Best practice for proper acclimation?

[Mebbid]

I've been away from the hobby for too long, and have been looking into what accepted best practices for fish acclimation are now. Too much information is out there and it's all different.

BRS suggests adding 1/4 cup of water every 5 minutes for 40 minutes.
Biota suggests just float acclimating.
Saltwaterfish.com says to drip acclimate for 4-6 hours.
WWC says to add ammonia detoxifier, air stone, then drip acclimate for 30 minutes - 1 hour, remove half the water, than drip for another 30 minutes.
Liveaquaria says never use an airstone, and gives directions for either dripping or manually adding tank water, but never go over 2 hours.

In the past, the BRS recommendation is closest to what i've done. But what do you guys do?

 

[exnisstech]

I try to match the salinty the fish are bagged in but I run an observation tank so I can adjust that as needed. I then float to match temp and in they go. I've never heard anyone who is knowledgeable recommend drip acclimating shipped fish. Its not a problem ussually if fish are purchased locally and not bagged for a long time.
That said I try to only buy local and I won't buy from tanks running low salinty and typically I try to only buy fish from tanks that have coral and or inverts so I know its not super low salinty. I introduced velvet once when I unknowingly bought a fish that was being housed in 1.015 salinty. I've been known to carry a pocket salinty tester and check salinty in tanks if there aren't any coral or inverts but I see a fish I want.

 

[JumboShrimp]

@exnisstech pretty much beat me too it. Personally I think the first key is are we talking about an LFS fish bagged less than 120 minutes ago, or has it taken a 30 hour ride from an online source? Local-- ensure that your salinity matches and possibly bag-float for a short amount of time, and pop it in. Even for fish that are shipped overnight, however, I do basically the same thing. Some vendors (see, e.g., the Reef Beauties website) do 'not' want you to drip acclimate.

 

[sgdnycct]

I think some of what you are seeing are differences with recently bagged (ie local) v. shipped. I don’t recall the chemistry but shipped fish should not be drip acclimated. The O2 and new water spikes the ammonia. If you mail order then follow their instructions.

For local purchases it depends on experience. I drip acclimate for an hour with the fish in my sump to keep the temperature steady.

Others match temp alone which is probably fine if the SG is close.