Fish And Temperature Changes

[TwoTankAmin]

But most breeders do not have plants and ferts in breeder tanks. Most breeders do not have any serious level of nitrate in their tanks either. So the odds that the nitrate in the bags could constitute the majority of the bag water TDS is highly unlikely. The tank the fish are going into is a brand new tank set up and fully cycled to receive them. It got a 75% water change and my tap has no ammonia, no nitrite, no nitrate, no chlorine or chloramine as its a private well.
 
So now I have put to rest your concern about what is contributing to the TDS in the bag or in the tank they will be going into in terms of nitrate. My understanding is that normally, in fw tanks, most of GH comes from magnesium and calcium and that most of KH is from carbonates and bicarbonates. Is this information incorrect and if so, what do the come from and how do you know since you don't have the kits to test for it? If I am, then the balance of TDS will come from organics and an assortment of lesser amount things, including ions, that are not real likely to be major components and not likely to be present.
 
But I would agree one would not want to be putting fish into a tank with high nitrates. If the receiving tank has the high nitrates, in the absence of any other reasons, why would it matter whether one just plopped the fish in or spent two hours slowly turning the bag water into the same high nitrate tank water? I don't understand this. What would ever be a good reason to put any fish into high nitrate level water either slowly or rapidly?
 
If the high nitrates are in the bag water and not in the tank, would one not be inclined to get the fish out of that as fast as possible? But I know the sender/breeder and they did not put high nitrate water into the bag to begin with. So how would high nitrates get in there? The bag arrived in under 48 hours. Again I am very confused.
 
It seems to me there is no reason to think that the TDS level at either end is from something that would normally harm the fish. You can not breed sick fish and you can't keep healthy fish in "sick" water. At some point reasonable assumptions have to prevail. Just because high nitrates can contribute to TDs there is really not much chance of this. Just like there is little chance the TDS will be mostly from salt or anything else potentially dangerous.
 
Let me ask you this. If you are going to send me fish (any kind) from your tanks, should I be concerned that your tank water contains any levels of anything bad for those fish? I am sure the answer is no. You seem to have a good grasp on your tanks, you don't seem you lose fish etc. So why would I assume if you send me fish there might be too much nitrate or too much salt or anything along those lines in the bag water if it would be bad for the fish to be living in to begin with?
 
But what about the reverse. Because I like you so much I am going to send you a couple of my zebra plecos. My water is pH 7.0. Current TDs levels are 80 ppm using a Hanna digital. These fish can not tolerate ammonia, nitrite or much nitrate (fry can't handle it at all). GH is about 5 dg and KH about 4 dg using the API kits. The fish are living at about 84-86F (30 C or a bit below). They will be shipped with a heat pack good for 3 days and delivery is guaranteed in 2. The fish will be purged by not feeding for the 48 hours prior to being bagged and I will add a small amount of amquel to each bag as they will each be packed in their own. The fish are coming out of my breeder tank where affter a 2+ year hiatus the fish recently spawned twice.
 
Given all this information do you really think there is going to be something in the bag water itself that you would expect would be an issue because it is naturally in my watee? So why would you even want to test for nitrite, nitrate or specific gravity for salt? Why would you even bother to test for pH. You already know your's is much  higher, so if the bag is at 6 or 7, you will drip until it raises to where it makes you satisfied. Why would you not simply start the drip and test in 30 to 45 mins (I think your min drip time)?
 
Have I missed something?
 
I still think the natural adaptive nature of zebras (and many other fish) makes it very likely that you could plop and drop safely should you want to. However, I also see no reason to expect your drip method would be ill advised unless the water turned really nasty along the way, nasty enough that it makes you prefer to skip the drip.
 
Fish from seasonal regions tend to thrive on change and also to be able to handle somewhat poor conditions. And if you are correct that they retain this ability over many generations tank bred, then they should need a lesser amount of acclimation than those fish which are not so adaptive?
 
