Girlfriend "surprised me" with a fish

[mkballer]

My girlfriend decided it was a smart idea to surprise me with two clowns for my newly setup rimless tank. It was empty before she put them in- I was literally ready to put my first fish in there this weekend. I asked her what she did and she said she let the bags float for 20 minutes and then poured the water from the shipping bag directly into my tank to let the fish in. What's the issue with pourin the water from the bag into my tank?

Do I have to empty the water out and fill it back up with fresh saltwater now?

[vikubz]

I've done that by accident and never had a problem. If you made a habit of it you might be inviting pests or disease.

[jorda9095]

shouldnt be a major deal depending on how large your tank is and where you bought the fish from. it will just slightly mess up some of your parameters if they are different, which they most likely are. she didnt acclimate them properly using the float technique. most people recommend using a drip method. my ex-gf got me damsels so i would consider yourself lucky.

[Apotack]

Not much you can do now. Maybe a small water change once the fish have settled in. Go easy on the girlfriend.

[55350man]

My understanding always was that many LFS have excess copper, and some other additives, in their tanks to fend off diseases?....but it works because fish are only there for a short time? And we didn't want this is in our permanent tanks.....especially one with corals, as they are more sensitive to excess copper.

I don't know the numbers but I wouldnt think from just a bag of water or two you wold have to drain the system. Prob do extra water changes next few days or something to be on the safe side

[Saltydrip]

Awesome to see her interest in your tank. I would just do a water change and maybe carbon in case there is any copper in there.

[Lynxone]

The reason people don't normally just pour in the water is to avoid a sharp change in water parameters to the fish. It's probably not a huge deal and in fact, there's been a few arguments made that taking too long to drip acclimate can actually be worse. Floating the bag should've helped with a sharp temperature change and hopefully your tanks salinity was close to what the store had. Some fish stores run fairly low salinity to save money on salt

[SpartaReef]

I'm a rebel, I always add water from LFS, shippers and sometimes even get samples of sandbeds from friends etc...

[indyjaco]

Check for copper and run some carbon to remove meds.

More thank likely they run low amounts of copper to keep parasites at bay.

[JSimpson]

I think you'll probably be OK.

Could be worse. My wife, back when she was my girlfriend, decided to surprise me as well about 15 yrs. ago. Came home with a really nice Bi-Color Angel and another fish I can't remember anymore. She couldn't understand why I didn't want to add them to my Cichlid tank. :headwally:

[Goss]

LOL. Go easy on the girlfriend. Just tell her next time you would love to go to the store with her and pic stuff out together.

[Rollins4Miles]

I think you'll probably be OK.

Could be worse. My wife, back when she was my girlfriend, decided to surprise me as well about 15 yrs. ago. Came home with a really nice Bi-Color Angel and another fish I can't remember anymore. She couldn't understand why I didn't want to add them to my Cichlid tank. :headwally:

This is too funny!!!

[ca1ore]

Yeah, gift fish never have seemed to work out for me. Best to either gently discourage, or go and pick it out together. Later in life it becomes 'kids surprised me with a fish'. Works out no better.

[Gill_bucket]

Some stores do run a TON of copper. I think the idea of testing for it sounds like a good one. You should explain to her that some fish can carry disease and let her know about compatibility issues. That way you don't come home to a cute baby clown trigger in the future. LOL Just don't forget she's more important than the tank ;)

[Sn8kbyt]

It is awesome your GF is interested in your hobby and by her choice to buy you fish she knows what it means to you.

I think in the nicest way possible you need to like I did make her aware of how fragile these tanks are and even the smallest things could make the whole thing crash. I explained to mine before I started how expensive, time consuming, addicting, and fragile this endeavor would be and that it is something that needs to be managed by one person but can be shared by everyone in our new family.

My story getting here in short:

My gf looked at my empty 90g (freshwater tank) in my old house (we did not live together there) and asked what I wanted to do with it eventually. Marine tank of course I said I had FW fish tanks for the last 20+ years and always wanted to start one. Fast forward a year and I moved that empty tank to OUR new home half way across the country. It wasn't sitting here 2 weeks and she said you need make that what you always wanted and I did and it is a work in progress.

She is not as involved as I hoped she would but loves going to our LFS 2 hours away, spends time observing any nightly maintenance I do, has learned how to test the water, and is interested in what is being done to it and how it progresses. Her daughter has also taken an active interest and is the one that gets to name all new arrivals.

Sorry for the long winded reply....

I as well as everyone above that posted agree that your tank will be just fine.

Surprises will come in this hobby frequent enough from our glass boxes and they usually are not good ones! So it is important that your significant other "treats" you to something new with your input instead of "surprises" you and she understands why in the future is my point.

[Quik Z06]

Best bet is to contact the LFS and ask them what they added to the water in their salt tanks. Copper, medication or even some stores do hyposalinity to reduce ich from showing. So if the salinity was 1.015 in the LFS bag and 1.025 they might have a problem. Sadly her best intentions may end badly for the fish. I guess this is the best time to get her involved in how sensitive salt is compared to fresh!

[Fizz71]

You should be dancing that your GF bought you an APPROPRIATE fish for your system. :) Most "non-reefers" don't get that you just can't by any fish.

Anyway...my only concern at this point would be copper, but since you have nothing in the tank yet (and no inverts) I doubt a little bag with a little copper would hurt.

