Beth or Terry would like your thoughts on this

[stacyt]

I spent most of the day yesterday in the San Jose area visiting some wholesalers. I was more impressed than with the wholesalers in the LA area. At one of the wholesalers his fish looked realativly healthy. I managed to pin down the manager for a while, and talk about his acclimation procedure. I thought it was interesting. When the fish arrive he said they inject nitrogen into the water. By doing this he says that it lowers the PH, and the fish will start to go to sleep. Then they will start to lower the salinity, and acclimate the fish down to a salinity level of 1.017. Then they xfer the fish into a holding area for a couple of days, before they will ship them out. I would say that after looking over most of their tanks, that they had really healthy looking fish, unlike the wholesalers I visited in the LA area. My freind picked out several fish to be shipped to his store, and they arrived this morning, and they where all alive on arrival, and didn't looked to stressed.

 

[beth]

Do they ship them in this lower salinity condition? If so, what is the person who receives the fish supposed to do when their fish tank is 1.025?
Sounds like he trying to get them to hybernate a bit, which is probably a good idea considering the ordeal they have been thru and will continue to go thru til they get home to someone's fish tank.

 

[stacyt]

He brings the salinity backup over a couple of days before he ships them out to the LFS. He normally brings them up to about 1.023 before shipping. I acutally picked out a fish while I was there, and brought it straight from the LFS to my house still in the original shipping container. I tested the water with a refracto, and it was 1.023. I'll see how this fish does after a few weeks in hypo, and quaranteen. So far it seems to be nice, and healthy.