drip acclimating fish.....how long?

[scarletknight06]

I got my flame hawk and yellow watchmen goby from marinedepotlive today.

They have been drip acclimating for the past 2 hours and the water in the bucket has doubled. How much longer should i wait before putting them in the tank?

[Ti]

You do it until the water conditions in teh bucket match your tank.

[fd235158]

Generally you only need to drip acclimate for about an hour. I would dump half the water, turn up the drip rate and let the water level double again.

[leirej]

I usually drip until my water has quadrupled (about 2 hours). This way, most of the water is from your tank. If the water has only doubled after two hours your drip is too slow. I hope that helps.

[fd235158]

Check out the following link on acclimation. I had fish shipped to upstate NY in January and they recovered quite nicely using this method.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=19&ref=3319&subref=AI

[Screamer]

I may be a stickler, but i drip my fish for 2-3 hours, and my corals for 3-4 hours. I don't care if it is a $10 dollar frag.(while i am dripping i post on RC) Some saltwater fish can be acclimated in as little as an hour, but i will go the extra distance.

1. I DO NOT want any oft the bag water entering my tank.
2. All saltwater life is used to being at a steady PH, salinity, etc. Acclimating over hours helps maintain that.
3. Since i do not do water changes the 3 or 4 gallons of tank water that i use to acclimate gets replaced with fresh saltwater.

IMO the longer and slower the better :rollface:

[Scuba Oz]

Here is Saltwaterfish.coms method. works for me

http://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/acclimation.php

[foob]

Problem with slow drip acclimation is temperature seldom equalizes because room temperature is not the same as tank temperature. So unless you keep your bucket floating in your sump/main, too slow isn't too good.

[scarletknight06]

i just put a small heater in the bucket. i let them drip for 3 hours last night and they seem happy today.

[nicchick]

good link fd235158, i wish i knew this before adding my red sea star. i lost it was a result

[BCOrchidGuy]

One flaw that I see is you must know the water paramaters of the bag you are going to drip into. If the ammonia is really high chances are the pH is low (below 7) and ammonia becomes ammonium which is relatively harmless. As you drip water in the pH MAY rise rapidly and that ammonium becomes ammonia again and then you are facing some issues.
Whether you decide to match the pH and temp of the water the fish/invert/coral is in or not you are going to stress the animal in some way.
I'm lucky I live just a few minutes away from the LFS where I shop. I can drip over an hour and transfer with a net and things go well. If I were to be recieving fish that were shipped over night I'd tend to be more aggressive to get the fish out of the shipping water and into some quality water.

Doug

[Reeses]

Anyone ever use amquel plus or a similar kind of product to render the ammonia harmless while acclimating?

[SunnyX]

I personally just toss the fish in. I left the bag float for 15 min then put the fish in. Never lost a fish yet.

[fd235158]

Just tossing animals (particularly inverts and corals) into the tank can put them in shock.

[SunnyX]

Originally posted by fd235158
Just tossing animals (particularly inverts and corals) into the tank can put them in shock.

I was told a while ago by my LFS that this was the best way of doing it. He had told me that when fish are shipped out the water they are in is of poor quality by the time it gets to the destination and it would be far worse to leave the fish in the bag due to Ph and Am. I thought the advice was strange compared to what i had read, but I trust his judgement and followed his advice. I sometimes will add a cup of my water into the bag so the fish isnt totally shocked. The fish that I add into my tank begin to eat after and hour or so of being in the tank. It just works for me i guess. :)

[mightymouse]

screamer what do you mean you dont do water changes?

[Dan Palacios]

One drip method i came across in my research a few years ago, was an overflow method. It is similar to the drip method on the web-link but the shipping water is drip out of the container by overflowing. The process last until twice the amount of shipping water from the tank is dripped in to bag from the tank. The fish bag is floated in the tank for 15 minutes and then the contents are poured in a container that is large enough to be filled by the shipping water almost to the top. The container is then places in a separate tank to catch the overflow. I never tried this method before, so i am not if it is a sound method for slow acclimation.