Acclimation

[Don cheech]

What is your recommendation for acclimating Apisto’s

 

[MacZ]

Just with other fish, the more the water in the store/bag differs from your tank, the more you tend towards drip acclimation.
E.g. from very hard water (GH 15+) to soft water (GH 1-2) or alkaline (pH 8) to acidic (pH 5) you should do a slow transition. Usually those come together (high hardness + high pH, low plus low pH). But if it's comparable water it can boil down to bringing the bag to temperature, opening it, emptying the bag in a net and putting the fish in the net directly into the tank.

Just never let store water go into your tanks and if possible quarantine.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

What is your recommendation for acclimating Apisto’s

But if it's comparable water it can boil down to bringing the bag to temperature, opening it, emptying the bag in a net and putting the fish in the net directly into the tank.

Turn the light off.

Pour 3/4 of the water out of the bag (through a net, because accidents can happen), submerge the bag in the tank and let the tank water flow into it.

Hopefully after a couple of minutes the fish will make their own way out. If they haven't? After ~ten minutes gently tip them into the tank.

I'm much more worried about exposure to ammonia (NH3) than anything else, so I want the fish to spend as little time as possible in their transport bag water and to get them into the tank as soon as can without it being too stressful.

and if possible quarantine.

I have a <"spare planted tank set up">, it is just the same <"as all the other tanks">, it just doesn't have any permanent residents.

cheers Darrel

 

[Ben Rhau]

I agree with Mac. Especially if you're going from high TDS to low TDS (which is common if you keep softwater fish) there is danger of osmotic shock if you acclimate the fish too quickly. I recommend measuring the TDS in the bag water and comparing it to your tank. If it's close (less than two-fold difference) you can temp acclimate and then plop/drop. If there's a big difference (more than two-fold and your tank water is higher than 100 TDS) then drip acclimate at about 2 drops per second. If you're worried about NH3, you can add diluted water conditioner to the bag (I typically do a drop or two or Prime that's already been diluted 1:5). I keep dripping until the difference between bag and tank is less than 100 TDS. Then I temperature acclimate, net the fish from the bag and add to the tank.

I know Jeff at Aquatic Clarity says to just plop and drop. He's a fish importer, so he's dealing with fish that may have been in bags for multiple weeks. If the water is that filthy, then you have no choice but to get them out of as quickly as possible. Even in that extreme case, I still think you can start by diluting it 1:1 with clean water and then doing a drip. In your case, the fish is only in the bag for 1 or 2 days, was starved prior, and likely has water conditioner in the bag. The water isn't as dirty as it is in Jeff's case, so it's not as urgent to get them out of it. However, if there's a dead fish in the bag, then it's more urgent.

-B

 

[martin_c]

Hi,
mind that if you keep the fish in the bag after opening it, what might happen is that PH climbs above 7 due to escape of CO2, and ammonium turns to ammonia. I think i lost a fish once caused by this.

Nowadays when i know i'll receive new fish, i previously increase conductivity and PH a little bit, moving them out of the extreme range. And i adapt only temperature while the bag remains closed.

 

[Ben Rhau]

The rise in pH doesn’t happen instantly. Once you open the bag, you have a several minutes to add diluted Prime. Just add it right away.

 

[anewbie]

Does osmotic shock really happen? I've had virtually 0 deaths of fishes that arrive healthy and I now that i have a lot of tanks ~30 ec; i would presume some deaths but it just doens't happen when i plop them in. I know at least one dealer i use the fish come in with an ec around 200 (i could double check next time i get an order) but i've not had any problem moving them from 200 to 30 without acclimination. I have had some problems with bba and cyano when moving a tank from ec 240 to ec 50 but i think that is a different issue

 

[Ben Rhau]

200 to 30 EC might be OK because all numbers are pretty low. I’ve had fish come in water > 1500 EC going into blackwater. I’m definitely not doing that without acclimation.

 

[Don cheech]

I agree with Mac. Especially if you're going from high TDS to low TDS (which is common if you keep softwater fish) there is danger of osmotic shock if you acclimate the fish too quickly. I recommend measuring the TDS in the bag water and comparing it to your tank. If it's close (less than two-fold difference) you can temp acclimate and then plop/drop. If there's a big difference (more than two-fold and your tank water is higher than 100 TDS) then drip acclimate at about 2 drops per second. If you're worried about NH3, you can add diluted water conditioner to the bag (I typically do a drop or two or Prime that's already been diluted 1:5). I keep dripping until the difference between bag and tank is less than 100 TDS. Then I temperature acclimate, net the fish from the bag and add to the tank.

