Drip Acclimatising Fish - Heater Necessary?

[CezzaXV]

So, all being well I'm getting fish tomorrow, and I was looking to drip acclimatise them in a bucket for an hour or two. Is it worth me getting a heater for the bucket (it wouldn't go to waste as I'd put it aside for a quarantine tank afterwards) or will it be okay as I'm dripping in water of the right temp anyway?

Also, some of the fish I'm getting are cories, bottom dwellers, and my bucket is quite a bit higher than it is wide. Is this going to stress them out? There's not a lot of surface area on the bottom.

 

[Tolak]

I don't use a heater drip acclimating, but do put a piece of board or styro between the bucket & concrete floor. I also run some air in the bucket, along with adding a drop or two of something to deal with ammonia if they've had a longer journey.

 

[TetraUk]

Hi,

Some others who use this method should be along soon, but I personally tend not use the drip method for the same reason you have mentioned.

It is not easy to set up a heater in a bucket/tub with the small amount of water that will come with the fish and without, the water temperature in the bucket will slowly adjust to the room temperature getting colder and will then differ from the tank temperature.

A friend uses this method every time, however his fish house is fully heated so everything inside the fish house is at the same temperature and it's not an issues.

Sorry guess I haven't really helped or answered your question


Best regards,

TetraUK

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I use the drip method. I put a shot of "Stress Coat" into the bucket when I add the fish in their water after getting the temp matched by floating the bags for 15-30 minutes. Then I set up the drip. The drip is bringing in water that is the correct temp the entire time. Unless your room is much colder than the water there shouldn't be much difference in the temps. I usually sit my bucket on top of a large cooler, just because it keeps it off the floor and it is a thermally insulated thing as well. My fish have never had a problem with this. I usually drip them for an hour, sometimes two. It depends on the sensitivity of the fish. The more sensitive the fish, the longer I drip them to help them get used to any changes in pH, hardness, nitrates, etc.


In lieu of "Stress Coat", Prime will also work the same way to deal with ammonia that the fish produce during that time.

 

[CezzaXV]

I was considering running my room heater during the process, just to try and keep the water a bit closer to the tank temperature if using the water heater wasn't a good idea. Obviously the water dripping in will be at temperature too.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Until a recent disaster, I never even considered temperature issues between drip acclimitsing and then adding fish to the tank, including some monster acclimitisation periods for infamously sensitive Redline Torpedo Barbs. However, a couple of months ago, I purchased some Microsynodontis polli over the internet and I experienced my worst fish tradegy to date. Everyone arrived well in excellent packaging include a heat pad wrapped in paper and I set about drip acclimitising them slowly over a period of seven hours. Up until the point of being netted to add to the tank, everyone was fine, but within minutes of tank introduction I witnessed all but one of them die

Although I did not test the water they arrived in myself, the seller had informed me that their water had the same hardness of gH 14, but the pH was 7.8 rather than ~8.1 (hence the long acclimitisation). To this day I'm still mystified as to what happened, but my biggest suspect is that the acclimatisation water had dropped significantly below the tank's 24C temperature and upon introduction the heat stressed the fish too much. The survivor is still doing great, very plump belly, I just wish I could get it some new conspecific "friends" but these fish are not exactly easy to source.

 

[CezzaXV]

Oh no! Hopefully since my fish are coming from a local LFS there won't be a massive difference in perameters.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I'm sorry for your loss. But a pH difference of 7.8 to 8.1 isn't really big. I'm not sure that 7 hours was necessary, unfortunately. Two hours would have been more than sufficient. Even for salt water fish and invertebrates, two hours is about the max that you need.