Dying during and after acclimation

preston

New Member
I am having a problem with starfish, cerith snails, turbo snails dying during and after acclimation. My water params are:
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
.4 phosphate
What could be causing these to die? This is the second batch that has "crapped" out.
I used tap water with a conditioner about 3 months ago but have been using RO water for top off for about 2 months. What tap water "elements" shoud I test for that might be causing this problem?
Thanks
 

sistrmary

Member
How are you acclimating them? I've personally found that a slow drip system works best. I've had zero acclimation deaths since I've started dripping them. I know a lot of pet stores will just toss them in their tanks as well, so it could be them and not you who is causing their deaths...starfish are *extremely* sensitive to acclimation.
 

saltyrich

Active Member
I float the bag for 30 minutes to acclimate to temp in my tank. I then begin adding 1 ounce of my water to the bag every 5 minutes until I've doubled the water in the bag. Carefully pour out 1/2 the water and repeat the entire process.
 

flydan

Active Member
Hey,
Snails are very sensitive to changes in salinity so need to be acclimated very slowly. I usually float the bag for 15 minutes and then add about one shot-glass of my tank water to the bag every 15 minutes for two hours. Then I pour out half the water in the bag into a bucket and start adding water from tank again for another hour. Then I take the snails out of the bag by hand and put them in the tank. Never lost one doing it that way.
HTH,
Dan'l
 
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