I don't know, you tell me?

 

[Chad]

Just as a curious side note what if evolution happened fast? Would that make a difference?
 
http/www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1294/20130409/evolution-hapfaster-think-study.htm
 
Also, TTA I missed it if you answered my question about what you perceive donya and I are saying about science. I think it's important that such definitions are clear.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Snazy- I understand your post. I used to analyze investment related data. I worked in a firm that consulted to very large corporate and municipal retirement systems. We had a ton of data. We had information on stocks and bonds going back some time. We had portfolio data for most investment management funds. But our operation was all of ten people and almost all the numbers came electronically. We used computers to do the work. When I began with the division they did everything on dumb terminals connected to a mainframe blocks away. I was responsible for converting us onto a PC network back in the late 1980s. I brought i an old friend of mine who was working on his Ph.D, in computer sciences at the time to over see all the coding as we relied on a lot of algorithms and he was a dbase expert. he designed our inhouse dbase. Donya may even know him by rep. as he used to be a dbase/AI guy. He is still at MIT but now at the Sloane School. Anyhow- one of my prime responsibilities was digging out the truth when new clients signed up and all their old data had to be made sense of. I was the only person, beside the boss who had full access and editing rights to the dbases.
 
As to my no-name comment. Here is what I can tell you. This is far from the only site where I am a member. I also do a bunch of specialty sites and read at some others where I am not a member. here is what i can see- Dr. Hovanec posts on the net as himself, Dr. Tanner (the Poret foam guy) another microbiologist, posts under his name. One of the earliest fishless cycling articles is by Dr. Chris Cow, is a Ph.D. chemist and he posted under his own name. I belong to site where Heiko Bleher posts under his own name. When Tom Barr posts even though the screen name is plantbrain, all posts are signed Tom Barr. Ian Fuller one of your countrymen and an internationally known cory expert posts under his own name. I could keep going, but hopefully I have made a point.
 
Anybody can write anything they want on this site as long as they do not break the rules. I don't know about anybody else here but I have fishlessly cycled about 75 tanks so far- give or take. But I have no way to prove this to anybody I could just be saying it. But if you believe I am telling the truth, then you are likely going to think I probably know more about cycling than say somebody who has been in the hobby for a year or so and struggled to get one tank cycled. But how can you determine if I have indeed been in the hobby for over 13 years, that I have 20 tanks running, that I am a moderator on another site. I could tell you I have fish the grandfather of which is the fish featured on  the Cover of Ingo Seidlel's Back to Nature Guide to L Number Catfish. These are all things I am saying which could be true or which could be fiction. And the same is true for you, for Donya, for Tcamos and every other anonymous screen name on every site.
 
Tell me how, when you write that you have dripped for years and nothing ever died, that anybody knows it is the truth? Why should anybody simply believe it just because you say it?
 
It has to do with credibility. There are only two reasons for me to believe what you say. I can verify it independently or else I know who you are. On the net there is no way to know who people are. But this sort of sumsit up  and shows why I look at anything on any fish site (as well as most other sites) with a jaundiced eye.
 

 
 
Tcamos, it doesn't much matter because it is radically different than what I believe. When I asked Donya
 
"Should I listen to the science in that paper where I can see names, credentials methods etc. or should I just accept what somebody I know nothing about posts? This was her reply:
 
I would listen to where the argument makes sense and wouldn't care about the rest. That's how blind peer review works for scientific publications.
 
As far as I know that is not how blind peer review is done. The reviewers know beforehand that the material they will review relates to their own field. The reviewer knows the paper has already been looked at by the editor who is asking for the review. So it has passed the it looks like it makes sense test and even then the editor is somewhat qualified. So the reviewer is being asked to kick the tires and make sure, to check every method and conclusion. But the other things that reviewer knows is even though he/she doesn't know who they are, the authors will be credentialed to the point of being qualified to have done the sophisticated work to get to that point. He knows they are not just average joes and janes who have neither the education, the hands on experience or the facilities that may have been needed to write such a paper. So no, Donya, that is not how blind peer review works. But I will say this, blind peer review should only serve to make the paper more credible.
 
