Explain This One!

[hedylogus]

Check this out.

I buy some apistos from the LFS. I take 'em home and slowly acclimate them to my tank via a slow drip (which seems to be the preferred method from what I can gather) in order to prevent shocking the fish and possibly losing them due to a large ph/hardess/temperature change.

Six months later, when my fish aren't spawning as frequently or successfully as I want, what do I do? I perform a large scale water change (which also seems to be the method of choice), adding almost 100% pure RO water that hopefully induces (a.k.a. shocks) my beloved fish into spawning (and from what I have read, apparently works most of the time).

Now call me crazy, but this seems awfully contradictory. No???

 

[Neil]

hedylogus,

Now call me crazy, but this seems awfully contradictory. No???

OK, you're crazy! :lol: Really, I do see where this can be confusing. It is my opinion that there is no one way to do anything. But, there are things that logically are more realistic than others. When you bring home an apisto from the LFS or get it shipped to you, you don't know what it has been through, exposed to, or how it is really doing right now. So you probably want to make its life as easy and stress-free as possible. Hence, slow acclimation. When you have it in your tank for awhile and it is in good shape, happy, and potentially ready to spawn, you can be a little more liberal with its treatment to accomplish a desired effect (spawning).
IMO, apistos can handle alot more than most people think. I usually don't spend alot of time acclimating new fish, because I know that they are going into good water and will be fed good food. Within reason, the sooner that happens, the better. When they are already in good water with good food, they usually can easily handle a fairly substantial shift to even better water. (Remember - most apistos come from very mineral poor water that is very clean!)_A large water change with RO water is reducing the Conductivity and TDS, which basically means cleaner, mineral deficient water. Most apistos will respond positively to this, as long as other values are not thrown out of wack too much. Hope this helps with your confusion.
Neil

 

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

I generally never acclimate my fish. I drain the bag in a net over
a bucket, put the net in the tank and let them swim out. I have never
lost any fish, and by letting them swim out vs. ploping them in, they
get comfortable pretty quickly and start eating within 15 - 20 minutes.
However, in most of my tanks the pH is between 6.6 - 7.0. Nothing
too acidic and not too different from the pH at the LFS.
However, if I were introducing fish from the LFS into a tank w/ pH 4 or
something - I would probably acclimate them over a period of
30 - 45 minutes. Never had to do it tho.
Anyway, thats just me.

 

[tjudy]

In my experience, temperature is a much larger shock concern than slight differences in water chemistry. If pH and hardness are close, I only acclimate for temperature.

 

[Scooter]

I'll concur with everyone's opinion on this one. I don't acclimate either, in the purest sense. Like Ted, I allow for temperature adjustments, but little else. And like Neil stated, as long as you have fresh, clean water in the tank your putting the fish in, you should be fine. Of course, avoiding extreme changes in hardness and pH is also important. I'd never knowingly drop a fish in my tank w/o doing a reasonable job of approximating the environment it has just come from. And just as supplemental info, I've found that keeping any lighting off (or dimmed way down) for the first few hours is very beneficial as well.

 

[apistodave]

Let me weigh in here. I dont acclimate either. In their natural habitat apistos are used to and have evolved to handle large fluctuations in Ph and other water parameters. They go from dried up little puddles to roaring torrents in minutes or hours. Dry season to wet season changes have acclimated these fish to temp and Ph changes that are rapid. If you keep them in the bags and acclimate them I think this induces more stress than just letting them go, which is what I do. I havent lost any yet. There is no way that staying in the bags longer does not stress them more.As for large changes in Ph I once accidentally put juruensis through some 2.0 ph to 7.0 Ph changes in the space of a half hour--they came through fine, in fact yu can see the very fish in Cichlid Atlas 1, if you look close you will see that some of the pics have red lava rock in them, no volcanoes in Germany!

 

[Nermal]

In their natural habitat apistos are used to and have evolved to handle large fluctuations in Ph and other water parameters. They go from dried up little puddles to roaring torrents in minutes or hours. Dry season to wet season changes have acclimated these fish to temp and Ph changes that are rapid.

I wouldn't exactly say that adding pure RO is a "shock" if "shock" is being thought of as stress. Rather, if you think about what Apistodave said and the seasonal breeding patterns of fish in the wild, the sudden addition of large quantities of RO may be NECESSARYto induce fish to breed.