Input sought - acclimation method

[Jacob D]

I have a QT.
1. New fish goes into 6g bucket with minimal water
2. Drip acclimate until bucket is full
3. Check salinity, if not within a couple of points of DT, dump some water and continue dripping, otherwise...
4. Plastic colander to scoop out fish and put them in the QT
5. Top off QT with water from my DT

Same procedure when fish is coming out of QT. I don't think I've ever lost a fish due to acclimation procedure, but who knows. I can't think of a good reason to introduce transport water into my QT, and of course never any QT water into my DT.


(separate discussion, I realize)...
I'm often wonder about my step #4. In theory I could reintroduce *something* from my DT to the QT... but then the treatment process starts so it would have to survive that and of course in theory my DT is clean since I quarantine everything... in theory

 

[JHemdal]

Jacob D,

I like you method because it is one of the few drip acclimation rates I've heard of that seems to have the appropriate amount of water being added.

Do you provide aeration and heat to the acclimation container?

I would be worried about long shipments, (36+ hours) where the fish arrive in low pH / high ammonia water. If you just drip acclimate those fish, the CO2 is driven off, causing the pH to rise, making the ammonia more toxic to the fish - and this happens faster than the ammonia is being diluted.

The standard method for that situation is to move the fish directly from the shipping bags into water that has exactly the same pH, temperature and salinity, and then drip acclimate from there.

Jay

 

[Jacob D]

Jay:

The places I typically order fish from ship in the afternoon/evening and I receive them early the next day, almost always less than 18 hours. I have never purchased, say directly from a diver, where the shipping time may be a little longer so I don't have experience in that situation but if I ever do I may be inclined to change my method slightly.

I don't buy many fish in winter, but when I have I used a heater set to 70 just to make sure the water doesn't lose heat. The water in the QT is at the correct temp, and in the summer the room temp is the water temp (the room is somewhat climate controlled).

I don't aerate the water in the bucket. The water in the QT should be adequately aerated due to HOB skimmer and biowheel. I buy my fish small so a 6g bucket works out fine. I have lost a few fish over the years but I don't think it was due to the way I acclimate.

If I ever received a fish that didn't look good I would probably float and dump (into QT). I don't like to mix water but in that case I would (and have).

 

[zemuron114]

if you're using a QT tank, it doesn't really matter if the shipping water gets in there or not.

 

[Recty]

I've always drip acclimated my fish in a 5g bucket. One thing I do that I don't see anyone else saying is I drop about half a tablespoon of Seachem Prime into the bucket with the fish and the shipping water. Then I start my drip from my QT down into the bucket. I only put enough shipping water in the bucket to keep the fish covered adequately, so normally just 3-5" of water, then I wait until the entire bucket is full from dripping before I place the fish in the tank

I don't really drip acclimate, I flow acclimate. It's a trickle of water coming out of the tubing, not a drip, because I don't want it to take more than 15-20 minutes to acclimate.

Before this I've already floated the bag in the QT for 10-15 minutes.

 

[n8ureman]

Thank you jay for starting this thread. I have been wanting info on this subject and was about to post a thread about the same subject!:bigeyes:up til now I have been a drip for 30 minutes then add to tank kinda guy but this has been hit of miss and I am going to start QTing evrything.That being said, in my research on the subject I came across this article.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/1/aafeature2/view?searchterm=None
in it the author has a few interesting things to say about the subject of acclimation. Such as the exposure to air (during transfer) can greatly increase mortality.Also (the most intresting thing mentioned) in this article is that most fish can tolerate being placed directly into a hyposaline enviornment. Have you heard of this?I plan to get some butterflies this weekend and was thinking of using the techniques outlined in this article.I will keep you posted as to the outcome if intrested.

 

[candeewolf]

the waste problem seems to only be an issue if it affects the overall ammonia and chemical makeup of the tank in a significant way to affect the other organisms. In my case and many others with 100+ gal tanks, the addition of a very small amount of water with waste in it is never going to affect the tank in a major way...especially if you have some kind of skimmer/filter. So it seems to me that if you have a somewhat large tank, and you aren't adding in a ton of fish at once....its absolutely fine to just let them slip out of the bag and mix the waters, as long as theres no copper of course...