How do you all acclimate fish?

[SalviniCichlidFan]

Following the loss of 2 fish due to acclimation 2 months ago, I have changed my acclimation routine.
I'm not a bag-floater so I use a special way to acclimate
Here are my steps:

1) When I buy fish I bring my 1 gallon fish container(which I use to acclimate) just in case of leaks, and so I don't have to dump the fish into the container which causes stress
1.5) If I buy from a new store, then I will test the water for pH just in case of pH shock.
2) Every 15 minutes I add 5 spoons of my tank water.
3) After 6 hours, I put my fish into the quarantine tank
4) I quarantine my fish for 1-2 weeks
5) I put the fish in its tank

Now that I've said my steps, what do you all do for acclimation?

 

[Deadeye]

Only freshwater fish I’ve qt’d were my Amazon puffers for safety, but I really should do it for all. My saltwater fish are quarantined.
For acclimation, I don’t have a drip so I do this:
1. Pour bag of fish + water into bucket
2. Fill quart pitcher with tank water
3. Every 5 minutes pour a small portion of pitcher water into bucket until empty
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as necessary, ideally to add at least 2x bag water volume
5. Net fish out and into tank, let it swim out.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I plop and drop. I open the bag, pour the water and fish into a big net over a bucket and then the fish go into the tank and the bag water stays behind.

I normally Q new fish. However, depending on the source I will, once in a great, while skip Q and put fish directly into their ultimate tank. Sometimes I use multiple Q tanks set up for different species and then I park the inside bag with the fish in the appropriate tank, not as acclimation but to park them. Then I open bags tank by tank and plop and drop the fish.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

Following the loss of 2 fish due to acclimation 2 months ago, I have changed my acclimation routine.
I'm not a bag-floater so I use a special way to acclimate
Here are my steps:

1) When I buy fish I bring my 1 gallon fish container(which I use to acclimate) just in case of leaks, and so I don't have to dump the fish into the container which causes stress
1.5) If I buy from a new store, then I will test the water for pH just in case of pH shock.
2) Every 15 minutes I add 5 spoons of my tank water.
3) After 6 hours, I put my fish into the quarantine tank
4) I quarantine my fish for 1-2 weeks
5) I put the fish in its tank

Now that I've said my steps, what do you all do for acclimation?

I float the bag in the tank open, with the edge of the bag held by the lid, a rock whatever is convenient.
Then every 15 minutes pour a cup of water from the tank into it.
Once full, empty most of it down the sink and repeat.
Once full a second time, I pour them into the tank.

I used to just float for a little while and put a bit of tank water in. But I'd always get a few deaths the week after, sometimes 50+% that way. Since I changed I haven't had a single fish that died in the following week.

 

[Rocksor]

Following the loss of 2 fish due to acclimation 2 months ago, I have changed my acclimation routine.
I'm not a bag-floater so I use a special way to acclimate
Here are my steps:

1) When I buy fish I bring my 1 gallon fish container(which I use to acclimate) just in case of leaks, and so I don't have to dump the fish into the container which causes stress
1.5) If I buy from a new store, then I will test the water for pH just in case of pH shock.
2) Every 15 minutes I add 5 spoons of my tank water.
3) After 6 hours, I put my fish into the quarantine tank
4) I quarantine my fish for 1-2 weeks
5) I put the fish in its tank

Now that I've said my steps, what do you all do for acclimation?

PH shock isn’t a concern. People think it’s PH shock that happens when it’s really osmotic shock that happens going from a high TDS to a low one. Not all fish stores do a lot of water changes and even though they use the same water source as you, the TDS could be 200-400ppm higher than your quarantine tank.

and when you scoop water from your tank into the bag, if there is any ammonium due to lower PH, opening the bag and adding your water will raise the ph and turn ammonium into toxic ammonia.

 

[jjohnwm]

Float in the quarantine tank, adding a cup or two of tank water to the bag every 10 minutes or so. Then net fish out of bag and into the QT...

...where they will reside for at least a few weeks, and often much longer if I have suspicions about them. I consider this much more important than trivial details about water drips, how long to float, etc.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Re ammonia and in bags and co2. It matters how long the fish are in the bag. Other factors like how much water and how much air, as well as how many fish and their size all matters. Here is why.

When fw fish exhale, these two things are coming out- ammonia and co2. As the CO2 in the bag, and thus the water, increases it makes the water more acid (i.e. the pH drops). As the pH drops more of the ammonia is in the form of ammonium which is way less toxic. It's almost like taking the poison and the antidote at the same time. Some folks will ship with a touch of ammonia detoxifier or a piece of polyfilter in the bag. But the former is an oxygen scavenger and adding too much can be a problem.

So the bag gets to you and the minute you open it two things will happen since the water in the bag will be sloshing around some. Air goes in and co2 comes out of the water and bag. And when that happens the safe ammonium begins turning to more ammonia which is very toxic. We have not even talked about any poop that may have bene produced in the bag along the way. That makes ammonia as well.

Also, if you read research papers related to all of this, you will see that true acclimation of fish to different conditions does not happen in minutes, hours or even days. The physiological changes can take a week or two, Some even more. You will also notice that the fish involved in the research are often acquired weeks or a month before they are used in the experiment. That wait time is to acclimated them.

Some of the research into temperatures and where they are too low or too high such that it kills a given species. may also look at saving them from those extremes before they fie. The solution is to get the fish back into their normal temperature range as quickly as possible, not gradually.

it is also easier to move hard water fish to softer waters then the other way around.

Also I have seen a tank with altum angels have acid added to it which dropeed the pH by just over 1 whole point in under 5 minutes. I have actually done this in my altum tank but I only went to 1.0 lower from about 5.5 to 4.5 and later on from the low 6 area to the low 5s. The fish never appeared to react at all to this any time iI have watched it happen.

This is pretty much why I plop and drop.

 

[DrownedFishonFire]

I do the same as twotankadmin I do the plop and drop

 

[Rocksor]

it is also easier to move hard water fish to softer waters then the other way around.

Also I have seen a tank with altum angels have acid added to it which dropeed the pH by just over 1 whole point in under 5 minutes. I have actually done this in my altum tank but I only went to 1.0 lower from about 5.5 to 4.5 and later on from the low 6 area to the low 5s. The fish never appeared to react at all to this any time iI have watched it happen.

are these 2 different statements?

 

[The Masked Shadow]

I only acclimate them using the bag for 30-45 minutes. I should quarantine, but I don't have a tank to, and most of my fish are not super expensive.