There are sooooo many acclimation variations! Which one is yours?

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Here is my musing for the day...

WOW there are a lot of different ways to acclimate fish and coral! :p

My daughter and son-in-law are getting a shipment of fish and coral in today and they were asking me about acclimation. They are still fairly new and were reading stickies, and reading how others do it, and were somewhat confused. I told the that people do it differently, some better than others, but it can be done, successfully, many different ways. Obviously there are foundations of acclimation that you want to follow but I thought we could all MUSE together on this one!

So.....how do you acclimate your fish and your coral?
PS. Great article from @Jay Hemdal here.

image via @Paleozoic_reefer

 

[Doctorgori]

TBH I don’t want to further soil my already suspect reputation with my methods….
I’ll admit I don’t usually drip drip or drip

 

[shakacuz]

Corals:

1. Temp acclimated in sump
2. dip in potassium chloride for roughly 5-15min(depending where the coral is from)
3. dip in lugol's iodine for 5mins
4. put in tank on 1 of 2 frag "racks" i have in tank(generally the lower one, and then eventually move up to the higher one, to then glued on rocks)

Fish:

1. Temp acclimated in sump
2. drip acclimate
3. in tank (or in acclimation box for observation - then tank)

Inverts:

1. Temp acclimated in sump
2. in tank

 

[Nano_Man]

Float and drip every thing works for me

 

[Evil1]

I float both coral and fish for 30 minutes. Inspect for hitchhikers/ illness. Take out of bag and in they go. No quarantine no dipping. To me all the fussing just adds to stress. Hasn’t failed me yet.

 

[Miami Reef]

I don’t acclimate anything unless the temperature and salinity is wayyyy off (which never happened as of yet).

 

[sfin52]

TBH I don’t want to further soil my already suspect reputation with my methods….
I’ll admit I don’t usually drip drip or drip

I don't drip either. I temp and plop. To be fair I know what the salinity is that I'm getting them from.

The online vendor that I bought from instructions say match temp than put in.

 

[19Mateo83]

For fish I float then drip then plop into tank. For corals I float then half bag water / half my water in the dip containers. coral rx dip then iodine dip then plop into tank

 

[steveschuerger]

I’ll admit all I do is temp acclimate for everything and then drain the bag in the styro it came in and put in tank.Or in the case of fish carefully scoop with my hand from the bag and release in tank.

 

[fish farmer]

Recent shipment from known vendor, followed most of their instructions.

I started with everything floating in the sump , then set up a drip for snails. They recommended about an hour. I feel when I don't do a slow drip with them, I lose some.

The corals were similar how I usually do it. Drain some water and mix tank water in the bag for about a half hour this time.

I don't dip much anymore....I have most of the typical pests like aiptasia and vermetids so I do a visual inspection.

These all go directly to the DT.

 

[Reefer Matt]

It depends if they are shipped or from the lfs for me. Coral get temp acclimated by floating the bag for a half hour, then dipped, then put into the tank. Fish are directly put into the qt tank if from lfs, temp acclimated first if shipped. Invertebrates go right into the tank. I used to drip acclimate everything when I first started reefing. But I recognize the signs of stress, and somtimes doing a full on drip and acclimation for an hour or so will stress out the livestock even more.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

I have heard / read nothing good comes from drip acclimation. I float to match temp, periodically adding water from tank little at a time so other parameters match, then fish, shrimp, snails, in they go without any of the water. If corals, once the acclimation process is complete, I add in some Tropic Marin coral clean, then in they go without the water.

 

[New&no clue]

 

[Fred A.]

I temp acclimate for 15 minutes in the tank, then drip acclimate for about 40 minutes then drain all water and drop fish into tank. Works great, no stress, no loss.

 

[exnisstech]

Fish I temp acclimate and drop. I try to get info on salinity from vendors if fish are being shipped. Corals temp dip and drop.

 

[ryanjohn1]

None. Tank water with whatever dip I’m using. Rinse with tank water. And boom. In the tank. Speaking of corals here.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Fish - temp and a few partial water changes in container.

Coral - temp, partial water changes, revive.

Jay’s article worth the read if you haven’t already.

 

[kenchilada]

Coral: float to temp, dips in tank water, rinse, throw in tank from across the room

Fish: match QT tank salinity to bag water, float, release into 2.0 copper power

NO DRIPPING