Acclimation

Shipped fish are highly stressed and do not acclimate as smoothly as local fish. Acclimation is key for survival of your fish. If these steps are not completed during acclimation, your fish will unlikely survive. 

I take quality control quite seriously and only send fish out that are feeding, active & tank hardened for several weeks. Therefore, In every instance where a fish has died within 24-48 hours, through customer feedback & discussion, improper acclimation has always been the cause.

Step 1. Place fish & bag water into an EMPTY/CLEAN tub

Step 2. Put prime & airstone. (Or any ammonia detoxifier)  Prime is very helpful due to ammonia detoxification. Due to carbon dioxide in the bag, the water is now very acidic. Once acidic water is exposed to air, ammonia toxicity increases by 10 fold causing more ammonia burn & stress to the animal killing them slowly. 

Step 3. Start drip acclimation using airline tubing. You may find videos of this online. Most videos will show the water dripping, however, please INSTEAD have a slow CONNECTED CONTINUOUS STREAM rather than dripping. Dripping is too slow and will not raise ph in time and will therefore shock your fish. (Will soon upload a demonstration). IF YOUR FISH IS BIG, PH DIFFERENCE OF THE SHIPPING BAG & YOUR TANK WILL BE HIGHER eg. Most of the times PH of shipping bag is 4. Your tank ph is usually around 8. From ph4 to ph8 you will need a longer time and also faster stream of water to get it all the way up to ph8. 

Good rule: Just check if ph and salinity of the shipping bag & your tank is the same before netting your fish in. 

Step 4. Drip acclimate for 1 hour WHILE scooping water out. As water doubles in volume, scoop out water until the water level is just above the fish’s head & repeat this process for the entire hour. 

Note: Do not exceed 1 hour for acclimation. Acclimations that last too long will kill the fish with decreased oxygen, stress from being in a container and elevated ammonia levels. Acclimation too short will also shock the fish as it was not given enough time to match your parameters.

Step 5. To make sure the fish is ready to enter the aquarium, test if salinity & ph in the acclimation tub matches the aquarium.

Step 6. Net fish into aquarium & discard all acclimation water. (Do not get any acclimation water inside the tank!!)

The key is to try get as much shipping water out & and the same time slowly letting the animal adjust to its new environment. Similar to giving a human baby a bath. It is less stressful for the baby to enter room temperature water then gradually adding hot water to make the water warmer rather than placing the baby straight into hot water.