I stopped equalising water for fish.

[FSP]

What truth are we missing here?

 

[Malcontent]

What truth are we missing here?

That it takes nearly a day for pH to rise once you open the bag?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Many years ago a well respected knowledgeable guy working in an LFS told me he doesn't equalise water parameters when introducing fish to the store. All he did was to float the bags for 15mins before releasing them.
He assured me it was no problem for the fish and that getting it out into decent water quality asap was more important.
Since then I have always done the same with no apparent ill affects to any of my fish.
Controversial I know esp to those who drip acclimatise their fish.
Tell me why he and I are so wrong not to mix water before releasing fish into the DT etc.

Yes, this is how it MUST be done for fish that have been in a bag of water for many hours! In that enclosed body of water, ammonia from fish waste builds up and the pH drops as CO2 builds up, which converts toxic ammonia to non/less toxic ammonium. Once you open the bag and let fresh air in (or worse, add water with pH in normal range), most of that ammonium quickly converts back to toxic ammonia.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to do this regardless of how you receive a fish, but if you're acclimating something you just brought home from the LFS, it hasn't been in the bag long enough for the pH to drop or the ammonia to accumulate, and a slower acclimation is an option.

But anyone (including an LFS employee) who makes a blanket statement that you should always acclimate the way a LFS does when they receive a shipment is a person who doesn't understand the chemistry.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Yes, this is a dangerous thread. It very much depends on the fish, what's fine for a tang may not be fine for an anthias. And inverts are a completely different story since many are from tide pools and see frequent changes in salinity.

In the freshwater world, you would be a fool to do anything but scoop and dump discus fish - osmotic shock doesn't bother them, but they need clean water. But another fish from the same area, cardinal tetras, must be drip acclimated unless your water has the same hardness or you'll lose most of them due to osmotic shock.

Osmotic shock relates to the salinity of the water. Not an issue with freshwater fish.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Same, drip acclimating is only more stressful, for coral and fish i temp acclimate and put in tank, don’t check salinity.

Must check salinity for fish and inverts and adjust the salinity of your tank to what they are currently in if it's too far off...

 

[PeterEde]

My take on it is place bag into tank and I use a 50ml syringe to inject tank water every few minutes. Then release after about 15 minutes.
Sort of drip acclimation but not.
I also read recently that as per the OP it's more stress on fish to leave them in a bag.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

I don't drip acclimate fish - I find out what salinity they're coming from, and if it's pretty close to mine I float the bag to temp (about 10-15 min) and exchange about a half cup of water 5-10 minutes after that, twice. I don't like the whole process to go longer than 30 minutes. I have drip acclimated inverts a couple times but only if they're really sensitive. For coral I dump the bag water into a container, add a cup of tank water, add Coral Rx and dip. Then right into the tank. This is just the process I've ended up with that has worked extremely well for me, but I'm no expert whatsoever lol. I always follow the acclimation instructions the vendor supplies for fish when I order online however.

 

[atoll]

But anyone (including an LFS employee) who makes a blanket statement that you should always acclimate the way a LFS does when they receive a shipment is a person who doesn't understand the chemistry.

He never suggested such, just how he did it as per my origional post. I decided to do the same and have never had any problems doing so.

 

[ingchr1]

Must check salinity for fish and inverts and adjust the salinity of your tank to what they are currently in if it's too far off...

Quantitatively, how much is too far off?

Is adjusting the salinity of your tank assuming one is not putting them directly in thier main display?

 

[Paul B]

When I get a fish from an LFS I put it in a container then observe it for 6 or 7 days while I take some of the container water out and mail it to Biometrics for an analysis. Then I call one of my friends on the Island where the fish was collected to determine what the exact salinity, temperature and weather was like on the specific day that fish was collected.

I also want to determine at what depth the fish was swimming at just before collection and the mood the fish was in.

If all that checks out, I pick up the fish by the tail and smell it all the while spraying tree stump remover on it from the head down.

I turn on vintage Linda Ronstadt and slowly immerse the fish into my tank head first in pitch dark right after a 50% water change.

The next day I remove the dead fish and go out to dinner.

Oh wait.....No,,I don't do that, I was dreaming.

I put the fish in a container because I want to see what I bought because I usually don't pay attention and maybe take a picture as I know once it goes into my tank, I may not see it for a year.

I do stick my finger in there to test the temperature and if it is close or slightly lower than my tank. I dump it in.

