Fuel To The Fire Of Acclimatization

[Aphotic Phoenix]

In all honesty I've stopped floating my fish bags after observing the increased stress that comes with it. If I feel the need to drip acclimate I do so in another small container.

 

[andywg]

I personally believe that whether or not it takes 10 days for full acclimitization, it's still better than nothing to let a fish sit in a bag for 10 minutes. Because the temperature will gradually go up in the span of 10 minutes rather than instantly go up if he is dropped into the fish tank. Just my opinion. Makes sense to me at least, if not anyone else.

But the point being put forward is, if it takes 10 days to acclimatise, then the difference between 10 mins in the bag, and 0 is not that great. However, 10 minutes in ammonia filled water is almost certainly going to have some detrimental effect on the fish.

 

[nurglespuss]

Ahhh so the simple information gained from this venture is:

Temp balancing is semi-useful, as it turns 'insta-shock' into a more 'preparation-shock' psychologically for the fish.

Leaving the fish in the bag for ten minutes is not harmful, but its not beneficial really either.

Leaving the fish in the bag for ten minutes, after it has already trevelled for an hour, is probably not a good idea though.

Chemical acclimation takes a lot longer than temperature acclimation.

Shocks are bad for stressed out fish.

Really, common sense should prevail here, Less Haste more Speed.

 

[jollysue]

I have to end my day. And, andywg, I would gladly try to work out out issues privately, so that we can stop derailing the thread, and let the discussion address the subject that you stated well. There are apparently many misunderstandings in our communication.

 

[pieman]

Luckily my LFS is quite close and my tank happens to be 2 degrees colder than theirs so I just assume that this is the amount of heat which has been lost during transport and i then just stick the fish straight in.

 

[ladybugbzzzz]

I was just talking to my friend and I have a question about this. It makes sense if you're tank is warmer, but what if your tank is COLDER? would this change anything? why/why not?
Jade
Edit - says her bags (she ships, and I have never shipped so I'm not real sure how it works) come in much warmer than her tank. Also - does this ONLY apply to freshwater?

 

[andywg]

Ahhh so the simple information gained from this venture is:

I don't think any simple information has been gleaned yet. People have put forward ideas, but with little agreement or consensus gained to this point.

I wonder why jollysue didn't point out the (badly hidden) sarcasm in your post and keep writing dialectics at you?

Really, common sense should prevail here, Less Haste more Speed.

I think it will come down to personal preference. People will do what they have done with good success unless some very good convincing evidence for one or the other can be found.

And referring to your point on zoology books, I have flicked through Biology of Fishes 2nd Edition by Bond, Fishes, An Introduction to Icthyology 5th Edition by Moyle and Cech Jr and Reef Fishes Volume 1 by Scott W. Michael. None of them mention the acclimatisation of fish to different temperatures, though Michael notes that some areas of reef lagoons can have the lagoon temperature rise by 7 degrees between the tides, before the much cooler ocean water floods in as the tide comes back in.

Also, the ability of a fish to cope with rapid changes in temperature changes will quite probably depend on whether it is stenothermic (tolerating a narrow band of temperatures - think stenohaline) or eurythermic (tolerating a wider variety of temperature - think euryhaline). Now, one may well fall into the trap of assuming that since a fish is tropical, and has a narrow natural temperature range, that it is going to be stenothermic. Recent studies have noted, however, that many reef fish are somewhat euryhaline (despite almost no natural variation in salinity in the wild). I would not be surprised to see that many fish are somewhat eurythermic, despite their natural habitat having little temperature variation.

 

[nurglespuss]

stenothermic or eurythermic it doesnt really matter, the point here is not about their total range, nor about their capacity to cope with fast temperature changes, nor even about their ability to have a wide or narrow total temperature range.

I did say Zoology books, not specific fish related books, we are understanding the general dynamics here, not a specific group of creatures.

That cleared up? good.

The understood concept is:

All creatures have a reasonable total range of temperatures in which they can survive, the upper/lower most sections almost always require gradual acclimation (good exceptions include woodfrogs).

There is a genral 'mid-area' between these two points in which more rapid acclimation is possible, with lower stress levels.

Now imagine for instance the Goldfish. This little fellow has a very wide temperature range indeed.

However, what would hapen if you placed a goldfish from the lowest range, to the a range much firther up the scale? It would almost certainly die of thermic shock.

You can demonstrate this by drawing the following graph:

Now this graph helps to demonstrate (over simply) the above stated points.

A goldfish in the middle of its range (comfort zone) has the greates ability to travel between the its different temperature ranges. A gold fish at either end of its range has much less ability.

Now, To the earlier poster: your tone is derisive and passive aggressive, which I find unneccessary. I have not been sarcastic or anything but positive. This is a good discussion and its a good lesson to learn. Now any good vertebrate zoology text book is what you need.

