How fast of a pH change can black crappie take?

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predatorfish1

predatorfish1

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Aug 1, 2011
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united states america
So a few days back, I got some Black Crappie from a local fish farm. I let them acclimate for 30 minutes. They were in a cooler, and I swapped a gallon of my water with a gallon of theirs every 10 minutes. Upon introducing them to the aquarium they swam erratically running into decor, and swimming upside down. They just settled on their sides and were all dead the next morning. My Nitrates and nitrites are at 0, the pH is at 7, and the overall hardness is very soft. (It’s city water.) Now I figured it must have been that I didn’t acclimate them enough, so I just got some more. I tested the water in the cooler they were in to find the pH is at like 9 on my tester, and the overall hardness is very hard. How should I acclimate them?
 
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predatorfish1 said:
So a few days back, I got some Black Crappie from a local fish farm. I let them acclimate for 30 minutes. They were in a cooler, and I swapped a gallon of my water with a gallon of theirs every 10 minutes. Upon introducing them to the aquarium they swam erratically running into decor, and swimming upside down. They just settled on their sides and were all dead the next morning. My Nitrates and nitrites are at 0, the pH is at 7, and the overall hardness is very soft. (It’s city water.) Now I figured it must have been that I didn’t acclimate them enough, so I just got some more. I tested the water in the cooler they were in to find the pH is at like 9 on my tester, and the overall hardness is very hard. How should I acclimate them?
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Yes drip acclimate over a hour or more. this link may help until other members chime in with their knowledge.
 
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Osmotic shock can and will kill fish if there is a big difference, a TDS pen is a cheap and useful tool to have. I drip acclimate till the TDS is similar between the containers.
 
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Did you dechlorinate the water?
 
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9 is 200 times more basic than 7.
In that case, I would have acclimatized them over a day or even a couple days, adding a quart of the intended tank water every couple hours until the water became much closer in pH.
And if there were already fish in your tank. I would have quarantined them aboutt two months, acclimatizing them even slower to those harder softer water conditions.
 
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A sudden change in TDS can create osmotic shock in fish, especially when going from a higher TDS, to a lower TDS value. I would assume that's why the first group died.
 
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predatorfish1 said:
So I just dumped a half gallon of my tank water in every 5-20 minutes. Took 6 hours of this until both pHs and water hardnesses were the same. Dumped them in and they are all alive and well.
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How big is your tank? And how many crappie did you get this time?
 
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