Drip Acclimation vs keeping water at NSW params

[aeras1131]

Hello Everyone,

I have been pondering the age old question of "drip/slow" acclimation vs "plop and drop" in Saltwater Aquaria. As I turn the idea over, I feel that conundrum I run into is the fact that Reef Aquarists, LFS, and the hobby as a whole maintain unbalanced parameters for there aquariums. Personally, I keep Natural Sea Water parameters or as close to it. I target the parameters in Red Sea Salt: Blue Bucket. Overall, I feel that gradual acclimation for reef fish is beneficial, but it is not a requirement.
I have kept saltwater fish for approximately 5+ Years. During this period of time, I have gradually acclimated and plop and dropped my reef fish. I know *gasp, boo, hiss* On average, I have not lost my fish at a rate that exceeds death by natural causes. On the whole, I can count the SW fish on one hand which have died of unnatural causes. Freshwater fish otoh have very short life spans. I know SW fish are more expensive then FW, so why not. Let's baby them. But on the whole, I feel that most of the stress/lack of eating/and Stressful crap on the whole stems from unstable params and the treatment of the fish while moving them from site to site to site.
Imagine if you were plucked from NSW drip acclimated to unbalanced hobbyist saltwaterat the local LFS and then moved to a new radically different saltwater environment 3x sometimes in the Course of a month. Just because you are drip acclimated over the course of a few hours does not make it any less stressful. It just spreads the stress out in tiny bites.
I am not advocating that everyone does X or Y. I would like to open a channel for discussion. These fish have evolved to live in very large, stable bodies of water, seas and oceans. Because of this, they are not used to change overall.
Personally, do you all feel that drip acclimation causes a tangible increase in survival rate on fish and corals. Overall, I am highly skeptical. FYI, I kept unbalanced params as well, and I rarely had issues introducing fish into my aquarium. Typically the pain points I would run into were poor fish from the place of purchase, which were kept in stressful environments.

Sidenote: I am highly skeptical that LFS drip acclimate their fish overall.

 

[ChrisOFL]

I've never drip acclimated and in some scenarios drip acclimation can be deadly to the animals. If a fish comes from a tank where the salinity is much lower I will make a bowl of saltwater matching the salinity, remove fish from the bag (especially important if it was shipped) and then remove/add water over a period of time to bring the salinity up (the bigger the difference the longer I take). All my corals and inverts just get tossed in immediately, never been an issue for me with anything doing this.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree. If you plan to QT, you can set up the QT tank with salinity matching the incoming water so you need not acclimate for anything except temp. Then slowly adjust it, as needed, over ensuing days.

 

[ca1ore]

Sidenote: I am highly skeptical that LFS drip acclimate their fish overall.

LFS mostly don't have to drip acclimate because they run their systems at the same salinity as the wholesalers. Better Q might be whether the wholesalers drip ......

I fully agree that best practice is to adjust QT to incoming bag salinity.

 

[Jamie7907]

LFS mostly don't have to drip acclimate because they run their systems at the same salinity as the wholesalers. Better Q might be whether the wholesalers drip ......

This is not true. I’ve worked in LFS for years, salinity can and does vary. When an LFS gets fish many times they’ve been in a box for a day or more, the ph has crashed from co2 buildup to unsafe levels and ammonia buildup is high. Most hobbyist otoh take a fish from the store to home usually a trip lasting less than a few hours. I️ can say that we drip acclimate for 1/2 an hour. All fish come out into a tub in their water, prime and praziquantel @ 8x the normal dose. We don’t start the drip until all the fish are in the tub. And when the timer goes off they all go into qt for 3 weeks with copper or cp and enrofloxacin. Once done in qt they each go to the sales system they belong in and it’s just a drop and plop.

 

[ca1ore]

Perhaps the LFS you work at is distinctive; very few of the ones I have shopped at over the years did much of a drip acclimation, if any at all; and I did say ''mostly", a wonderfully nuanced English word.

 

[Salty1962]

I don't drip acclimate but I do take at least 1 hour of gradually adding my DT water with the shipping water until the frag is 100% in my water. I've found too many variances between my water chemistry and the shippers. My failure rate has been very low using this method over the years. JME

 

[Jamie7907]

Sorry, I️ was referring to the reason that most don’t being salinity. I️ agree most LFS don’t drip acclimate, however the salinity being the same isn’t why or at least it shouldn’t be to a knowledgeable lfs.