So what Donya tells us is, if it sounds good, it doesn't matter if its true, that is enough to accept it. And no I do not agree with that either.
 
As far as I can tell most of the people posting in this thread and I have no common ground when it comes to the purpose and use of scientific research. You do not seem to adhere to the idea that one works with the best available tools until better comes along.
 
I am a poker player. A lot of the game is based on the odds but some of it is also psychological warfare- bluffing. But it is often a simple matter of I have 4 cards in one suit, I get one more card. There is basically a 1 in 4 chance it will be in my suit to give me a flush. Another player makes a bet and I can then see how much money is in the pot. If the cost of calling results in a pot that is less than 4 times the amount of my bet, I am getting less than 4-1 odds for a 1 in 4 chance to win. Those are bad odds, so if I think I need that flush to win I had best fold. On the other hand, if the amount it costs me to call is 10 % of what I can win, those are dam good odds and I would call invest in a 4-1 shot that paid 10 to 1. And that is an example of going with the best information available. Here is the thing, even if I fold and the last card is dealt and it proves to be in my suit and I would have won the hand, the decision was still the correct one to make.
 
And its the same for the best science available. It doesn't guarantee it will be right, but is sure has bettor odds that something somebody who I know nothing about writes on the net behind a screen name.
 
Steve Jobs is dead because he went with what sounded good instead of the science. So I will let Donya go with what makes sense and I will go with the best odds. However I would like to play poker with her some time.
 
mama- I have never called you unqualified nor an idiot. I have never called you anything. I do not make personal attacks. But since you say you are, who am I to argue?
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

[Mamashack]

mama- I have never called you unqualified nor an idiot. I have never called you anything. I do not make personal attacks. But since you say you are, who am I to argue?

This is a real digression from the subject however I feel compelled to reply to TTA's last comment
You may not have said the actual words, but the disdain and contempt you have shown for any one of my posts is very evident (including the ones outside of the scientific forum) - even when totally ignoring them as pointed out by Donya in this thread. To you I am one of the "no-name" screen-names.
 
But do you know what? That doesn't bother me half as much as the disrespect you show to other folks' posts, people who have a wealth of experience and are willing to share it. And you sit there and pour scorn on what they say and even tell them they don't know what they are talking about because it is different to what you have read. You are impressed by "names" and drop them into the conversation to "prove" you are right. The only thing it proves is you are a name-dropper.

 

[Chad]

Tcamos, it doesn't much matter because it is radically different than what I believe.

I'm not sure what to make of this. It seems like a cop out. It should be pretty easy for you to explain what your perception is and though you say it doesn't much matter it's actually foundational.

As far as I can tell most of the people posting in this thread and I have no common ground when it comes to the purpose and use of scientific research. You do not seem to adhere to the idea that one works with the best available tools until better comes along.

When I said, "I don't think we will be able to say without a shadow of a doubt that plop and drop is right for all species and circumstance but we may arrive at the point where we think it's best most of the time." I meant just that. We cannot arrive at a perfect place but can arrive at a functional one which is, as you say, the best available tools until better comes along.

So getting back to the point of this thread (and stopping the personal and very unscientific attacks) which as I see it is...what is the science behind piscine tolerance to changes in water parameters and what variables affect it?

 

[snazy]

So now I have put to rest your concern about what is contributing to the TDS in the bag or in the tank they will be going into in terms of nitrate. My understanding is that normally, in fw tanks, most of GH comes from magnesium and calcium and that most of KH is from carbonates and bicarbonates. Is this information incorrect and if so, what do the come from and how do you know since you don't have the kits to test for it? If I am, then the balance of TDS will come from organics and an assortment of lesser amount things, including ions, that are not real likely to be major components and not likely to be present.