I know Jeff at Aquatic Clarity says to just plop and drop. He's a fish importer, so he's dealing with fish that may have been in bags for multiple weeks. If the water is that filthy, then you have no choice but to get them out of as quickly as possible. Even in that extreme case, I still think you can start by diluting it 1:1 with clean water and then doing a drip. In your case, the fish is only in the bag for 1 or 2 days, was starved prior, and likely has water conditioner in the bag. The water isn't as dirty as it is in Jeff's case, so it's not as urgent to get them out of it. However, if there's a dead fish in the bag, then it's more urgent.

-B

Thanks that’s very helpful

 

[Ben Rhau]

Does osmotic shock really happen? I've had virtually 0 deaths of fishes that arrive healthy and I now that i have a lot of tanks ~30 ec; i would presume some deaths but it just doens't happen when i plop them in. I know at least one dealer i use the fish come in with an ec around 200 (i could double check next time i get an order) but i've not had any problem moving them from 200 to 30 without acclimination. I have had some problems with bba and cyano when moving a tank from ec 240 to ec 50 but i think that is a different issue

For reference, 200 EC is only 128 TDS. So you are going from soft water to softer water. Some vendors (for example Wet Spot) intentionally acclimate soft water fish to harder water, because a lot of their customers don't want to deal with RO. Some good vendors (like BW Aquatics) add a green prophylatctic additive to the water. In both cases, the osmolarity of the bag water might be really high. It's not uncommon for me to see 700 TDS. I keep my tanks pretty soft, so that is a big difference.

I'm probably being overly conservative by waiting until the TDS differential is below 100. Fish can likely handle a little more than that. But I'd rather be safe than sorry.

IIRC, there's a thread on this forum (that I can't find right now) where a keeper added pencil fish immediately from the store to pure RO water, and they all died pretty quickly. I think he did it twice before realizing the problem was TDS differential.

 

[anewbie]

For reference, 200 EC is only 128 TDS. So you are going from soft water to softer water. Some vendors (for example Wet Spot) intentionally acclimate soft water fish to harder water, because a lot of their customers don't want to deal with RO. Some good vendors (like BW Aquatics) add a green prophylatctic additive to the water. In both cases, the osmolarity of the bag water might be really high. It's not uncommon for me to see 700 TDS. I keep my tanks pretty soft, so that is a big difference.

I'm probably being overly conservative by waiting until the TDS differential is below 100. Fish can likely handle a little more than that. But I'd rather be safe than sorry.

IIRC, there's a thread on this forum (that I can't find right now) where a keeper added pencil fish immediately from the store to pure RO water, and they all died pretty quickly. I think he did it twice before realizing the problem was TDS differential.

So I received an order from Wetspot today; and this what i discovered: Most of the fishes were in water that had an ec of 280 (i plop those); one fish which was a blackwater fish was in water ec 86; i plop those.
-
Most of my pencil fishes came from wetspot or jeff and those were all plop'ed without issues but of course we are not talking about huge differences in tds (30 or 200 depending on tank vs 280); anyway my vendor list is small and i suspect wetspot has the hardest water of the group (or maybe jeff).

 

[Ben Rhau]

That's good. I ordered chili rasbora from Wet Spot and they were in EC 700 μS going into a tank with EC 44. My advice to the OP is to measure it. What you do after that is up to you!

 

[anewbie]

That's good. I ordered chili rasbora from Wet Spot and they were in EC 700 μS going into a tank with EC 44. My advice to the OP is to measure it. What you do after that is up to you!

I'm more curious why the chili rasbora were in harder water. Do you know if they were wc or tank raised ?

 

[Ben Rhau]

They were wc. Wet Spot has so many tanks, I'm not sure how they manage their inventory. It could be that chilis sell very well, so the customers are generally not specialized for blackwater. I don't know.

 

[Apistoguy52]

Wetspot has water that comes from the tap at about 15us/cm. They just buffer the water up as most folks they’re shipping to don’t have water anywhere near that soft. The variance probably comes from the difference between the warehouse and the store. Id expect the warehouse water (central flow through from cisterns) to be much more uniform than the store (manual adjustment). As I think Ben stated above, it’s not a problem until you try and plop/drop them into significantly softer water.

 

[Ben Rhau]

Just received a shipment of Poropanchax luxopthalmus (wild caught) from Wet Spot. Bag water is EC 1950 μS. Their water varies a lot, so it's always safe to measure.

 

[Ben Rhau]

Some additional info: BW Aquatics recently posted a couple videos that briefly describe their quarantine protocol for wild caught fish. The green liquid (acriflavine or methylene blue) is consistent with what I've seen fish shipped in when they're wild imports. In this case, I would expect a very high EC due to the solute concentration of the medication.

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