acclimation

[mkroher]

Last night we bought our third fish. A yellow tang. He joined the ever cutest pair of clowns. The poor clowns think they are dinner and are very scared. I've left the light off since the new addition... poor little guys.
Anyways.. I drip acclimated the tang for almost 2 hours. He seems very happy in his new home and is already feasting at who knows what on the live rock. I did some reading on osmotic pressure and osmotic shock. I'm thinking that acclimation should be longer, like days or weeks.
I bought the tang from an LFS. I asked what the salinity level was. 1.020. I keep my tank at 1.023.
So I'm thinking that *my* future acclimation process will be a quarantine tank with a salinity level that matches the water in the bag the fish is in. This might be difficult since any salt additions or dilutions will not be instant. Maybe have the QT at a constant 1.020 (or lower), and adjust with small dosings of salt until it matches the water the fish came in. Then at that point, start the drip acclimation process, add him to the QT... then slowly raise the salinity in the QT to match the DT over the course of a few weeks.
feedback?
I dunno... food for thought.. back to more reading...

 

[locoyo386]

Originally Posted by mkroher
http:///forum/post/3071995
Last night we bought our third fish. A yellow tang. He joined the ever cutest pair of clowns. The poor clowns think they are dinner and are very scared. I've left the light off since the new addition... poor little guys.
Anyways.. I drip acclimated the tang for almost 2 hours. He seems very happy in his new home and is already feasting at who knows what on the live rock. I did some reading on osmotic pressure and osmotic shock. I'm thinking that acclimation should be longer, like days or weeks.
I bought the tang from an LFS. I asked what the salinity level was. 1.020. I keep my tank at 1.023.
So I'm thinking that *my* future acclimation process will be a quarantine tank with a salinity level that matches the water in the bag the fish is in. This might be difficult since any salt additions or dilutions will not be instant. Maybe have the QT at a constant 1.020 (or lower), Chek with all the places were you buy fish and use the lowest one. and adjust with small dosings of salt until it matches the water the fish came in. Then at that point, start the drip acclimation process, add him to the QT... then slowly raise the salinity in the QT to match the DT over the course of a few weeks.
feedback?
I dunno... food for thought.. back to more reading...

Hi there,
That's not a bad idea, not sure if you are too worried about it. I know I keep my salt as 1.025 and the two places I get are at 1.025 and the other at 1.022. The longest I have acclimated any fish was for 2 hrs, and they were both butterflies (lattice and pearscale). One was from the 1.022 place, he seems vety happy. That was about 2 months ago. Your idea will be fine, although I would recomend a QT tank anyways. The salinity can be raise .001 to .002 per day (I do .001 per day).