 

[aeras1131]

This is not true. I’ve worked in LFS for years, salinity can and does vary. When an LFS gets fish many times they’ve been in a box for a day or more, the ph has crashed from co2 buildup to unsafe levels and ammonia buildup is high. Most hobbyist otoh take a fish from the store to home usually a trip lasting less than a few hours. I️ can say that we drip acclimate for 1/2 an hour. All fish come out into a tub in their water, prime and praziquantel @ 8x the normal dose. We don’t start the drip until all the fish are in the tub. And when the timer goes off they all go into qt for 3 weeks with copper or cp and enrofloxacin. Once done in qt they each go to the sales system they belong in and it’s just a drop and plop.

Do you feel that this is best practice? If so, please explain why?

 

[aeras1131]

I don't drip acclimate but I do take at least 1 hour of gradually adding my DT water with the shipping water until the frag is 100% in my water. I've found too many variances between my water chemistry and the shippers. My failure rate has been very low using this method over the years. JME

After thinking things through. I actually do not do that. Personally, I am of the opinion that my params are not that far from juiced salt ~100 to 150ppm difference. After watching my corals I feel like that is not a high enough difference to affect the corals long term. I just dip my corals in coral rx in some some of my 5g bucket from my last water change. my water is pristine and the main reason I do water changes is because of traces and getting my boron levels back to normal levels.

 

[Salty1962]

After thinking things through. I actually do not do that. Personally, I am of the opinion that my params are not that far from juiced salt ~100 to 150ppm difference. After watching my corals I feel like that is not a high enough difference to affect the corals long term. I just dip my corals in coral rx in some some of my 5g bucket from my last water change. my water is pristine and the main reason I do water changes is because of traces and getting my boron levels back to normal levels.

It's not your water but theirs Know if you work with someone ,one on one, and verify your parameters meet with other then it's a no brainer. It's just some store's water is very much different from our own

 

[aeras1131]

Oh Salty I understand. I know that the LFS I got to has juiced salt. I used to get WC water before I started mixing Red Sea Salt Blue Bucket for natural params. I know that there SW they use it not good for my environment. So far, I have not had any mortality issues with my process. I still feel like the differences in our water is worth my time and aggravation. My water is super clean. It is going in just as clean of water as the LFS large volume system. I feel that the cleanliness of the water overall matching that is more effective. Since my water is roughly the same cleanliness, I am not really concerned about drip acclimation. Overall my ph is going to be relatively close if I am matching NSW params on the whole. What's the worst that the Diff can be ~8.4 to ~8.2-8.4 if my params are on point? Overall I feel that Ca, Mg, and ALK are not worth acclimating for especially if you are not on point with your params alk swings or precipitation issues.

 

[cmcoker]

This is not true. I’ve worked in LFS for years, salinity can and does vary. When an LFS gets fish many times they’ve been in a box for a day or more, the ph has crashed from co2 buildup to unsafe levels and ammonia buildup is high. Most hobbyist otoh take a fish from the store to home usually a trip lasting less than a few hours. I️ can say that we drip acclimate for 1/2 an hour. All fish come out into a tub in their water, prime and praziquantel @ 8x the normal dose. We don’t start the drip until all the fish are in the tub. And when the timer goes off they all go into qt for 3 weeks with copper or cp and enrofloxacin. Once done in qt they each go to the sales system they belong in and it’s just a drop and plop.

What are you using the enrofloxacin for with CP? I have used it on a fish that had a bacterial infection not responding to the usual antibiotics, just wondering what the thinking is combining it with CP as a standard protocol..

 

[Coralfuture]

I feel like if your dipping corals your not drip acclimating for the most part. I mean I just mix bayer and saltwater 50/50 drop coral...wait 5-10 min. Place into saltwater to blow and rinse. Plop into QT where it will sit and grow for the next few weeks. Fish....bag to RODI bath(usually like 65 degrees or so as its not heated) 3 min. Then into fish QT where they will live for a few weeks before entering DT. I haven't really lost anything to this method and I feel its rather harsh. I say haven't really because I did lose 1 ORA Hawking cuz the 5min dip was a 55min dip when my wife called me away to help with kids and I got distracted....EVERY other coral/fish I have done this to is fine. I have done this to 50+ corals and 20+ fish.