 
Just to ask, but is that an anecdotal conclusion or a scientific one? I know that much myself without reading your scientific papers.
 

But what about the reverse. Because I like you so much I am going to send you a couple of my zebra plecos. My water is pH 7.0. Current TDs levels are 80 ppm using a Hanna digital. These fish can not tolerate ammonia, nitrite or much nitrate (fry can't handle it at all). GH is about 5 dg and KH about 4 dg using the API kits. The fish are living at about 84-86F (30 C or a bit below). They will be shipped with a heat pack good for 3 days and delivery is guaranteed in 2. The fish will be purged by not feeding for the 48 hours prior to being bagged and I will add a small amount of amquel to each bag as they will each be packed in their own. The fish are coming out of my breeder tank where affter a 2+ year hiatus the fish recently spawned twice.
 
Given all this information do you really think there is going to be something in the bag water itself that you would expect would be an issue because it is naturally in my watee?

 
And do you expect that the fish will die instantly just because they were drip acclimated to my water of 270ppm TDS, 12 Gh, and 8 Kh (0 levels for ammonia/nitrite and nitrAte). Do you think a plop and drop method would give them more chance? Should I just start floating the bag first for some time instead to temperature match it and then drop them in my tank because it doesn't matter, they are doomed already....
 And your example and concerns that no matter what I do to acclimate these fish, I may still run into problems,  not becaue of your water, but because of my water, proves the point that osmoregulation is way more important than what you are trying to make it look like. And proves that even if the fish survive the introduction to the tank, the problem comes afterwards, when their immune system is compromised by the inability to adapt to the new water, hence leading to secondary diseases/problems, and even death. 
But surely in extreme cases like this I've got a better chance to keep them alive longer by giving them a small chance to adapt via drip acclimation, until I realize that my water isn't suitable for zebra plecos and move them out?
 
And I am waiting for my zebra plecos so we can stop presuming what will happen 

 

These fish can not tolerate ammonia, nitrite or much nitrate (fry can't handle it at all).

 
And you answered yourself the question you asked Tcamos earlier, why age should be considered when deciding how to acclimate. Do you think your method of first floating the bag in the tank as a first step, under bright lights(as you mentioned you've done it too with no issues), is going to give them more chance than drip acclimation? And drip acclimation would kill them, providing the water parameters in the target tank are ideal for them.  If so, why?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

snazy- you have totally misconstrued what I wrote-
 
I said that to expect things to be in the water when the box comes from a reliable source is unusual. The odds are pretty low there is nothing such as high nitrate or salt in that senders water as well as the recipient's. I said I would not expect to find these things in your water if you sent me fish and I wondered why you might suspect if I sent you fish from the tank I described why you might suspect things like that would be in mine.
 
As for the GH and KH I said it was "my understanding", meaning it was what I have read but not confirmed to any great extent. I asked if I was wrong on this could you explain why and how you know. All I asked for was a source. If you had one I would have liked to be able to read it and to bookmark it for future reference. I am not a chemist, so I have to research topics in this area to have any real idea what is going on. Perhaps you are a chemist so you know this stuff for that reason?
 
I then said I thought that the nature of zebras, and other seasonal type fish, was such that they could go directly from my params into yours via the plop and drop method without problems. My point was these fish are built to handle big changes, which was why. They would likely breed in your water as well, if you know how to trigger them. Please go back and reread what I wrote. My point was not to comment on the drip method it was to emphasize the fact that I felt those fish which are constitutionally adapted to handle parameter swings in the wild should be able to handle changes better than fish who do not have this natural ability. The adaptive ones should need less acclimation in general was my point. And I do not think weird differences in params such as huge nitrates or salt added where it did not belong were realistic concerns when the recipient knows their water and the water of the sender.
 
