Acclimitisation Methods

[dayzofspeed]

which method of acclimitising do members use, i am doing this by just floating the bag (used to do 15 to 20 mins, now i'm doing 1 hr), problem is i know i should be exchanging the water with water from my tank slowly but my lfs ties the bag so tightly i have to rip it to open so i'm looking into finding a different method...... any suggestions please
btw i dont have a quarantine tank so i also need to prevent the bag water getting into my tank

 

[Bala Sharker]

cut the bag at the knot and not just rip it open. fold down the edges so it will float at the surface and then you can add the water from the tank to the bag and get the fish out of the bag with out any bag water getting into the tank

 

[KittyKat]

I float for a few hours, adding little bits of water to the bag every so often. For particularly delicate fish, I pop them into a bucket with a heater, then drip water from the tank into the bucket by means of an airline.

 

[ian]

I also rip the bag (i'm no good with knots), i then add the water with a syringe every 10 mins for a couple of hours.

 

[james_fish]

Im also a bag ripper. About 10 minute temperature matching and a further 20 minutes of gradual water introduction.

Although, I must say. I really should acclimitise better. But i've never had any trouble with fish related to acclimatising.

James.

 

[creg]

i put the bag in the water for about 10mins then dump them in and had no problems

 

[m00ms]

i put back tied from lfs into tank,switch light off, switch kettle on,make cuppa t, get pack of bicys out,drink me cuppa t whilst dunking biscuits,every couple of swigs of t and dunk of biscuits i add some tank water to bag.

i keep going like that until the t and biscuits have gone,then i release fish into there new home,give them half to an hour to relaxe then switch light back on!!!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

cut the bag at the knot and not just rip it open. fold down the edges so it will float at the surface and then you can add the water from the tank to the bag and get the fish out of the bag with out any bag water getting into the tank

I use this method too as it helps stop potential fish diseases/parasites from the petshops water getting into the tanks water .
I usually acclimatise fish for minimum of 30mins, but it depends on how far they have travelled (the longer they've travelled the longer i acclimatise them for). Turning off the tank lights while they are floating in their bags also helps prevent the bags getting hot while also helping lower the fishes stress levels (i usually keep the tank lights off for a hour or 2 after the fish have been released into the tank while giving the other fish a feed to distract them from the new arrivals while they settle into the tank). Small but regular additions of new tank water are much better than big but less regular flushes of new tank water into the bag.

With acclimatisation you want to do it long enough for the fish to become accustomed to the new water & its temp etc, but you also don't want to do it too long as being kept in a small stuffy confusing bag can be a very stressful experience in itself for fish. If you know the PH & temp of the tank the fish came from in the LFS in comparison to your own tanks PH & temp, this can also be quite helpful in figuring out how long you should roughly acclimatise the fish for etc.

 

[karin]

If I have to destroy the bag to get it open, I dump water and fish in an old yogurt container (big one) and slowly add water from the tank several times every 10 minutes for 40-60 minutes and then I dump everything into the net, and put fish in my tank. Been successful for me.

 

[PRW1988]

Depends on the fish and the tank really... All my saltwater fish/inverts. I use drip aclimation for about an hour. For my freshwater tanks, any hardy species of fish I usually just float for 20 minutes and release, any sensitive species I drip, and anything in between I float, dump half the water, add the same amount of my tank water back, and float again (both floats 20mins).

I won't lie, I'm not perfect... I've just thrown some fish in with no aclimation. We've all done it... don't lie

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

My preferred method is adding the fish bag water and fish into my dedicated 3g fish bucket, that has been set up on a stable tilt, setting up a steady drip feed (~4 or 5 per second) with some 6mm(?) hosing and a screw tap, letting the bucket slowly fill up over the space of 90 minutes or so. Fish are then netted into the tank.

However, having said that, most of my recent additions have been floated on the tank water and then had ~50ml+ of water syringed into the bag every 15 minutes or so, over the space on an hour. I then rip the bag open and gently pour the fish and water into the tank (not best practice I now believe, adding "foreign" water, but I've found many fish seem less stressed by this than by netting them out of the bag water).

The quickest acclimitisation I've done to date was easily my new ~10cm Leopard Bushfish, brought home from a bare tank (where he "sulked" by the tank filter pipe) last Monday... He chomped down a load of Tetra Prima while in the bag I was adding water to and was desperate to explore the 5-footer and meet his trio of smaller conspecifics who were circling the bag. I reckon I released him into the tank within 30 minutes and he went off exploring with an entourage of little bushfish following him round the 5-footer!

 

[Skins]

cut the bag at the knot and not just rip it open. fold down the edges so it will float at the surface and then you can add the water from the tank to the bag and get the fish out of the bag with out any bag water getting into the tank

I use this method too as it helps stop potential fish diseases/parasites from the petshops water getting into the tanks water .
I usually acclimatise fish for minimum of 30mins, but it depends on how far they have travelled (the longer they've travelled the longer i acclimatise them for). Turning off the tank lights while they are floating in their bags also helps prevent the bags getting hot while also helping lower the fishes stress levels (i usually keep the tank lights off for a hour or 2 after the fish have been released into the tank while giving the other fish a feed to distract them from the new arrivals while they settle into the tank). Small but regular additions of new tank water are much better than big but less regular flushes of new tank water into the bag.

With acclimatisation you want to do it long enough for the fish to become accustomed to the new water & its temp etc, but you also don't want to do it too long as being kept in a small stuffy confusing bag can be a very stressful experience in itself for fish. If you know the PH & temp of the tank the fish came from in the LFS in comparison to your own tanks PH & temp, this can also be quite helpful in figuring out how long you should roughly acclimatise the fish for etc.

+1

 

[raptorrex]

put a hole in the bottom of the bag, open the knot. then place the bag in the tank, when its sunk, remove the bag. remembering to make sure no fish are still in there.

 

[JoshuaA]

Usually get container, for example a bucket empty the fish + bag into said bucket leave for a few minutes for the fish to calm down. using an airline I drip some water from my main tank into the bucket every so often. I do this every few minutes into I have eventually put about 5 x as tank water into the bucket. Then fish it out with a net and place into the main tank.

I do this as I try and minimise as much chance of infection from LFS water or parasites as much as possible.

 

[raptorrex]

Usually get container, for example a bucket empty the fish + bag into said bucket leave for a few minutes for the fish to calm down. using an airline I drip some water from my main tank into the bucket every so often. I do this every few minutes into I have eventually put about 5 x as tank water into the bucket. Then fish it out with a net and place into the main tank.

I do this as I try and minimise as much chance of infection from LFS water or parasites as much as possible.

not sure this helps with any, possible infection. surely you need a quarantine tank for that? seems like a good "acclimatisation" system though.