brackish fish acclimating

[Sgooosh]

for a specific LFS's male guppies, they die really quickly when added to my tank almost every single time.
I did some digging and concluded that perhaps their fish dealer (from asia as they have said to me) may be keeping the guppies in brackish water, and the sudden change to fresh is killing them.

How can I make it so that these brackish fish are acclimated to my fresh water tank better?
How can I make brackish water?
Does drip acclimation work?
note: the water in the fish store is freshwater so that might be an issue...

 

[TNG]

I can't really help with making brackish water. But if the fish were raised in brackish water, be that in Asia or anywhere else, and if they don’t do well in freshwater, you’d expect them to be affected in the days or weeks while they were kept in freshwater in the LFS.
As a first step, I’d ask the LFS for a sample of their water and test for GH and pH, and see if the parameters are compatible with my tank’s water.

 

[GaryE]

Then again, retailers have told me of some farms where the gupppies always die with 3 weeks of arrival. One of my local stores went through half a dozen suppliers before they found one whose guppies would survive long enough to be safely sold. The owner of the store, a marine biologist, felt it wasn't brackish water, but that the guppies were being raised in antibiotics to force growth, and were wrecks as a result. That happens with a lot of long finned fish, for some reason. Bettas can have trouble with coming off antibiotics too. I don't want to start a conspiracy theory, but it seems a logical route to short term profit.

 

[Sgooosh]

Then again, retailers have told me of some farms where the gupppies always die with 3 weeks of arrival. One of my local stores went through half a dozen suppliers before they found one whose guppies would survive long enough to be safely sold. The owner of the store, a marine biologist, felt it wasn't brackish water, but that the guppies were being raised in antibiotics to force growth, and were wrecks as a result. That happens with a lot of long finned fish, for some reason. Bettas can have trouble with coming off antibiotics too. I don't want to start a conspiracy theory, but it seems a logical route to short term profit.

This is a reasonable assumption i think, If this is true, how can I make it so that these fish are acclimated to my tank? I am setting ip a quarantine tank right now, so perhaps a really slow flowing and sterile environment could help them acclimate?

I can't really help with making brackish water. But if the fish were raised in brackish water, be that in Asia or anywhere else, and if they don’t do well in freshwater, you’d expect them to be affected in the days or weeks while they were kept in freshwater in the LFS.
As a first step, I’d ask the LFS for a sample of their water and test for GH and pH, and see if the parameters are compatible with my tank’s water.

I asked them a while wgo, and they said they have more acid water than mine.
Perhaps drip acclimating could be a good option? If so, how can I drip acclimate?

 

[Byron]

This is a reasonable assumption i think, If this is true, how can I make it so that these fish are acclimated to my tank? I am setting ip a quarantine tank right now, so perhaps a really slow flowing and sterile environment could help them acclimate?

I asked them a while wgo, and they said they have more acid water than mine.
Perhaps drip acclimating could be a good option? If so, how can I drip acclimate?

Acclimating is not the issue here. For one thing, fish cannot acclimate over hours, even days; it takes weeks and months. And this does not even occur with some species depending upon the parameters.

The issue however is the poor state of the fish. As @GaryE noted, the fish are forced raised and this causes internal issues. The fish should not be acquired if one can determine this, that is the job of responsible suppliers, some sadly are not.

Water acidity would have to be extreme, which it may well be.

 

[TNG]

I asked them a while wgo, and they said they have more acid water than mine.
Perhaps drip acclimating could be a good option? If so, how can I drip acclimate?

I’d want to know how more acidic their water is. A store once told me the pH of their cichlid tank water is over 8. When I got the fish home and tested it, it was 6.8
I didn’t dump the fish in my tank right away and the fish have now almost doubled their size. Would the fish survive if I had released them right away? Maybe, but I will never know.

If I have my heart set on these guppies, I’d ask the store for a bucket of water, I’d explain the reason and bring my own bucket if necessary (don’t know about any other stores, but my LFS would give me the water and lend me a bucket if asked).
If the water parameters are significantly different, I‘d replace my quarantine tank water with the LFS water but keep it no more than half full. Keep the fish in the store’s water and observe them for a few days.