I have gotten many 100s of fish shipped in over the years and almost none from retail stores. So my experience relates most strongly to bags coming in nasty with some regularity. I also tend to use the fill the box method. that means i am likely to get 5 or six bags of fish in one shipment with 40 or 50 fish. And often the fish in one bag will end up in different tanks, Some go into Q. some into established tanks. I see now way I could do a drip in such cases even if I wanted to. I have tanks in two different building and in 4 different rooms.
 
This is a perfect example of why I feel the advice to "go with what ever makes the most sense to you" is not for me. It does make sense that fish which can handle change in the wild should be able to do so in tanks as well. By extension, it makes sense they would therefore need less acclimation, of any type one might use. However, what makes sense is often not the option of choice because one can't make sense of information you don't have. That is why I raised the question about seasonal fish vs non-seasonal. Maybe the logic and the reality do not match.
 
I do not float bags under bright light. I believe what I said was when I put the new fish into the tank I don't normally leave the tank light off, and if I did, it wasn't for long. It is not a good idea to float a bag under very bright light, in some cases it will warm the bag water to fast. However, I am always amused watching the fish in the tank and the fish in the bag interact before the new fish have been freed. The tank fish are usually very curious and are "sniffing" all around the it. I have sometimes wondered if this behavior serves as a sort of meet and greet which sometimes mutes aggression after the new fish. I don't get to see this much as there are very few occasions where I don't Q. When I pick up the fish myself from people I know, I feel I can skip Q. I don't do it often and never into tanks with rarer more expensive fish. If I am going to do something stupid, I don't want it to be an expensive stupid.
 
 
Osmoregulation is an interesting topic. I have always been on the fence about it. I think at some level and under certain conditions it must become an issue, my question is when. Its an obvious reason why we can't move fw and sw fish between each others environs. but then I look at fish that normally do move between the two. However, most of what I read is anecdotal. One of the more interesting things I read on the topic is on the site of one of the leading ange breeder/sales sites here in the states. But what made the read more interesting was on an angel forum he later reversed himself on his position. The even more interesting part is that while he now feels that it is not an issue when he sends out fish, but he also still wants his buyers to use a drip acclimation method for his fish. He claims, and I have no way to confirm it, that he has shipped over 100,000 bags of fish (he has been at it several decades).
 
I have links to his original article but am trying to track down the posts. I am not a member of the site where they appeared and this old brain can't remember it so I am hunting. I stumbled onto it because of things related to Altums and found the site where he and my most recent altum guy got into it on the site and I was reading that. Oddly enough the fight was about acclimating altums. The angel breeder claimed years back he used to bring in altums and plop and drop them from the importer into water that would make most altum keepers cringe and it was fine. None of the experts whom I consult for altum advice agree with that practice and it has been suggest he may not be remembering right since it was many years ago. He is a domestic breeder not an importer. When I find it I will post both  links as you might find it an interesting read. His main concern is for the tanks where the fish are going not with what is in the bag.
 
If you want to talk about long acclimation ask me some time about the 5 month journey from receiving Altums into bacteria free 4.2 pH, 35 ppm TDS water and gradually moving them over to tap water at a slightly adjusted to 6.0 and 75 ppm and full of the normal bacteria. Now that is a slow acclimation. It always kills some of the fish

 
I am thinking the situation on this site involving my methods and ideas and why I have arrived at them conflicts with a few folks here. For whatever reason it has degenerated to the point where we are no longer seeing or understanding clearly what each other are saying. For my part I am tired of it. I have two choices. I can end it all by walking away from the site and its done. Or I can hang around and just stop engaging folks on most topics such as this one, or bacteria and cycling etc. I will figure it out soon. If I eliminate these general topics, the ones that really interest me and on which I do the most reading, what is left are things rarely discussed on this site because most members are not involved. These are the topics for which I use the specialty sites such as the zebra pleco site, the altum site, a general pleco site, planetcat etc.
 