Hope that helps clear it up.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

I personally believe that whether or not it takes 10 days for full acclimitization, it's still better than nothing to let a fish sit in a bag for 10 minutes. Because the temperature will gradually go up in the span of 10 minutes rather than instantly go up if he is dropped into the fish tank. Just my opinion. Makes sense to me at least, if not anyone else.

But the point being put forward is, if it takes 10 days to acclimatise, then the difference between 10 mins in the bag, and 0 is not that great. However, 10 minutes in ammonia filled water is almost certainly going to have some detrimental effect on the fish.

Whos to say the bag is filled with ammonia andy. It's not if you just got it from the local fish store. And yeah 10 minutes makes a huge difference, I can see it in my fish that I let out immediately compared to those who I havent. It makes a massive difference actually. Think of it this way, would you want to go from temperatures of 40 degrees to 90 instantly or would you rather have the temperature increase over 10 minutes. You'd probably get fairly sick from a change like that instantly. I know I'd throw up. For a fish it would be similar IMO. and 10 minutes for temperature acclimation, plus 30 minutes for water quality acclimation makes a huge difference.

 

[Covert]

Is it possible that the "plop" method only works for some, as the shops they purchase fish from uses the same water they do? If they really are LOCAL fish shops using the local water, there cant be a problem with acclimatization. However, if you decide to choose a shop, like one i go to if i want to find less common fish, where they regulate their pH/Hardness/Tempreture alot more, so that they are much different to your own parameters, the plop method may not be as successful.

I wouldnt be sure about ploping a fish from a shop where the pH difference is 1.2, and the hardness differs by about 10 degrees.

 

[andywg]

stenothermic or eurythermic it doesnt really matter, the point here is not about their total range, nor about their capacity to cope with fast temperature changes, nor even about their ability to have a wide or narrow total temperature range.

For understanding that the concept of thermal shock takes place they are unimportant. For dealing with the issues of acclimatising fish it becomes very important.

While they are different mechanisms, euryhaline fish can cope with far more rapid changes in salinity than stenohaline - even to the point you can take one from FW and dump it in SW with a reasonable prospect of them taking the hit fine, therefore it is perfectly reasonable to assume some (or most) eurythermic fish will react better to wider temperature change than stenothermic fish. In the practical application here, that will become a valid point. A tropical fish that can actually tolerate lower temperatures is likely to have a larger "safe " area for rapid temperature acclimatisation, possibly extending to the temperature of the bag upon delivery.

However, what would hapen if you placed a goldfish from the lowest range, to the a range much firther up the scale? It would almost certainly die of thermic shock.

That is obviously accepted. But a larger range can be expected to give a larger "safe" area of rapid change, and more chance of the fish being in its comfort zone when commencing acclimatisation (if any is to take place). That was the reason for my comment on stenothermic/eurythermic, and I repeat I think it could be a valid point on the acclimatisation method used on fish.

Hope that helps clear it up.

It clears up the general process that moving something from too cold to too hot is bad for the fish, but does it include moving a fish from too cold to the ideal temperature? You have stated that the fish can change a certain amount within a range very easily, and that from one extreme a fish cannot be moved to another extreme, but what is the impact of moving them from towards one extreme into the ideal area. I know that I don't have massive problems moving from a cold plunge pool into a nicely heated pool. Likewise, if I am too hot outdoors in 40 degree heat, walking into an air conditioned room is pleasant, not a struggle (though we are again comparing endothermic to exothermic organisms).

Also, if it truly takes 10 days for a fish to fully acclimatise to a lower temperature, then on an overnight delivery the fish has not acclimatised to the lower temperature (which presumably is continuously dropping at a slow rate throughout the journey), and therefore will not be doing a full acclimatisation to the ideal temperature, yes? (perhaps relevant to the points I make about my own acclimatisation in the above paragraph, I haven't truly "acclimatised" to either heat extreme).

Therefore we are dealing with a different model, we are not moving the fish from one temperature it is acclimatised to to one it is not, we are moving it back to one it has not truly acclimatised from. I daresay that from there it all gets far more interesting, and at this point it would be interesting to see what biological processes the fish acclimatises first to the lower temperature. As noted before by me, there are some which fully acclimatise within 20 hours, but it has been repeatedly stated that some can take 10 days.

Now, To the earlier poster: your tone is derisive and passive aggressive, which I find unneccessary.

To whom is this addressed? Dare you not speak the name of your accused?

Whos to say the bag is filled with ammonia andy. It's not if you just got it from the local fish store. And yeah 10 minutes makes a huge difference, I can see it in my fish that I let out immediately compared to those who I havent. It makes a massive difference actually.