Then add 10% of my tank’s water and observe the fish, repeat the process . . .

Once the tank is full, I’d compare the water parameters. If they are significantly different, I remove 10% of the quarantine water and replace with the tank’s water. Repeat, until I’m happy with the parameters.

If the fish are of poor quality, they may not survive long term.
But the above is what I’d do to minimise shock to the fish, and hopefully the guppies won’t die soon after they are released into the tank.

 

[Sgooosh]

Acclimating is not the issue here. For one thing, fish cannot acclimate over hours, even days; it takes weeks and months. And this does not even occur with some species depending upon the parameters.

The issue however is the poor state of the fish. As @GaryE noted, the fish are forced raised and this causes internal issues. The fish should not be acquired if one can determine this, that is the job of responsible suppliers, some sadly are not.

Water acidity would have to be extreme, which it may well be.

I’d want to know how more acidic their water is. A store once told me the pH of their cichlid tank water is over 8. When I got the fish home and tested it, it was 6.8
I didn’t dump the fish in my tank right away and the fish have now almost doubled their size. Would the fish survive if I had released them right away? Maybe, but I will never know.

If I have my heart set on these guppies, I’d ask the store for a bucket of water, I’d explain the reason and bring my own bucket if necessary (don’t know about any other stores, but my LFS would give me the water and lend me a bucket if asked).
If the water parameters are significantly different, I‘d replace my quarantine tank water with the LFS water but keep it no more than half full. Keep the fish in the store’s water and observe them for a few days.

Then add 10% of my tank’s water and observe the fish, repeat the process . . .

Once the tank is full, I’d compare the water parameters. If they are significantly different, I remove 10% of the quarantine water and replace with the tank’s water. Repeat, until I’m happy with the parameters.

If the fish are of poor quality, they may not survive long term.
But the above is what I’d do to minimise shock to the fish, and hopefully the guppies won’t die soon after they are released into the tank.

Thank you all so much!
I will try to stick to the intergeneric mutt guppies that people have given the fish store since they use our local water to raise them.
I will ask the fish store and test the water.


Another question: will slightly warmer water be less stressful to new fish than slightly colder water?

 

[TNG]

Another question: will slightly warmer water be less stressful to new fish than slightly colder water?

I’m not an expert on fish, but my guess is that it depends on the fish, there’s no one answer that is applicable to all fish.

Clarification on my previous post:
Then add water from my tank (if water in the quarantine tank is 10L, add 1 litre) each day and observe the fish. Repeat the process.

 

[Sgooosh]

I’m not an expert on fish, but my guess is that it depends on the fish, there’s no one answer that is applicable to all fish.

Clarification on my previous post:
Then add water from my tank (if water in the quarantine tank is 10L, add 1 litre) each day and observe the fish. Repeat the process.

thanks!

 

[Byron]

Another question: will slightly warmer water be less stressful to new fish than slightly colder water?

Depends upon species as already mentioned, but there is also the circumstance. If one is for example considering a water change, then with most fish slightly cooler seems to be better. This often invigorates the fish into spawning, simulating rainstorms. Warmer water is said to do similar for some species. Second, if one is thinking of fish being transferred into different temperature water, for most a warmer temp is less stressful. I would float the bag of fish to equalize temperature, I'm not aware of anyone suggesting this fails, though some "experts" say it doesn't matter, but I certainly do not agree with this.

 

[Sgooosh]

Depends upon species as already mentioned, but there is also the circumstance. If one is for example considering a water change, then with most fish slightly cooler seems to be better. This often invigorates the fish into spawning, simulating rainstorms. Warmer water is said to do similar for some species. Second, if one is thinking of fish being transferred into different temperature water, for most a warmer temp is less stressful. I would float the bag of fish to equalize temperature, I'm not aware of anyone suggesting this fails, though some "experts" say it doesn't matter, but I certainly do not agree with this.

thanks, very useful