If I could ship internationally, I would send you a couple of zebras as a peace offering. Over the years I have donated, given away or traded a bunch of them. But all this has nothing to do with acclimation or fish and temperature changes or even water chemistry. This thread has disintigrated into nothing scientific. Any topic I try to start in this section seems to do this and has for a couple of years. So
 
I think I am now done responding to most of this stuff. It is beginning to detract from all the other things on FF and I really do not wan't that.

 

[Donya]

So what Donya tells us is, if it sounds good, it doesn't matter if its true, that is enough to accept it. 

 
You have grossly misunderstood what I wrote and the examples given. To reiterate the problem one last time: my critique of that website you gave is that it used the logically unsound notion of proof by repetition, which is really no different from the unsound idea of proof by example. The purpose of repetition in an empirical setting is mathematical and attempts to exploit aspects of probability theory. It has nothing to do with establishing the “truth” of anything.
 
 

 These are all things I am saying which could be true or which could be fiction. And the same is true for you, for Donya, for Tcamos and every other anonymous screen name on every site.

 
I'm using my first name, not a screen name, so I am not anonymous unless you think I'm impersonating myself. My full name is always in my signature, and it's an easy step from that and my location/university to my publication record (which has made me plenty familiar with how blind peer review works) and plenty of other information about me and what I do. In fact, if you were actually interested in what I work on, you could have found that information in a few button clicks without asking me. 

 

[snazy]

I am acclimating two zebra ottos at the moment from a TDS of 211, ph 6.4 to a tank with TDS 300ppm and Ph of 7.4. They travelled about 4 hours in the boot of the car in a plastic bag, inside a styrofoam box. It was a nice day so the temperature didn't drop much at all, but is dropping during acclimating as it's been 2 hours already since I started and still no parameters match. I increased the drip only 15-20 min ago as it is coming close now. I also got 4 nerite snails and 3 red ramshorn snails. Pitty they didn't have malaysian trumpet snails. I hope the ottos survive. I am putting them in my shrimp/baby cory tank for now but they are going to go to my 5f tank once it is safe in there for them.  I paid 12.50 euro for each otto and they only had 2 of them. I so much wanted a small school of them....

  I'll let you know what happens.
 
Edit: I just checked on them under the towel(that TTA was laughing about) and I could see only one otto so I freaked out. But then I saw the 2nd one hanging on the side of the bucket...

 

[snazy]

I moved them in the tank just 5-10min ago. It took 3 hrs for the TDS to match. The Ph seemed the same colour as mine at around 2.5hrs but I waited a bit longer to match the TDS.
I recorded the params with pics and took a video of the ottos just after transfer for you guys to see and now lights are off until tomorrow.
I'll post the details later as I am setting up my 5f now, putting soil beneath the gravel, planting and all.....

 

[daizeUK]

How do you know that 3 hours is the right length of time to allow the fish's physiology to successfully adapt to the new TDS?

 

[Chad]

My screen name is my name as well. T. Chad Amos...that's me!

The topic started was fish and temperature changes and I think we have gotten far afield from that and made the topic over broad.

As it relates to temperature changes and fish just what are we trying to define scientifically? That they can tolerate fast temperature changes? That they need slower changes? They can tolerate going from colder to warmer but not the other way around...or the other way around they can tolerate going from warmer to colder? Etc. What is the goal of this thread in relation to fish and temperature changes since that's the stated topic?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

That's a good question.  I think the research tried to show the extremes for North American fish - and found the optimum rate of change for temp acclimation was 0.3C/min.  The note that TTA also brought out, but the researchers did not (if I recall correctly) in their summary, was that if the fish appeared to be overly stressed from the temperature extreme, putting them back into the "acclimation" temperature (which I believe means their normal temp, but I could be wrong - going by memory here) all fish recovered.
 
 
The question that remains for me, as I pointed out is this:  temperate fish versus tropical fish.  How can we extrapolate these findings to tropical fish effectively?
 