The OP is from a shipper's site about overnight deliveries. A look at the linked threads will show that this discussion is broadly about three choices for acclimatisation: just plopping the livestock straight in, floating the bag unopened to match temperature, then placing the fish in, or opening the bag and gradually acclimatising the fish to minimise any possible shock from a change in situation, but with a possible risk of increased exposure to ammonia as the pH rises affecting the ammonia-ammonium balance.

For that reason I brought up the ammonia point.

Think of it this way, would you want to go from temperatures of 40 degrees to 90 instantly or would you rather have the temperature increase over 10 minutes. You'd probably get fairly sick from a change like that instantly. I know I'd throw up. For a fish it would be similar IMO. and 10 minutes for temperature acclimation, plus 30 minutes for water quality acclimation makes a huge difference.

But you are anthropomorphising the issue. You are looking at what you feel, and assuming it is the same for fish. When we walk into higher heat our bodies have to start working hard to shed internal body heat to stop us overheating. Walk into the cold and we have to start taking action to prevent our core body temperature dropping too low. With a fish it just has its body temperature differ. If you raise the temperature then the fish's metabolism increases and it will need to eat more often (but will be able to move quicker).

The point made about fish in a bag is that the CO2 expelled by the fish can push the pH down in the bag, thus making the ammonia:ammonium balance more in favour of the less toxic compound. Opening the bag is believed to be responsible for releasing all the CO2, giving a sharpish rise in pH and subjecting fish to increased ammonia.

 

[CruX]

Some good points here, not just on how best to acclimatise a fish. I too find Andywg to be sarcastic at times, if not most of the time, but people say that about me too. I am a sarcastic person to people that know me but I try and rein it in on the internet as you can't accurately predict the effect ones post could have on a reader, just as Andywg probably didn't think that some people would find his avatar hugely offensive, myself included. What probably turns people sour to your posting style is the 'bully' tag under the avatar and the gloating of being considered as a bully in the sig.
I do agree that it is wrong to let falsehoods reported as fact go unchallanged, this is also one of my pet hates, along with people who say 'basically' then go on to provide a detailed account of something, and people who tell me I always do something but are then unable to provide an example of what I always do.
Sometimes people really believe things as fact, but cannot provide cold, hard proof to back up a fact, because they cannot provide proof to a singe person can't taint their position of view. I am interested to know what you would consider as an active admission of evidence, would having it reported in a factual book be credible enough? Taking religion as an example, there are many things written in the bible that I would find very hard to believe, but many people would read it as pure fact and I wouldn't like to argue the point with a church member. The point I am (badly) trying to make is one persons fact is another persons fiction. The flaw in my argument here is that the Bible is a collection of books that doesn't contain a foreward stating the works should be taken literally so they can be taken as fables on moral issues, it is also closer to a history book than a work of scientific investigation and every single book in the bible was written in times where not only was evidence hard to come by other than eye witness testiments but the way humans understood their environment was vastly different to the way we see it since the advent of sound science. Another point about the bible is all of the books are written in the third person, not a complete oddity but stories are more believeable if they are about a third person, I am not sure this is the intention of the authors or not. I once tested this theory when I worked as a salesman for a holiday ownership company. 9 times out of ten I would be asked if I had bought the product. 50% of the time I said yes, and 50% I told a third party story about a friend or relative buying the product. My rate of success was much better with the clients who I told I didn't own the product personally but I knew someone very well who did. Not conclusive proof but it does make me form the opinion that 3rd party stories make something more believeable.

The argument about humans being vastly different to fish is probably bang on. Humans use their body to regulate their temperature, whereas fish use their environment. I often wonder when I read of a fish being in a certain temperature how that figure is decided on, did some one repeatedly lower temperatures until a fish died and recorded one degree higher as being acceptable? Now take into account that some people are now reporting it takes ten days for a fish to acclimatise to a temperature and that puts it in a different light. Does that make it a possibility that once a fish is acclimatised to a lower temperature it can be gradually dropped down to a temperature even lower than thought before? Food for thought.

