Did I botch this acclimation?

[falter]

We have been running our tank for about six weeks, parameters seem stable. So about a week or so ago I set up a 15 gallon Fluval Flex to act as a quarantine tank, made sure salinity and ammonia, nitrites and nitrates were ok, and today I picked up a couple of fish after talking over options with my aquarist at the LFS.

We went with a really small black and white clownfish, and also a filefish. My research suggested these would get along okay with our other clown in the DT. I am looking at possibly asding another fish down the road, for a max of four.

Anyway, we brought the new fish home, which was about a 1+ hr drive. I put the fish bags in the quarantine tank for 45 minutes to match temperature (77.8F) before opening. I then scooped a little bit of water, a few teaspoons full, at a time into the bags every 10 minutes or so for the next hour. After that, I scooped both fish and put them in the tank.

The filefish seems to be unbothered. However the clown immediately went to the bottom of the tank and began swimming vigorously there, on his side, flipping back and forth. I was initially worried about osmotic shock, but I chexked the store water vs my own and the store water salinity was like 1PPT over mine.

I'm hoping there isn't something I missed.. I did see him swimming around other parts of the tank for a bit, but he has settled back down to the bottom and is just kind of swimming in place, every now and again with bursts of speed.

I have a mild powerhead up at the top of the tank agitating the surface, and I havw the filter heads also pointed up for that purpose.

This is a video of what he's currently doing. Should I be worried?

 

[Reef Jedi]

We have been running our tank for about six weeks, parameters seem stable. So about a week or so ago I set up a 15 gallon Fluval Flex to act as a quarantine tank, made sure salinity and ammonia, nitrites and nitrates were ok, and today I picked up a couple of fish after talking over options with my aquarist at the LFS.

We went with a really small black and white clownfish, and also a filefish. My research suggested these would get along okay with our other clown in the DT. I am looking at possibly asding another fish down the road, for a max of four.

Anyway, we brought the new fish home, which was about a 1+ hr drive. I put the fish bags in the quarantine tank for 45 minutes to match temperature (77.8F) before opening. I then scooped a little bit of water, a few teaspoons full, at a time into the bags every 10 minutes or so for the next hour. After that, I scooped both fish and put them in the tank.

The filefish seems to be unbothered. However the clown immediately went to the bottom of the tank and began swimming vigorously there, on his side, flipping back and forth. I was initially worried about osmotic shock, but I chexked the store water vs my own and the store water salinity was like 1PPT over mine.

I'm hoping there isn't something I missed.. I did see him swimming around other parts of the tank for a bit, but he has settled back down to the bottom and is just kind of swimming in place, every now and again with bursts of speed.

I have a mild powerhead up at the top of the tank agitating the surface, and I havw the filter heads also pointed up for that purpose.

This is a video of what he's doing. Should I be worried?

Video does not go to a clown. Please re upload and I can try to help better. Pictures also may help.

 

[falter]

Video does not go to a clown.

Yes sorry, for some reason my phone insisted on pasting some random video. I edited and corrected the link, but in case, here it is again:



I'm keeping the tank lights off for now, so video is not great quality.

 

[christinna77]

Am I reading this right? You took 2 hours to acclimate the fish? What was the initial salinity of the bag water compared with your quarantine tank?

This is what I do:

1. Temp acclimate for 10 minutes.
2. Check the salinity of the bag water. As long as it mostly matches the quarantine tank, within 0.0015 SG, I drop the fish in.
3. If the salinity difference is more than 0.03 SG, the fish needs to be acclimated over 24 hours or longer. I match the quarantine tank salinity to the bag water first, drop the fish in, then slowly raise it over the next few days.

Either way, a 2h acclimation was probably way too stressful.

Edit: I just watched the video. I'd ensure there's plenty of aeration (I like to use airstones in quarantine tanks) and leave the fish be for the night.

 

[Reef Jedi]

Yes sorry, for some reason my phone insisted on pasting some random video. I edited and corrected the link, but in case, here it is again:



I'm keeping the tank lights off for now, so video is not great quality.

Looks like normal behavior for a clown. Maybe slow down the flow a little as it looks like he’s swimming hard. Hard to tell with lights off though.

 

[falter]

Am I reading this right? You took 2 hours to acclimate the fish? What was the initial salinity of the bag water compared with your quarantine tank?

This is what I do:

1. Temp acclimate for 10 minutes.
2. Check the salinity of the bag water. As long as it mostly matches the quarantine tank, within 0.0015 SG, I drop the fish in.
3. If the salinity difference is more than 0.03 SG, the fish needs to be acclimated over 24 hours or longer. I match the quarantine tank salinity to the bag water first, drop the fish in, then slowly raise it over the next few days.

Either way, a 2h acclimation was probably way too stressful.

Edit: I just watched the video. I'd ensure there's plenty of aeration (I like to use airstones in quarantine tanks) and leave the fish be for the night.

It was about an hour and a half all told. I did a lot of reading about this and settled on what seemed reasonable, but yeah, I think I need to revisit this process. I'm hoping he'll be okay here.

 

[falter]

I turned on the lights for a quick video - as soon as I did, he was swimming more clownfish like:



When I turned the lights back down, he went back to the bottom.

I'm finding it hard to judge if there's too much current in the tank. It doesn't *feel* very strong to me, but I don't know what it's like to be his size.

The powerhead I have is a new cheapie that the LFS gave me, it's not very powerful at all and I have it angled at the top. The Fluval has a filter output just like the biocube with two spouts you can adjust.. I've pointed them upwards to try and aerate things well. I can hear water splashing a little at the top. Perhaps I should temporarily add an air pump to be sure?

I've got questions about the longer acclimation process - if you do have to go to 24 hours.. how are you keeping them in their bag for that long without ammonia etc building up? I always thought you had a limited window to get them out of there. At least, that's what I remembered from my freshwater days many eons ago.

Thanks for all the help and advice. Deeply appreciated!

 

[christinna77]

The fish seems fine to me. As long as you've got plenty of surface agitation, airstone is most likely not needed.

As for a longer acclimation - no. That all happens in the quarantine tank. You would first match the tank's salinity to the bag water, then slowly raise it while the fish is in quarantine.