***Acclimation: Any NEW FISH or INVERT: NEW: CHECK THIS OUT

[Sk8r]

I always use SG. Easier. And while fish in the wild meet change all the time, they can vote with their fins, and move deeper if they're uncomfortable. The incoming fish is already traumatized, has now been through what any of us would call a really hard day, and is about ready for as easy a ride into calm comforting water as he can get.

Salinity is quite easy to match with a refractometer, and new salt water comes in at 1.024 SG, which is exactly where many fish stores keep it. If you have to push that line, that's one thing, but since the window between max salinity (1.026) and salt mix salinity (1.024) it's not that big a deal, in my own estimation. Some fish stores keep their fish stock at 1.021, but not under. So just to minimize ALL stress, why not set the qt at that, and just change it by letting natural evaporation handle the rise? The specimens, as I observe it, go through enough in shipping and handling, and if a close match on salinity is so easy to arrange, I'd rather recommend that.

Re salt-instruments: I do recommend a refractometer as a very basic tool for a reef that can ease that transition: what neither of us has mentioned is what happens when somebody misreads or doesn't clean a swing-arm hydrometer, and has the balance much further off than he thinks. So while I own one, just in case, I never ever trust the darned thing, and I'm old enough to remember when those and the floaters were all a hobbyist could get.
In the qt, a floating measure is not that bad: if it breaks, it's a barebottom tank anyway; they're pretty accurate, and at least they don't give you one reading one minute and something way off the next. They clean easily, being all-glass, and you can go from hospital to quarantine use with them without a fuss.

[Sk8r]

JByer, the very first post, section A: complete specs for a qt tank. I just use plain carbon wrapped in floss---do it myself: it's cheaper. I've even been known to use new synthetic pillow stuffing (buy in hobby store by the bag) for floss. For the rest, you've got it nailed. You want a heater, light not so much; but you need to be able to see your fish well, to be sure he's staying healthy. You need ammonia/nitrate test strips, and use them one or two times daily, to be sure you're ok. Keep the thumps and bumps down for the first several days, let the fish calm down, and spend a little time getting him used to your presence, and the idea of food. But don't overfeed! A fish can go better 2 weeks without food than 1 hour in oxygen-short water!

[mdlewis11]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

Sealed bag: the fish respires co2 into the water. This drops the ph. The fish poos. But the low ph keeps the pollution in the form of harmless ammonium.

Open bag: co2, trapped in the water and held there by the pressure, gasses off quickly and leaves the water. PH then rises fast, causing non-toxic ammonium to become toxic ammonia.

Thank you Sk8r, that makes sense now.

[JByer323]

Again, thank you Sk8r.

[john_blaze]

Ok sounds good!

Again, thanks for all the help you give us newbs!!

[Vandal996]

Im sold but what about starfish transition?

[Sk8r]

If you mean acclimating starfish, beneficial nudibranchs, urchins, chitons, cowries and abalones, which are constant feeders, count them as an invert. If it arrives with identical salinity, good: give it a rinse in salt water to clear away or at least thin out any bag water clinging to it and it's good to go. If not, you can take them over in a matter of an hour or so. Set up your qt tank as the waystation: you don't have to fill it all the way, and in the case of some of these under-rock creatures that have incredibly strong attachment to rock or glass, I'd do this in a container other than glass, like a plastic liner in a bowl, because you can hurt them trying to get them unstuck: a surface that will bend is much easier, though I've seen some stuck so well that the answer is to drop the whole bowl into the tank and retrieve it later. Gradually bring the salinity to match your tank, and it's good to go, after a little while, say 30 minutes, at the matching salinity. This gives the last adjustment time to work all the way through its tissues before you change its environment yet again and drop it into a place where fish may be curious about it. Just a hint on inverts: if you have fish like wrasses or dottybacks, which tend to bedevil anything new, tank-twilight is a good time to go ahead and put a new critter in, which lets it get rightside up and wander off to a place of safety without hassle. This is particularly true with the shellfish, which generally prefer the dark: you only see some of these out and about by flashlight examination of your tank.
[One caution on starfish in general, just as a type: most classic-shaped stars are not at all reef friendly, and those that are reef-friendly (the linckias) should not be in a tank younger than a year or so, or owned by anybody who has not had a couple of years' experience, because their feeding habits are not well understood and they are quite fragile. They seem to eat film on rocks, and are otherwise expert-only.]

[Vandal996]

Thanks for that info. I'm picking up a bunch of brittle stars tonight.

[Sk8r]

Vandal, you're good: do take only the dark ones: the green serpent stars have been known to bother fish.

The regular dark brittle stars are great cleaners, and I am here to tell you, they do reproduce in tanks! They like to live under rocks, and usually only come out for food that hits the bottom.

[Andre Taf]

Sk8r tank you for info.I just have a quastion about the salinity.I read that the salinity drop is not harmfull,so can I put the new arrived fish wich been in the bag for more than 30 hours to hypo?