Humans are very adaptable, I wouldn't say a human can acclimatise to different climates in ten days, I would put the figure much higher. I left the cold but comfortable climes of the Dutch-German border in January 1998 and flew to the Falkland Islands via Ascension Island. The midnight heat of Ascension was crippling and I was glad we were only there a few hours, the Falklands were in their summer months but it was not a great summer and felt colder than the UK, certainly the wind chill made it feel worse, I didn't really find my self what I would call acclimatised for a good few months, I also took a short holiday of four days back on Ascension in the April and spent every day shade hogging, cold water showering and cold water guzzling. I left the Falklands with the snows on the grounds in June and flew back to the UK to an average summer, the change in climate wreaked havoc with me and I didn't start to enjoy the summer until it was all but over. Going on holiday to the med for a week might make one feel acclimatised in a few days because you would usually leave when it is warm and arrive when it is warmer, plus you wouldn't really be doing the same day to day activities as you were previously so it isn't a fair comparison, for example if you plowed fields by hand day to day in the UK then did the same activity in Andelucia you would arguably find it a harder task, not only is the body working harder while resting to maintain the correct core temperature it also has to do this while being worked too.
When I think of how fish are different in that they maintain their temperature directly through their environment as previously stated it makes me wonder if this limits them in that they can only use their environment, whereas humans to a degree can use their body and to a degree their environment. Alternatively it could mean that the fish that can accept a wider range of temperatures probably don't have a problem going from one temperature to another as long as it is done reasonably gradual, as though acclimatisation is extremely rapid as opposed to being 10 days more like a few hours or even minutes.

I wonder if this is something that we will ever have a definative answer on.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

But you are anthropomorphising the issue. You are looking at what you feel, and assuming it is the same for fish.


========================

No I am not assuming at all, I know that animals in general cannot with stand a sudden 50 degree drop in temperature. Not a single animal can. Many species go extinct because of a gradual 4 degree difference in temperature. An instant change of fifty is unbearable by any animal, save humans. Do you disagree just to disagree? I get that feeling from you.

 

[rdd1952]

Also, if it truly takes 10 days for a fish to fully acclimatise to a lower temperature, then on an overnight delivery the fish has not acclimatised to the lower temperature (which presumably is continuously dropping at a slow rate throughout the journey), and therefore will not be doing a full acclimatisation to the ideal temperature, yes?

I think this is the key point in the 10 day acclimation theory. If the fish were pulled from a tank at 78 degrees today, overnighted to me and I received them tomorrow with the temperature in the bag at 85 degrees (this is summer here and the temperature in the UPS/FedEx warehouse and trucks is going to be high so it stands to reason to me that the temperature will rise, not drop), by floating, I am just trying to get the temp in the bag close to the 78 in my tank rather than totally acclimate the fish from a temp of 85 degrees. As andywg said, he is just going back to the temperature he has always been accustomed to. For those of us that buy fish locally where they are only in the bag for 30 minutes to an hour, it's really not an issue.

As for the ammonia side of the issue, I find it hard to believe that the fish are going to produce a large amount of waste in less than 24 hours. I have never ordered fish online but I would imagine that next day shipping is almost a must. The fish are probably not sealed in the bags more than 24 hours before it is opened at the buyers location. I just find it hard to believe that the ammonia and CO2 levels would be high enough or the pH level low enough (due to high CO2) to be a major factor if the fish is floated for an hour or drip acclimated over several hours in the bag water. I obviously don't have anything to back my thoughts up. They are just my gut feelings.

Here's a little task for the next person that orders fish online. As soon as you open the bag, test the pH, GH, KH and ammonia in the bag to see just how high (or low) the levels are. The test again in say 10 minutes and 30 minutes since, according to what we are to believe, the pH level is supposed to rise once the CO2 is released from the bag. Then post back with those numbers as well as the number/type of fish in the bag, the shipping time (from the time UPS/FedEx picked up until delivery plus about 8 hours to allow for bagging and sitting before pickup) and the amount of water in with the bags. I think that would be very interesting information to see and would help us all understand just how high or low the levels change..

 

[jollysue]

Check the other threads posted at the beginning (about the 4th post) a bit because these test have been done to a degree.

Fish are often shipped and don't reach their destination right away. I have had them arrive late by days--even weeks--with the bag water leaked out and dead fish in the bags. Guess what method I used with the survivors? Guess which ones have done best in those cirumstances?

I admittedly do not know biology or chemistry or have a large speciality vocabulary.

I am enjoying reading the posts of people who do have some understanding and are clear and concise in their musings.

The plop method is used by many large fish recievers/importers and fish shops. The_Wolf has posted that where he worked they always used the plop method on fish they recieved. I buy more fish from breeders and wild caught than from the lps. I have recently switched to the plop method after floating the unopened bag for twenty minutes or so and I am startled at the results being so much better than my hours long and tedious anal former method.

This thread was to address the effects of the temp adjusting float method. I thought the article made some sense and thought some folks could look over the science.

As far as wide hot and cold fluctuations in shipping, most shippers will warn of danger in the mid winter and mid summer. They will also use heat packs and other methods to stablize the temps in the insulated boxes.

The fact that raising or lowering the temp of the bags can change the internal bag stats is an interesting concept. I assume it is established that the temp changes do do that?

Good jopb andywg helping to explain and investigate.

I can't help that my "science" is in the behaviorals.