how fast to acclimate bad sg

M

myfrostymember

New member
ok i jut got home with a flasher wrasse and started to slowly acclimate him but he immediatly turned on his side and just laid there- got worried stopped the acclimation and checked the water- the salinity is at 1.015- ph at around 8.7

so what should i do- how long should i acclimate him for to get him the correct level- is it normal for him to lay on his side-should i put an airstone in the bag to get more oxygen in there?

any help or input would be great matt

my water is 1.025 and ph around 8.3
 
your water is 1.025, ph 8.3 that is the water from the aquarium??

or is it your aquarium that is 1.015 ph 8.7?

how long has it been in a bag?

either way.. acclimation should happen over the course of about an hour perhaps an hour and a half. it has beeb about 30 minutes since you posted.. have you been continuing a normal acclimation process?
 
ya continued normall maybe little bit slower then normal -
he was in the bag alot longer then normal close to 5hrs probably- i also got some ricordia's from the lfs and there water was 1.025 and even after the trip they look better then at the lfs

my ph and sg are normall 1.025-- the lfs was the crazy low salinity around 1.015 i think it was the first time i tested it
 
ok.. normally LFS will keep their fish in lower salinity water than would be found in a reef tank, and generally the fish and the coral systems in the store are not inter tied.. so it is not unexpected to hear the fish was in lower SG water.

One of the main reasons that the acclimation should be a gradual thing over the course of an hour or so is to minimize the osmotic stress of that sg differential.. I suggest continuing as normal with the acclimation.. as you add tank water you are adding oxygen rich water, and at the same time reducing the concentration of ammonia in the bag (provided you are taking out old water replacing with your new.. still even if not its diluting)

don't stress.. continue as normal.. you would be tired and listless after 5 hours in a foot locker I bet.

I imagine if you are acclimating as normal by now it is almost completely water from your tank at this point??

how is the fish?
 
fish is starting to move alot more hes tried to eat a piece of detrius of some kind that fell into his bag and no more laying on his side so that good i guess

salinitly still a little low in the bag its around 1.020

i know that going from 1.025 to 1.025 water is the best but whats the biggest difference that would NOT cause any stress? once i get him to 1.023 can i drop him in my 1.025 water?>
or should i just wait till its both 1.025
 
I would'nt worry too much about actually testing the sg of the water and stressing that.. its been an hour and 40 mins since you posted first, I think if you dumped 2/3 of the water out of the bag, replaced it with equal amounts of tank water.. wait 10 mins.. then repeat.. wait 10 mins and then drain the bag completely and add him to the tank he should be ok.

good to see he is getting more active, a big reason that the acclimation is over an hour or so period is to offset the stress of actually being in the bag with the need to gradually adjust him to the new sg.. in nature they do experience slight sg shifts.. at this point however it is high time he gets out of the bag.
 
Fish have a much harder time going to a higher SG than they do going to a lower one. That big a change probably would have been better to do over a couple days in a quarantine tank, but it sounds like you're most of the way there already, so hopefully he does OK. The good news is, he's probably parasite free after being kept in a SG that low.
 
well its been like 4 hours and ive raised the sg from 1.015 to about 1.022

i understand that fish dont require a sg as high as inverts and corals do but isnt 1.015 a little bit low for any salt water life? i though that below 1.020 was getting the the range where things would not do to well
 
hyposalinity treatment for treatment of ich is between 1.09 and 1.1 specific gravity.. and for a period of 6 to 8 weeks, fish adjust and are able to tolerate lower sg's with no problem, this is partially why a lfs bought fish will often have lower sg water.. that and it also slows down their metabolic rate, allowing them to get by with less food, be less stressed, and theoretically more able to withstand disease (IMO this is more a recipe for a ticking time bomb to be dropped on the hapless fish purchaser).

For the most part salinity adjustments should be slow and gradual.. even if i were to do a hyposalinity treatment I would allot a couple of days to adust to the downward swing, and at the end of it about a week to reacclimate to a 1.026.

Acclimating a new fish is a different story though.. especially if there is no quarantine tank.. that is a balancing act between slowly pacing the time to adjust to the salinity variationa (as well as ph, temp, ect) with the necessity of eradicating the stress of merely being in a shipping bag.

And for the record I do agree with islandcrow, if a quarantine tank was at hand.. then diluting that water and slowly raising the sg over a day or three to the sg would be ideal (quarantines IMO should be standard practice).. however this does not seem to be what the case is for you. the acclimation period is to balance the stresses of adjusting to the new water parameters with minimizing the stress of sitting in a tiny bag of water polluted with the fishes own waste.
 
We have adjusted salinity in a tank from normal to hypo (1.009 from 1.026) in around 4 hours without any problems. Going backup I take an extra 2 hours but I have been told by the guys at wetwebmedia that the 4 hours is ok.
 
well hes been in tank for about 22 hours now- i went from 1.015 to 1.025 in about 4 hours and he was fine -- he ate tonight when i feed and was out swimming around at lunch when my wife checked on him so i guess hes ok

thanks for the help guys
matt
 
Awesome! I was following this to see what the outcome was. Glad to hear everything turned out ok. Hopefully it will stay that way. :)
 
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