Terrible Advice Tuesdays (T.A.Tues): The Easiest Fish Acclimation Method…Ever
Terrible Advice Tuesdays: If you bring a bag of water from your tank to the fish store, you don’t have to take the time to acclimate your new fish to your tank’s water.
The rest of the story: Fish need to be acclimated to any new water they are going into. If you had 2 tanks in your house and were moving a fish between the two tanks, you would need to acclimate the fish to the new tank.
Simply showing up with your own bag of tank water doesn’t change anything about the acclimation process.
For the hair splitters out there: You could argue that if the two tanks had matched water parameters (salinity, temp, pH, etc), then no acclimation is needed. While this is true, someone who is looking to cut corners by bringing their own tank water to the store very likely isn’t going to be taking the time to match tank parameters perfectly!
Browse the Store! Questions?
It would be nice to have advice that would offset/correct t.a.t’s.
Such as float/drip method(s).
Thank you for all you do, you are a blessing.
By putting a fish directly from your LFS tank into a bag of your own tank water, you have already completely skipped the acclimation process because it’s going from one source of water to another! What a ridiculous peice of terrible advice!
Thanks as always Mark, keep up the good work
Kind of a (no duh) moment. People who would give this bad advice are just not thinking things through…
This tip gets me thinking of a way to start the slow drip acclimation process on the drive home, then finish it/focus on temp when you get to your tank.
The slow drip method is not necessarly the best method to use. I have a flyer from Sustainable Aquatics saying to float for 15 minutes, then releasse fish into the water. Sustainable is far from a shady back room company, their reputation is legendary in the industry. If Sustainable doesnt think the drip is necessary for the fish they ship, is it really necessary for our tanks?
I’ve never heard of anyone doing this personally. It kind of defies logic. How are you going to match any parameter in a separate container that you are transferring the fish into? I’d much rather deal with the process at my house anyways.
It is off the specific topic, but when a fish is shipped, especially if it’s overnight or more than 1 day in the bag, it’s not a good idea to do a drip acclimation. The ammonia that will be in the bag from the shipping process will become more toxic if you drip due to the CO2 degassing and PH rise.
Is this more terrible advice in your terrible advice Tuesday? LOL
I’m glad you brought up this topic! This is something I’ve been wondering about for awhile. I work in the aquatic dpt. Of a retail store. When our salt water fish arive we float them for about 1/2 hr. Then release into the tanks. We rarly lose a fish. Somtimes after we release them their color is faded but within 2 days it comes back. I don’t understand why I don’t lose more fish. I aclimate my own fish and have my share of losses. But not at work. Several weeks ago we began offering 30 day guarentee on all marine life. I was so worried that this would be a nightmare but my bosses insisted that I offer it. Well so far only one fish has come back a clown goby who had lumps on its body. So why are these fish surviving and doing well with no aclumation. Yes we do lose fish but not usually within days of arrival so I could say not aclumating caused their deaths. I don’t get it!
I keep a 10 gallon quarantine tank next to my 120 gallon display tank. I angle the quarantine tank on to its edge to make sure that the water from the bag will still be deep enough. Then I drip acclimate until the tank is full. I switch my fresh water top off to saltwater to keep display tank topped off. I then add a heater and hang on filter to quarantine tank with a piece of PVC pipe and quarantine as usual.
That a lesson I learnt a long time ago, patience always pays of in the long run
This time I “almost spit tea all over my screen”
Ok I snapped a photo of the sustainable deal.
SA Recommended Acclimation Procedure
we find that our fish generally do better with a quick 15-minute “float and release” acclimation rather than a longer drip acclimation. The longer drip method tends to cause more stress than rapid changes in water quality that sometimes occur with a “float and release” procedure.
Drip acclimation can be helpful with fish that have had long transits or that have originated from wholesale/distrobution facilities, but for SA fish, it is typically not necessary. Our animals are shipped in waterr with salinity between 1.022 and 1.024 ppm. If you have any questions or concerns, please call or email us (***) ***-**** sales @sustainableaquatics.com
that is word for word what was on the flyer with a recent shipment of fish form SA. I know it violates “common wisdom” but then again, so did live rock, not running under gravel, and LED lightings. now days that is common. Maybe the drip acclimation isnt as necessary as we once thought?