If you aren't running carbon you could always toss a bag of Chemi-Pure in a high flow area for a few months if you're really concerned.

[Tbred]

First off congrats on having a Girlfriend who cares about you hobbies! Second you should be fine. If the fish are not acting strange then you are in the clear. Just wait a little longer before adding coral or other livestock.

[HUNTER1]

The water in the bag is Just probably around one liter, shouldn't affect the parameters unless there's some bad chemicals in the bag.

[Dissy]

Well, at least she picked hardy fish. :D

[HumbleFish]

The main concern is whether or not a little copper got in your tank. Running some carbon and a poly filter should fix that. As far as parasites are concerned... if they were in the water then odds are they were also on your fish.

As others keep pointing out, it's awesome that your gf is interested in your hobby. My wife's mission in life is to keep me out of LFS, and come up with reasons why I shouldn't buy anything tank related. But if I suggest just getting rid of all the tanks, she's very much against that as well. Gotta love em :)

[Patroklos]

Having to run some carbon and observe for parasites = PITA.
Having a gf that not just tolerates but approves of your hobby = PARADISE!!!

[Joe0813]

My gf hasn't surprised me with fish yet... she just brings me to the lfs and says I'll buy you anything you want in here :D

[mr.maroonsalty]

Float and dump may in fact be a better way if, s.g. is matched in the holding tank first; spiking ammonia levels, and sudden ph changes the reason. I don't buy the "fragile" or "sensitive" descriptions but maybe that's over ten years reasoning. What they are are maintenance hogs if you want them to look nice; if you let them go providing little or nothing more than light, heat, water movement, and occasional top off almost all tanks will find an equilibrium that lets some animals live and grow, and others to fail.

I'd give my friend a big hug, thank them for the surprise, and create a concrete wish list for stocking the tank keeping my partner excited and informed about the tank. Establish a stocking order, and avoid, always avoid, let them learn to avoid impulse purchases.

[mcbaes72]

I'm a rebel, I always add water from LFS, shippers and sometimes even get samples of sandbeds from friends etc...

LOL! Nearly spit out my drink. Cool if serious, but still found it funny.

[mcbaes72]

I like her enthusiasm. I surprised my wife with a baby/juvenile Singapore Angel last weekend, haven't had one of those in about a year when the other went to fishy heaven. It's her favorite.

One post mentioned about copper. If shipper had that running in their tanks, I wouldn't worry too much since it's a very small amount of water. To be safe, don't put any inverts in there right away.

[DopeCantWin]

I'm a rebel, I always add water from LFS, shippers and sometimes even get samples of sandbeds from friends etc...

I also have sex without a condom, sit on public toilet seats and eat other's left overs.

I kid, I kid.

[3dpilot]

^^lol. My mother in law surprised me with a fish last year, I was so glad she added the tang in the QT tank!!! She did the same, float and release!! that's one tough hippo:)

[Decadence]

I feel bad for some of you guys. My girlfriend knows how to drip acclimate, dip corals, test water with salifert kits, make saltwater, fill RODI jugs, etc... She is learning about all of the parameters and what different readings mean. She buys corals and fish for herself when we go to the stores and rarely has to ask about compatibility. She even saved the tank once after a kalk mishap; she called me at work and told me that the water was cloudy and everything was covered in white dust. I guided her through all of the steps to get it under control.

Girlfriends who buy fish and corals get bigger rings. :love2:

[Nina51]

my son lives 45 minutes away. when he's here, he's always interested in my tanks, likes to see what new things i've done. for my birthday and other holidays, he and his wife always get me a gift certificate to the lfs. neither of them knows a thing about keeping a tank so i've always been thankful they didn't "surpriiiiiise" me with anything!

[ninja66999]

id never do it here in topeka... but youd have to see some of the crap floating around and misc algae lol! youll prolly be fine id imagine!

[dunc101]

I wouldn't worry a one bit. Let's do some simple math here.
Let's assume the LFS was running .5 ppm copper which is the "maximum" dose you should use when using copper with cupramine. More than likely if they were running copper it was more like .3 MAX as most just run it at a theraputic level, if any; but let's just use .5 ppm for this example. Let's say the bag had 1/2 gallon of water in it and your tank is a 30 gallon tank (I assume you have at least a 30 gallon tank since you didn't complain that 2 clowns are too big for your tank).
Overall, that would make the tanks copper concentration .008333 ppm (remember the recommended copper range to do anything is around .3 ppm for ich and probably more like .1 to start killing inverts) or 0.000 008 333 ppb assuming there was 0 ppm in the tank itself (I think my math is correct, haha). Natural saltwater is around 2 ppb or .000 000 002. I could be wrong, but that is a very very low concentration overall in the tank.
Since this is a new setup, I highly doubt any problems will arise. Like others stated, run some carbon and you'll be fine. If you are really concerned, you can get some Cuprisorb which will change colors if it pulls out some copper.

All in all, I'd say thanks to your g/f and praise her up and down. Just gently tell her next time to discard the water before placing in your tank b/c you never know what's in the fish stores water =). Maybe next time she'll bring you some nice corals!

[asudavew]

Float and dump may in fact be a better way if, s.g. is matched in the holding tank first; spiking ammonia levels, and sudden ph changes the reason.


I agree.