Online Fish Acclimation

[jackalexander]

I have heard some crazy ideas for acclimating fish that have been on long journeys to our homes such as using soda stream carbonation to match the pH in order to reduce the risk of gill burn after introducing O2 to the bag. What would be the simplest method (besides dripping) for acclimating a fish that’s been traveling 15+ hours. Also I’ve heard that liveaquaria may even feed their fish less food before transport, is this true?

 

[patrick886]

for online fish, I would suggest acclimating temp without opening up the bag first. Once temp acclimated just dump fish into the QT. With the gas exchange the PH of bag water will swing rapidly, which may damage the fish.

 

[Specific Ocean]

What I did was temp acclimate them in my aquarium and then put them in a 5g bucket with a heater and an air stone to get the oxygen going. 2 drips per second for 2-3 hours

 

[jackalexander]

for online fish, I would suggest acclimating temp without opening up the bag first. Once temp acclimated just dump fish into the QT. With the gas exchange the PH of bag water will swing rapidly, which may damage the fish.

that’s what I thought but the difference of PH in the bag and salinity might shock it..

 

[iReefer12]

Most online vendors hold and ship fish in water that’s 25ppt, only LiveAquaria Divers Den ships in 35ppt.

I set my QT to 25ppt.
I temp acclimate the bag for 40 mins.
I take a quick reading of the salinity of the bag to confirm, and I mean ASAP.
Then quickly transfer the fish to the QT.

Ammonium in the bag water turns lethal when exposed to oxygen and ph rises it changes back to ammonia.

Long slow drip acclimation processes can be deadly for fragile fish.

 

[patrick886]

It will take couple days for fish to acclimate to the PH and other parameters. Temp acclimation will be the most important IMO.