[Sk8r]

You can drop salinity safely from equal salinity to hyposalinity over a 24 hour period. Start with identical salinity and start adjusting it by adding fresh water at a rate that will reach hypo in 24 hours. When the period of hypo is done, of course, just reverse the process until back to regular salinity.

[Andre Taf]

Tank you very much,it is very helpfull.ones you told me that medicating fish in hypo is dengarus.What do you tink about using PraziPro in Hypo?

[Sk8r]

Prazipro has a pretty good reputation. It seems to be pretty benign. I've done additional research on meds and hyposalinity, and some more recent sources (not all) do say that medication during hypo is safe if both are correctly administered. Suggest you look up "OST" or "osmotic shock therapy" and make your own decisions on that: there's quite a lot of writing on that topic. Hypo is not recommended for cartilaginous fishes (sharks and rays, etc) and seahorses should not go below 1.010. Particular attention should be paid to ammonia, because hypo can depress biological filtration.

Personally I do not like to tell new hobbyists to rely on biological filtration during quarantine, because of the difficulties of getting it correctly managed under all circumstances, and the likelihood that a new hobbyist will not own the appropriate test kits, will not always think of all the steps in managing such a filter, and is more likely to overfeed. A 'crashed' filter can send things in a bad direction very quickly, as in, hours, while one might be away at work. I think it much safer simply to change out the media to keep the tank very, very clean.

[Andre Taf]

I only use sponge filtr,but yes I get that problem.the no2 rises to more than 1.6.
last time I just simply moved my fish to an other bigger tank with same powerhead sponge filter.What is your advise?

[Sk8r]

I use only floss and carbon, and throw it out and install new whenever the floss looks stained.

[Korrine]

I don't think you've addressed dry shipped snails. How would you acclimate them? Instructions were to drip acclimate tank water onto them for a period of time in a container. However, most of mine died.

Thanks

[Sk8r]

I wish I could answer that. I've never had dry-shipped anything, and suspect the shipment either got too cold (62 degrees isn't good for most reef creatures) or too hot (above 85 starts problem territory). Water serves as a buffer for temperature. I think I'd have just put the snails in, figuring if they had too little water, it would get polluted fast just from their own exuded fluids being concentrated now in absorbable form and being sucked in by water-hungry snails. I'd welcome info from anybody who does dry-ship as to whether an initial rinse might help, but I still think my answer would be---get them in and get them clean water. Shelled creatures are subject to osmotic shock, because they can't 'sweat', but in this case---what's to adjust to? The poor things must be somewhat dehydrated, and what they're in after shipment and pressure changes can't be nice.

[Korrine]

There were some damp paper towels in the bag so they weren't dry/dry so to speak.

I can't remember where I ordered them from!

I remember tons of little snails, a few limpets and another thing I can't remember the name of. It looked like a slug except it had a hard back. I remember it was common for them to have algae growing off their back for disguise. The limpets and that thing were ok. Just a massive loss of snails.

[Korrine]

Just remembered. It was reefcleaners.org. I went to their website to make sure. They now have a new acclimation procedure too.

That thing I couldn't remember was a fuzzy chiton!

[CarolinaGuy]

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[y0ung0ne]

great thread learned more then i knew so thank you sk8r.

[Forgiven1973]

great thread sk8r! I learned alot from these posts.

I was wondering how many of you have had disease in your show tanks with fish or corals?

is it common and likely?

Ive bought a brain coral, lawnmower blenny and a couple other corals like xenia and mushrooms and only done a drip method without quarantining any of them to watch for disease. Im new to the hobby however and bought an established tank at a VERY low cost and came in knowing little.

[Sk8r]

You're luckily dealing with some seller who's running 'clean' tanks, which are not without effort on his part, but it is so easy to have an outbreak when you are running a sales operation, and sometimes taking back fish from somebody's tank; and your own best defense, even if this source has always sold you 'clean' specimens --- is to quarantine and dip. If you get lulled into a sense of security, and your fish quietly grow past the size you can POSSIBLY get a qt tank to contain (or in the case of corals, attached to rocks and hard to deal with)---and then you get some infested specimen that brings in a pest that goes through your tank like wildfire---it's sad. I'll tell you, I try to advise people what to do in such cases, but there aren't many good choices. If you start now qt'ing everybody while they're little and manageable and dipping your corals while they're little frags, you'll have a clean tank and never be in the position of having to pull every single specimen into qt, or break up a reef to try to eliminate red bug or some microscopic plague you can't even see without a magnifying glass.

[bamf25]

What size tank do you use for you qt?

[Sk8r]

For high-oxygen-requirement fish like tangs and angels, a larger tank than than for sedentary gobies, even if they are the same size fish. Sensibly, it's not going to be larger than your display tank, but I'd say reasonably it should be about 1/3 the size of the tank you propose this fish should live in. You should jump-screen it because it is small: many marine fish jump when startled.