishes need to stay
alive, healthy and happy" is well written and belongs in every aquarist's
library, and is the first book that aquarium shops should sell to new
aquarists.

The excerpt that tells about the "squirt and dump" method is reproduced here:


Adding Fish to the Tank

Traditional wisdom has it that you must float fish bags in your tank for
thirty minutes, mix bag water with tank water, and then tip the bag over
and allow the fishes to swim out on their own. I prefer, however, a radical
departure from this technique that has been successfully championed by
FISHNET member and aquacultural chemist John Kuhns. John's "dose and dump
technique," which aims to get the fish out of the bag and into the tank as
soon as possible, seems preferable any time there are not dramatic
temperature differences between bag and tank water. The method is simple:
Add a little quirt of NovAqua water conditioner to the bag, add the
appropriate dose to the tank, remove the fishes from the bag, and dump them
into the tank.

This advice will disturb many old hands at the hobby, but there is sound
reasoning behind it, and it has worked well for John and numerous retailers
and hobbyists who have followed his advice. Why? While in their shipping
bags in small volumes of water, fish are constantly excreting both ammonia
(which can build up to harmful levels) and carbon dioxide (which lowers the
pH). As soon as you open the bag at home, the CO2 begins to leave the
water, and the pH rises, initiating a chain reaction that makes any ammonia
in the bag more toxic, So as long as conditions in your tank are suitable,
the faster the fish get out of the bag and into the water, the better."

In it Levine correctly reports the reasoning behind the method. He also
reports that many old-timers may find the practice questionable, but to
paraphrase Stephen Jay Gould: the progress of aquarium keeping is impeded
less by "factual lacks" than by "conceptual locks".

At the EECHO Systems' hatchery the method is employed regularly. However,
there has been an improvement. Instead of just using a squirt of NovAqua in
the bag and the tank, a squirt of AmQuel is also used. The addition of the
AmQuel aids, of course, in the reduction of ammonia that has built-up in
the bag and in handling the spike of ammonia that often results when new
fishes are added to the tank.
=
The reasons for not floating bags are quite clear and reasonable:

(a) floated bags warm up increasing the oxygen requirements of the fishes
in them

(b) it has been suggested that there is a certain amount of atmospheric gas
exchange between the water in the bag and the air outside; this gas
exchange is stopped when the bags are immersed in water

(c) bags can be expected to carry contaminating microorganisms on their
outside surfaces; floating them allows contamination of the tank water

(d) adding water to the bags almost always increases the pH and thereby
immediately increases the toxicity of the ammonia the fishes have excreted
during their transportation

(e) aerating the bags will increase the dissolved oxygen concentration and
it will drive off some of the accumulated carbon dioxide, but as the carbon
dioxide is driven off the pH can be expected to rise, and as in (d) above,
the ammonia becomes more toxic

(f) allowing water from the bags to enter the tanks is, of course, a
totally irresponsible practice; this introduces not only the pollutants
that have accumulated in the bag water, but also disease-causing organisms
are introduced to the tank

(g) finally, keeping the fishes in their polluted shipping water longer
than necessary is a poor husbandry practice."
 
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