acclimating 100 fish

M

mudpy

New member
Hi guys my brother who lives in Hawaii is going to ship about 100 fish to me and i need to know how to properly acclimate them.
I have 3 separate 200 gallon tanks with their own sumps
I know i have to match the temp and ph of the water but how do i prevent ammonia spikes if the tanks have not cycled?
i was told to add live rock from my display tank but do i need to add anything else? can you guys help? if your a store owner could you please tell me the steps? thanks so much
 
Not sure you could create a system for that bio load quickly or efficiently.

Look into mechanical filtration like a pool style filter. Try lifegard.
 
I would hold off until you have an environment capable of handling that many fish.

How long have these tanks been up? Do you have any live rock in either of your tanks? We need to know more information.
 
Are these going to be big fish or small fish?

When I was at Petco we received upwards of 2000 feeders at a time. They would just get floated & then released into a tank that was probably about 140g total system water. Probably lost about 10-15% of the fish on a daily basis.
 
Everyones Hero said:
Are these going to be big fish or small fish?

When I was at Petco we received upwards of 2000 feeders at a time. They would just get floated & then released into a tank that was probably about 140g total system water. Probably lost about 10-15% of the fish on a daily basis.
Click to expand...

Is losing 200-250 fish a day acceptable?

I used to work at one of the largest pet stores on the east coast. They have several systems of 1000 gallons or more. In the salt section, a typical delivery was less than 100 fish per section. Fresh was 200-500 (although there were a lot of guppies, platys, tetra, etc).

We had 5'x5'x3' sumps for each system, the salt sections had 8' tall skimmers, among other things.

To answer your question, there really isn't much you can do if you're set on adding that amount of fish at once, short of keeping a very close eye in ammonia and nitrite, and doing water changes to minimize the spikes.
 
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I wouldn't do this if it were me...heck if it isn't true the entire thing is almost sounds like its on a "troll" level (OP please forgive us skeptics!)

OTOH my wife did buy a "tankful" of fish from live aquaria and dumped them in at once (spare us the blast, we had numerous reasons for doing this)....

...anyway, that said: I had recalled a "experiment" on a board several years ago using BioSpira ...the concensuis was it worked (and yes this is comming from a eternal skeptic sick of being burned by the assorted snake oils passing as legit products)

...so we used Biospira in tandem with dumping a load of fish in a 150G ...
I'm not 100% endorsing it, but would rather say: "we got away with it"...

BioSpira? "maybe" there's your answer with a big disclaimer
 
I have 3 200 gallon tanks set up on 3 separate systems meaning they each have their own bubble king 250 skimmers and separate sumps. I'm getting about 100 fish and planing on using some live rock from my display tank when the fish arrive. I'm thinking adding about 35 fish per tank. I will make sure i match the temp and ph of the water when fish arrive. How do fish stores do it? they get a lot more fish
Thanks for the help
 
I would think your biggest concern will be an ammonia spike, so you'll need to monitor ammonia closely.

I'd have plenty of Amquel, Prime or other ammonia neutralizer on hand in case ammonia starts to spike.
 
It would make alot more sense to have maybe 20 fish shipped at a time and slowly acclimate them. Would make a lot more sense to slowly go about adding fish. You definitely need to have your tanks already cycled this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen haha. It might cost more in shipping to have them shipped in smaller amounts but it would be alot less expensive in the long run since your going to lose less fish!
 
It sounds like you are setting up 3 large qt systems, is that what's going on? You mentioned "display" separately from these 3 tanks. One thing I would say is to have a maybe 100 gallons each if mixed salt water and fresh RO water on hand for water changes. this way if you have issues you are ready with pre made water, or at he least to water that can be mixed quickly
 
I know i'm going to be bashed for suggesting this, but there have been people who have used dr.tim's nitrifying bacteria the day before they put a fish or two into an uncycled tank, and had the fish survive. It's not going to eliminate the cycle, but it did help me shorten my cycle, and people have had fish survive without a true cycle. Just something you might want to look into. (yes i know don't trust snake oils, but if there's science behind the product, i think it's worth a shot, especially if it saves a couple of fish)
 
It all seems like a very bad idea to me.
The thing ive learned from keeping SW over the years, is that patience is a virtue.
Even a fully cycled system is going to have trouble if you add too much at once.
 
Call these guys
Tanked-on-Animal-Planet.jpg


They can tell you how to do it!!
 
mudpy said:
I have 3 200 gallon tanks set up on 3 separate systems meaning they each have their own bubble king 250 skimmers and separate sumps. I'm getting about 100 fish and planing on using some live rock from my display tank when the fish arrive. I'm thinking adding about 35 fish per tank. I will make sure i match the temp and ph of the water when fish arrive. How do fish stores do it? they get a lot more fish
Thanks for the help
Click to expand...

The fish stores are running mature systems that always have a lot of fish in them so they already have the bacterial colonies established so they can deal with the ammonia the new fish are going to produce are added. We also used MicrobLift. Not sure if the Microblift did any good or not. Smelled like death.

Is losing 200-250 fish a day acceptable?

I used to work at one of the largest pet stores on the east coast. They have several systems of 1000 gallons or more. In the salt section, a typical delivery was less than 100 fish per section. Fresh was 200-500 (although there were a lot of guppies, platys, tetra, etc).

We had 5'x5'x3' sumps for each system, the salt sections had 8' tall skimmers, among other things.

To answer your question, there really isn't much you can do if you're set on adding that amount of fish at once, short of keeping a very close eye in ammonia and nitrite, and doing water changes to minimize the spikes.
Click to expand...

IMO- no, it wasn't acceptable. But when management only cares about the cute little fuzzy animals... Well, there's a reason I'm not there anymore.
 
Yes they will be for now 3 qt tanks. I have my display tank 300 gallons but do not want to add these fish in case of decease untill at least 3 weeks. I will be keeping most of the and a few i will give to a friend. eventually i will have all the fish tanks set up for a total of about 900 gallons. I will also have 200 gallons of water mixed ready in case of ammonia spike. The reason why i'm getting about 100 is because my brother is moving and he's getting rid of his tanks
 
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