Salinity Difference

[rabidric]

If there is a salinity level difference between shop water and home water would it affect any fish being transferred. E.g. if the shop is running at the bottom end of the range and I'm running at the top would this upset the fish in anyway? if it would how would you know. I'm asking because we introduced a tiny clown as the first fish into our nano tank which has been running for a while with feeder shrimp (for the puffer - who's in another tank), about 10kg live rock and a couple of inches of live sand and he seems to be swimming strangely, nothing you can put your finger on, just a bit strangely.
I haven't checked ammonia but nitrite and nitrate are both very good. Using an Interpet check kit which doesn't give figures but the colours of both are at the very good level. The ammonia kit isn't suitable for marine so will get another one at the weekend.

 

[idlefingers]

If you acclimatise over a decent period of time, slowly adding the fresh water from your tank to the shop water, it'll slowly change the SG and shouldn't be too much of an issue for the fish. With clowns being pretty hardy, even if yopu didn't acclimatise for long, I imagine it wouldn't be a big issue. I think shock from PH change is a bigger issue than SG changes (not sure though).

Could you expand a little on what you mean by swimming strangely? Clowns have a very clumsy, tiring looking way of swimming anyway IME.

 

[rabidric]

We did acclimatise over a decent period, we use a Fintro from Maidenhead, so not sure that we could have done anymore. The swimming is slightly tilted and not quite as sprightly as he was yesterday, he always seems to be up against the glass rather than in the middle of the tank which he was before.
We're getting an ammonia test kit this afternoon as this seems to be the only option left, but not sure how this can be too bad if nitrite and nitrate are ok and have been for a week.
Mind you this is our first adventurs into the salty stuff and it seems a bit different to fresh.

 

[idlefingers]

Sounds like it's just settling in then.

I just did a search to find out what those fintro things are. On the blurb I read about it, it says it takes about 30-40mins for it to sink which is a little on the short side for acclimatising marine life. I try to do fish for at least 1hr if they're acting very stressed (and more if they're not) and inverts for at least 2 hours as they tend to be more sensitive to sudden changes.

In my opinion, the best way to acclimatise fish/inverts for marine by far is the drip meathod which involves putting the livestock into a bucket outside the tank with the water from the bag in then slowly dripping water into the bucket by syphoning out of the tank with an airline and a valve to adjust the drip speed. Once the water in the bucket is doubled, tip out half and continue dripping more water in. Repeat a couple of times. Once it's done, net the fish and transfer it to the tank. This way you can decide exactly how long acclimatisation takes, it's less disruptive in the main tank (no need to turn lights off until you move the fish in) and the fish isn't in a clear bag in the tank where other fish can stress it.

 

[rabidric]

Thanks for the advice. We've used the fintro for a while and I doubt it ever takes more than 20 minutes in either fresh or this first time in marine. We'll definitely do it the long way from now on. pipe and valve will be purchased as soon as so we can do it right next time. We live and learn.

Thanks again

 

[Lynden]

How many more times will I have to come here and type "fish do not require long acclimation times"?

The drip method, in my opinion, is useful for echinoderms, et cetera but causes more harm than good for fish. Fishes are thought able to change their internal pH very quickly, so pH shock is very likely a myth. I would imagine it is a similar situation for salinity.

 

[Musho3210]

i believe lynden about pH shock, but not about how it would be the same for salinity, dunno how to explain it, dont ahve any facts or experiance, but although pH constantly changes in the wild reef, SG doesnt (well it does but in a period of a VERY long time) if it is in the actual ocean, not in a tide pool or whatever. That aside ive learned that corals dont need acclimation since when they close they store water, when they go in your tank they slowly open and naturally acclimate themselves. But this seems to only be true in tide pool corals so ive read (i didnt acclimate my torch coral and its fine)

anyway, did you cycle? Did you cure the rock? From what i can desipher from your post it seems like you plopped it all in at once.

 

[rabidric]

Well it seems to have sorted itself out. The little chap is swimming about more happily so I guess he's ok. Being new to the marine side of things I'm not familiar with some of the terminology you guys throw about but I'll pick it up. We followed the isntructions from the lfs and ran the tank with live sand for a while then added cured live rock for a while, we added the feeder shrimp to break things in gently. Not knowing much about live rock would it have lost it's curing in the half hour it took to get it into the tank? Is the description of cured live rock misleading in shops or can we believe them. The shop is a big chain and the brand (if that's the right word) of rock was a known one.
Anyway we are going to give it quite a while before adding any more fish, and before then we'll research the issue of changes in salinity as there doesn't seem to be any agreement.

Thanks

 

[Musho3210]

cured rock means there shouldnt be any die off, but when a store says its cured, i really highly doubt it is, it is always important that you cure the live rock yourself, the good thing about curing is that when you start the tank, you can cure it in your tank full of saltwater and all equipment running. Dont get fish until it is cured.