Acclimating fish

mpgrant77

mpgrant77

New member
I am not sure if I am doing something wrong with fish acclimation. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I struggled with keeping some fish. So fast forward to today. I just purchased a pair of neon damsels and they did not last two days. I absolutely hate killing fish. It is a new startup tank. Ammonia fell to zero so I though I was good for a couple easy fish. Check chemistry and the ammonia registered .01ppm but the fish have been dead at least a day so that could be from them. Nitrates spiked on me and are at 20ppm with Nitrites around .35ppm. How does everyone approach acclimation for fish. I know my levels are higher than I want and I am doing a water change but they should not be lethal. I am just wondering if I am doing something wrong during acclimation.
 
Bag of water and fish go in small container. Air line tubing drip line from tank to container and air line tubing drip line from container to waste water. Couple drips a second for two hours.
Salinity is 1.026
pH - 7.8
temp 79
 
Hopefully your using a refractometer and measure the sg the fish are in and your water at the time of acclamation
 
Too long of acclimation in my opinion.
The 2 things fish are the most sensitive to when going from one water source to another are 1st Ph, and 2nd temp. These are a lot more of a concern than most people realize.
It is also helpful to know what the Salinity of the "bag water" is when you start.
If you're getting them from a place that does hypo then that needs to be taken into consideration as well....but not like you might think.
As far as salinity changes are concerned, there is pretty much no difference in doing a 30min acclimation or a 4hr one, but there certainly would be if there was a large Ph differential.
Most of the time Ph is not in a large differential unless the fish was not packed with oxygen or unless the fish was in the bag for a considerable length of time(several hours) or both.

I say float acclimate for 20 min or so, then do a quick drip for 20-30 min (as long as you're doing a full water change in the small container in that amount of time). Really any longer than that and you are starting to let the water cool down pretty good from what tank temp is.
 
I guess I never really thought to test the LFS water. I assumed that they would hold some acceptable ranges so as to protect their investments.
I am close to the store about 10 mins door to door so they were not in the bag very long.
 
So you guys don't think the nitrogen cycle levels had anything to do with it? Like I said they did not seem bad enough to kill the fish. So it sounds more like I acclimated to long in a small container dropping the temp and then tossed them in the tank. Possible pH and salinity could have been a factor also. I am not sure what hypo is.
 
I got a fish last week. the lfs water was 1.020. Took 6 hours to acclimate the fish to 1.025. The have been eating and doing fine.
 
u4ick said:
Too long of acclimation in my opinion.
The 2 things fish are the most sensitive to when going from one water source to another are 1st Ph, and 2nd temp. These are a lot more of a concern than most people realize.
It is also helpful to know what the Salinity of the "bag water" is when you start.
If you're getting them from a place that does hypo then that needs to be taken into consideration as well....but not like you might think.
As far as salinity changes are concerned, there is pretty much no difference in doing a 30min acclimation or a 4hr one, but there certainly would be if there was a large Ph differential.
Most of the time Ph is not in a large differential unless the fish was not packed with oxygen or unless the fish was in the bag for a considerable length of time(several hours) or both.

I say float acclimate for 20 min or so, then do a quick drip for 20-30 min (as long as you're doing a full water change in the small container in that amount of time). Really any longer than that and you are starting to let the water cool down pretty good from what tank temp is.
Click to expand...

Having said what I said in a post before. this may be a smarter option. When we fly to other parts of the country where air is thinner or thicker, we don't go through a several hour acclimation do we?

I'm constantly reading about acclimation practices. I don't think i'll ever feel like i'm "doing it right"
 
Ask D smack about the highly successful swish method. I have used it and haven't suffered any losses.
 
Mr D smack said:
Hopefully your using a refractometer and measure the sg the fish are in and your water at the time of acclamation
Click to expand...

What would this really matter? After 2 hours I would assume it would be brought up to about equal. I am not real sure I have tested other than 1 time I just wondered what LA water qualities were. I do about 45 min to an hour drip and don't have issues.
 
Pife said:
Ask D smack about the highly successful swish method. I have used it and haven't suffered any losses.
Click to expand...

It works, I just did a domino damsel :D

Hodge1995 said:
What would this really matter? After 2 hours I would assume it would be brought up to about equal. I am not real sure I have tested other than 1 time I just wondered what LA water qualities were. I do about 45 min to an hour drip and don't have issues.
Click to expand...

From what Ive read is to far apart sg can cause issues if acclimated to fast. Ive done/did the swish method to 6 hour drip and have had success as well as death on all different methods.
 
babybull said:
Sometimes you just get sick fish and no matter what you do they will not survive. JMO
Click to expand...

My problem was that I purchased two neon damsels, acclimated at the same time and lost them about a day apart with the first one dying within 12 hours. So I figured I must have done something wrong.
 
i bought 8 firefish one time, all were eating. By the 8th day all were dead. Had them in an established QT tank.
 
I have been having nothing but bad luck with bringing fish up from Hypo. I went as far as to create a special apparatus where the water from the tank is being pumped around the vessel where the fish are being dripped to avoid temperature loss. I also test for everything including PH and follow strict timing procedure per the stores instructions. The fish die within a few days or two weeks at the most.

I refuse to buy a fish from hypo and/or copper systems any more. It's not abut the money for me but about the killing of animals because the store tries to keep them ick free and looking healthy. I would rather buy fish at twice the cost than kill them.
 
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