 

[Slocke]

Here’s when I messed up and my snake eel got osmotic shock:

 

[brandon429]

Sloke what a neat fish, haven’t seen one before. Does that behavior contrast with its behavior the next few days after? I wouldn’t expect an eel to lay across rocks like that with the gill action and mouth that way, it didn’t look pronounced stress but it didn’t seem like a lively eel poking its head only out of a rock, hiding and ready to strike on some prey either


how much of a contrast to normal behavior is that video? Thanks for posting. I don’t keep fish, only corals, so I never get to see stress event behavior in my home.

 

[brandon429]

 

[brandon429]

jays advice seems sound for the safest mode vs stressing all fish and see what survives

given the price change of fish, if not motivated by the ethics, seems like a harmless set of rules to follow. He certainly wasn’t unclear at all in the recommend, nor was he non specific.

 

[Slocke]

Sloke what a neat fish, haven’t seen one before. Does that behavior contrast with its behavior the next few days after? I wouldn’t expect an eel to lay across rocks like that with the gill action and mouth that way, it didn’t look pronounced stress but it didn’t seem like a lively eel poking its head only out of a rock, hiding and ready to strike on some prey either


how much of a contrast to normal behavior is that video? Thanks for posting. I don’t keep fish, only corals, so I never get to see stress event behavior in my home.

Yes that is very out of the ordinary. The breathing is way too heavy and the big gulp at the end is also unusual. Next it is a burrowing eel and would never lay on the sand it would dig into it or be swimming around. Finally it was on its side and upside down for much of the time.
Here's a few days later:

 

[brandon429]

That’s helpful perspective for the thread, the video / it helps present a full picture of acclimation options. I guess that’s the first I’ve seen for osmotic shock vs a post that just said my fish died when I put them in/ ammonia (from inside the tank as a perceived incomplete cycle backed by an api .5) had been blamed every time, for thirty straight years online. Zero credence for early fish loss was given to acclimation stress for the new tanks. 100% percent has been blamed on cycling until recently


we now know there are about a hundred thousand years old reefs that read .5 on api from the display, all running fine. Maybe six million lol

 

[michael_cb_125]

@paul
I knew we have similar thoughts on reef aquaria. Who knew that we acclimate fish the same way, lol.

 

[brandon429]

Do we all agree 100% unison that skipping acclimation and putting low salinity fish into reefs is physically stressful all the time, but many fish just tough it out







Nobody debates there is tangible stress, like if your kidneys cease to function for just a little bit, when doing what 90% of entrants advise here


This thread is dealing in increments of known factors harm, briefly.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

Do we all agree 100% unison that skipping acclimation and putting low salinity fish into reefs is physically stressful all the time, but many fish just tough it out


Surely we wouldn't think the zoo manager published and peer reviewed is wrong or trying to add undue work to the masses

Isn't he a fish scientist

Isn't someone with an awesome home aquarium not a scientist in the matter, even if they write in an entertaining style?

If a zoo would never do what Paul does, should we all do it anyway?

Who's tank here matches Paul's unique tank context? I'm not seeing anyone advise differences to new tankers, I'm seeing the 5600th iteration of that home tank picture and writing that contradicts Jay just like the disease posts, in his forum.


It's easy to shape all outcome perfectly reported when our own reefs are the proof. Imagine running a forum where other people's tanks and reports are available, I would use what a zoo uses in that case.

Where are those papers? I would be interested in reading about that.

 

[Solga]

Do we all agree 100% unison that skipping acclimation and putting low salinity fish into reefs is physically stressful all the time, but many fish just tough it out

That's kind of a loaded question ... Don't you think ?
Can you please explain a few things ?
1. What exactly is a "low salinity fish"
2. "into a reef" is an extremely broad term, can you be a little more specific please?
3. "physically stressful" for the fish I presume, but under what pretense is that determined ? How is this physical stress measured against, just as an example, living in the wild and being in constant fear of being eaten
4. "ALL of the time" seems to be a concrete limitation on an otherwise very vague statement, as a whole.
5. "fish just tough it out" again, can you give a more scientific explanation as to what this means, and how you came to this conclusion? Did the fish tell you, it was having a hard day due to being plopped in a reef from being a low salinity fish previously ?

I can't say that I would agree at all with your statement until those things were defined for me.

I usually enjoy reading your comments, and appreciate your views and insight provided to this community, but I think you have wandered a little bit out of your lane, Brandon. And let's be real here. To call out Paul or Atolls tanks (or any of the rest of us for that matter), and say that there isn't any relationship to the rest of us. And at the same time, try to say that a multi thousand gallon display with multiple keepers, and with specimens that none of us would ever keep should be ?
Very few of us have the time, space or $$ to have anything even closely comparable to a public aquarium display. If we did, we would be on a forum with a different name.