I bought my first marine fish yesterday, a beautiful pair of ocellaris clowns! One yellow and one a picture perfect Nemo orange. I’d had plenty of freshwater fish in the past, but this being my first marine fish... needless to say I was nervous. I didn’t have a container to drip acclimate them that I was 100% sure didn’t have soap or other toxins on it.
I decided to drip acclimate them in the bag without exposing them to oxygen, which also temp acclimates simultaneously. I floated the bags in the tank and poked multiple holes with a needle in the area of the bag that was under water. This allowed any chemicals they weren’t used to to seep in ever so slightly.
I waited a few minutes then took one corner of the bag and cut a very small hole in it and submerged it. I could see the water that had stress zyme and different salinity levels mix with the tank water. It was nice to be able to monitor how quickly these were mixing. The air in the bag was still very much the air that was originally there, so no worries about added toxicity.
About 5 minutes of letting the waters mix and I expanded the hole. The water was mixing faster now and the fish were doing great. After I could no longer visibly see the waters mixing together, I knew the drip acclimation was complete.
I expanded the hole big enough to fit the clownfish through, then gently lifted the bag slowly out of the water, allowing the clownfish to find the opening as the water level in the bag dropped. This seemed like the least stressful release method I could think of, as opposed to sifting them out of a container with a net. The whole process took about 10 minutes (maybe less... I didn’t time Anything).
The clownfish never missed a beat and darted around the tank like kids on a playground. They even discovered their reflections in a mirror behind the tank and had a blast with that for about an hour. It was really fun to watch. It’s definitely a huge relief as a first time marine mama. The yellow one keeps swimming up to me from the back of the tank all cutsie like. I think he’s vying to be my favorite.
I decided to drip acclimate them in the bag without exposing them to oxygen, which also temp acclimates simultaneously. I floated the bags in the tank and poked multiple holes with a needle in the area of the bag that was under water. This allowed any chemicals they weren’t used to to seep in ever so slightly.
I waited a few minutes then took one corner of the bag and cut a very small hole in it and submerged it. I could see the water that had stress zyme and different salinity levels mix with the tank water. It was nice to be able to monitor how quickly these were mixing. The air in the bag was still very much the air that was originally there, so no worries about added toxicity.
About 5 minutes of letting the waters mix and I expanded the hole. The water was mixing faster now and the fish were doing great. After I could no longer visibly see the waters mixing together, I knew the drip acclimation was complete.
I expanded the hole big enough to fit the clownfish through, then gently lifted the bag slowly out of the water, allowing the clownfish to find the opening as the water level in the bag dropped. This seemed like the least stressful release method I could think of, as opposed to sifting them out of a container with a net. The whole process took about 10 minutes (maybe less... I didn’t time Anything).
The clownfish never missed a beat and darted around the tank like kids on a playground. They even discovered their reflections in a mirror behind the tank and had a blast with that for about an hour. It was really fun to watch. It’s definitely a huge relief as a first time marine mama. The yellow one keeps swimming up to me from the back of the tank all cutsie like. I think he’s vying to be my favorite.
