Drip Acclimation

[KrystaK]

I bought a group of three Otto's today, and I decided to try drip acclimation.

There must be an easier way than sucking on air hosing to get the water to come through, it was gross, I may or man not have gotten fish water in my mouth a few times

But other than having my mouth contaminated by fish water it's been a pretty good experience

Just thought I'd let people know

 

[crazyforcordoras]

I do so with my saltwater inverts and coral... Sometimes i do get some salty fish water in my mouth... Gross...

 

[drobbyb]

It's not that bad But you can always rinse out your mouth with something to kill any germs that may have gotten in there. I'm not a doctor so I can't recommend what to use. Use common sense

 

[Easy]

I bought a group of three Otto's today, and I decided to try drip acclimation.

There must be an easier way than sucking on air hosing to get the water to come through, it was gross, I may or man not have gotten fish water in my mouth a few times

But other than having my mouth contaminated by fish water it's been a pretty good experience

Just thought I'd let people know

LOL, I think it's safe to say we have all done that. So nasty! The other day I noticed my gravel vacuum had a crack in it so I went and picked up a new one with......a primer pump! Brilliant! No more fish water for me thank you.

 

[Tolan]

I haven't seen that many freshies doing this. I thought it was more common for salties. For freshwater don't most people just put the bag in the water?

 

[elmo666]

I always acclimatise my fish but not using the drip method. I roll the edge of the bag up, lights off and float it for 20 mins to balance the temp. I fill a large beaker from the tank and pour a small amout in every 2 mins for the next 20 mins or so. When I am ready to release the fish I have my net balanced on the edge of my bowl, slowly pour the bag into it, then let my new fish swim out of the net into the tank. I do this to get as little as I can of the bag water into my tank. I help out in my lfs now and again and noticed they never pour bag water into their tanks to minimse cross contamination.

 

[ZoddyZod]

I haven't seen that many freshies doing this. I thought it was more common for salties. For freshwater don't most people just put the bag in the water?

simply placing the bag in the tank water will only match the water temperature, so you aren't actually acclimatizing the fish to the tanks water chemistry (which is the important part). Slowly adding tank water to the bag is the most common way to acclimatize.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

I only use drip acclimatisation for sensitive fish or say for instance you are trying to keep soft water fish in harder water, no need for most general fishies or less sensitive types

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have never done sw, so I can not speak to that side of things. But, imo, fw drip acclimation is a complete waste of time and effort. Why, you may ask, and here is my answer.

1. If acclimation results in a raising of the pH of the water in the bag, then you are making any ammonia present more toxic. This probably kills/harms more new fish than anything else.

2. If the hardness/TDS is different by a sufficient amount to cause problems, then it takes a lot longer than the time spent in acclimation, drip or otherwise, to allow a fish to adapt to the osmotic differences.

3. The longer a fish has been in a bag, the greater the amount of waste that is in there, so it is often less stressful to plop the fish into somewhat different conditions than to leave it in the dirty water.

4. Drip acclimation is such a slow process, unless measures are taken to hold the temp of the bag water up, it can chill pretty easily.

Just another note. Floating bags can cause issues in some cases. Firstly, the store often writes the price on the bag, I do not want that "ink" in my water (I do not float bags with writing on them). Secondly, even when there is no writing, the bag has had a chance to pick up stuff from wherever it is set down etc. I always thoroughly rinse the outside of the bag before I float it. In some cases I will fill a bucket with water temp. matched to the tank's and then float the bag in that.