I had drip acclimated for HOURS in the past. My perspective changed DRASTICLLY when I purchased some large colonys of corals from a fellow reefer that was moving out of state for work and couldn't safely move his system. He just wanted corals to go to a local hobbyists home. So I drove the 2hrs to buy them off him....these were the VERY last things in his tank and the next bits SHOCKED ME. He gave me 2 fuzzy mushrooms, 1 large rainbow acan colony (60 heads or more), 1 purple lobo(13 heads) and some rock he had in the tank still. We went to a bin he had in his garage/filled my cooler with the "fresh mixed saltwater" and wet to the tank to load up. I never touched the water or corals just talked to him. We sealed it up and went on my 2hr drive home. When I got home I put my hand in the water to find it felt FREEZING....I took my thermometer to find the water was at a brisk 49 degrees. I figured at that point "Well these corals have seen hell so why bother drip acclimating them now?" I quickly (no dip) put them into my QT tank and noticed that the rock he gave me had 2 little friends on it. There was a cleaner and a peppermint shrimp on the rock...."well good luck fellas". I watched these guys closely for about a month in QT and without special treatment 100% survival shrimp and even his micro bristle stars(a 2in big one did die) From that point on I stopped drip acclimating.

Do I feel this is BEST practice? Absolutely not. However I do find that it's worked pretty darn well for me.

 

[aeras1131]

@Coralfuture I guess my real question is "why do feel it is not superfluous to do it?". Also, Do feel this solution is perpetuated because the customer is asking for a solution to a problem? For example the discussion could go something like this, My fish are not eating and dying after moving them to my tank. LFS asks "how are you putting them into the tank?". Customer states I plop and drop. Customer then asks " Is there something I can do better?". LFS says "You could maybe try this and see if it resolves your issue." Thus starts the cycle which gets perpetuated out to the inter webs and creates group thought?

 

[ca1ore]

Acclimation best practice is unquestionably to use a QT and adjust salinity to match that of the incoming fish bag. Don't worry about adding the shipping water, just float for 15-20 to equalize temperature. What could be easier and less traumatic to the fish. Use a simple ATO to slowly restore full salinity levels. Been doing it this way for over a decade now.

 

[drstardust]

I used to drip acclimate about a decade ago when I first got into the hobby, when it was largely accepted as best practice. In the coming years I adopted the temperature acclimation with matched salinity method, as described above. My success rate has been identical with the two methods, such that I would say drip acclimation is not of significant benefit. I cannot definitively say that it is harmful, either. But it seems like a waste of several hours if nothing else.

 

[flsalty]

There is no such thing as "Natural Sea Water Parameters". What you are talking about are averages. The parameters can vary wildly. I remember testing the coastal water here in Florida. It fluctuated between 1.018 and 1.028 depending on the tide, etc. The intracoastal waterway was always on the low side. I kept the tank at 1.025. When I collected fish I wouldn't actually drip acclimate them but I would bring the salinity up slowly by adding tank water to the bucket they were in. When it got close enough I would plop them in. Occasionally I would "plop and drop" a fish into the DT, but these are hardy fish that are used to swings in salinity.

 

[aeras1131]

@flsalty I agree with that statement. I guess what I mean to say. I do not keep my parameters too far outside of NSW averages.

 

[rkpetersen]

This is not true. I’ve worked in LFS for years, salinity can and does vary. When an LFS gets fish many times they’ve been in a box for a day or more, the ph has crashed from co2 buildup to unsafe levels and ammonia buildup is high. Most hobbyist otoh take a fish from the store to home usually a trip lasting less than a few hours. I️ can say that we drip acclimate for 1/2 an hour. All fish come out into a tub in their water, prime and praziquantel @ 8x the normal dose. We don’t start the drip until all the fish are in the tub. And when the timer goes off they all go into qt for 3 weeks with copper or cp and enrofloxacin. Once done in qt they each go to the sales system they belong in and it’s just a drop and plop.

What store is this? All the lfs's in my area drip acclimate but none do mandatory quarantine before sale. I wish! They'll sell specimens right out of the acclimation buckets.