From the summary of the findings:

If fish at this point are quickly returned to their pretest acclimation temperature, 100% survival is expected. CTmaximum or CTminimum are usually summarized as the mean of a trial. The rate of temperature change during a trial needs to be constant, linear and fast enough to prevent tolerance from being gained during the trial and slow enough to allow the fish’s body temperature to closely track water temperature. Empirical findings indicate a constant, linear temperature change of 0.3C/min meets these criteria.

 
I didn't glean through the entire paper to see how they quantified "quickly returned to their pretest acclimation temperature".  How quick is quick?  It may be in the paper, but I don't have time to read it all right now.
 
For me, floating the bag for 15-30 minutes (depending on the amount of water the fish are in) and/or drip acclimating would be sufficiently quick, IMHO, to allow the fish to reach a more optimum temperature, aka our tank's temperature, before putting them directly from the temp they are currently in while in the bag, to dropping directly into the tank.  And the thing that stands out for me is that NO WHERE in this paper do they directly address the issue at hand, which is whether or not drip acclimation is in anyway harmful to the fish.  Therefore, it is up to the individual to draw their own conclusion regarding whether the drip acclimation or a faster "plop and drop" would be best - speaking purely about temp acclimation, and not considering ammonia poisoning, or any other water chemistry issue.

 

[snazy]

How do you know that 3 hours is the right length of time to allow the fish's physiology to successfully adapt to the new TDS?

 
I'll write a detailed post but I am wrecked now. It took 3 hrs for this particular fish and water parameters(in the bucket), to match the ones in the tank. I use mostly the TDS meter, because it's just an electronic stick that takes a second to measure the level in the bucket( I already had tested the tank too) So from a 211ppm(zebra ottos water) I had to wait until the drip acclimation(as explained in my earlier posts), matches the TDS in my tank, which was 300ppm(got slightly lower because I was constantly replacing the water in the tank too which resulted in a 30%+ water change for the 3hrs drip into the bucket)  Same for the Ph, but I tested the Ph in the bucket twice, once before the drip, once near the end when the TDS was already creeping up. It actually took faster for the Ph to equal in both tank and bucket, than the TDS(about 30min difference)
So time doesn't matter. Sometimes it took 45 min, sometimes an hour or 1.30hrs, sometimes 2hrs. It all depends in what water the fish came from and how fast the drip will equalize in mine. I actually had a chat with the owner in the shop and he said their water is very soft.  You still don't want the drip to last too long. I don't think in most cases you'll have worse difference in parameters than this.
Anyway, if the difference is great, you start slower drip, then at some stage when you've reached nearly halfway through the TDS difference, increase a bit because by that time you've removed possibly 3 times 50% of the water in the bucket already and even though not matched yet, the fish should be in a lot of tank water. Then you can increase a bit later again, when nearly matching, like 20ppm difference because you want the temperature to match eventually too.  
 
Once you do drip acclimation a couple of times, it's really easy, it just sounds complicated because you've got to get used of it, how fast to drip, when to increase, etc...Some people don't have a TDS meter(both mine for 20 euro)
But that's why I monitor the fish too from time to time as they are best indicators. The ottos were pale when I put them in the bucket and not moving.  When I sneaked a few looks afterwards, they were moving around. One was on the side of the bucket and one swimming a bit. I couldn't see the colour because it was dark but I took the video straight after I put the zebras and the snails in the tank. They are skinny ottos though, poor things..

 

[Chad]

The question that remains for me, as I pointed out is this:  temperate fish versus tropical fish.  How can we extrapolate these findings to tropical fish effectively?

That was the point I was trying to get across that there are variables that must be taken into consideration. If we are to give advice to people on how to acclimate their fish I feel we should know something about that species. I would not drip acclimate a cory or a mandarin but I wouldn't want to plop and drop a tang. Granted in the case of these fish it isn't related to temperature but does go to illustrating the idea that acclimation is actually a rather complex act when we break it down.