Acclimation tips?

[Jim Cannon]

Okay, I have to unlearn whatever bad habits I formed about acclimating new livestock. I am asking for YOUR methods.

I get a bit confused about a few things. You buy something and they put it in a bag with water from their tank. I understand the reason to just put the bag into your tank so the temperature of the water in the bag is the same as the water in the tank. That I understand.

Where I get lost is the 'drip' thing. I have a bag floating in my tank to acclimate the water temp. I know I want to slowly make the water in the bag as close to the water in my tank. How do you guys do that? What I have been doing is to open the bag and float it, and add some small amounts of water from my tank to the bag. The water in the bag will never really equal my tank right?

Before I start adding water to the bag, should I remove as much of LFS water that is reasonable to keep the livestock alive? Or do I just keep addlng water from my tank until the bag won't hold anymore?

I have always been told to NEVER add the water from the LFS to my tank, which makes a lot of sense.

How do you 'drip'? Is there something that is sold at the LFS that I haven't seen?

Is just adding small amounts of tank water okay? Or is the drip the only really good way?

I assume it probably depends on the livestock eh?

Is there anything that you can just take out of the bag and dump it into the tank with only acclimating water temp?

I haven't seen much written about this subject, and I am sure some other newbies would be happy to learn.

Jim

[R_Hudson]

Ill tell you what i do and it seems to work. I let the bag acclimate for about 15 min or longer depending on the fish. then i remove about a half a cup of the stores water from the bag and add a cup of water out of my tank. i let it acclimate again for about 15min. and repeat this process about 3 or 4 times and then dump the bag and fish back in the tank and what little bit of store water is left hasnt had any effect on my tank at all. hope this helps

[All Delight]

I do what Hudson does, except my intervals are about 20 to 30 mins. And I take the fish out of the bag and let it go. I don't put the water back in my tank.

[clowninaround74]

thats the way to do it but i wouldnt put the stores water into your tank. No matter how small the amount, it the store has any diseases then your in trouble in my opinion. When adding the new fish it will be stressed and vunerable to diseases because of it, and if the water has diseases it could possibly find a host in your new fish. Just my .02 so i wouldnt add the stores water.

[vyger]

I always check the S.G. of the stores water before I start acclimating. If it's close to my tank , then I acclimate for an hour. If it's way off then I acclimate for a longer period. I also check the water in the bag after the acclimation to make sure it's close..To me that's the whole idea of acclimating ... reason being that after you acclimate for an hour , the water in the bag can be way different than your tank as far as S.G. and PH depending on where it was to begin with... And I also never add the store water to my tank...bad idea!!! Next time after you acclimate something check the water in the bag , you may be surprized at the results.

[Jim Cannon]

Great posts, thanks!

I think I'll do the remove a cup, add a cup method. That sounds really reasonable. And like you said, never never ever ever add store water to my tank. That was a lesson I learned many years ago.

Jim