Lets talk drip acclimation, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/16/2023 at 2:57 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

I’m just here for “Ew! the scientists on the forum just nerded all over my topic” 😆

i have no problem with it, considering i consider myself a unoffical scientist...

so hence my current projects.

1.growing terrestrial moss submerged

and

2. selectively breeding platies, to learn more about their genetics.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Theplatymaster

[Biotope Biologist]

On 3/16/2023 at 12:30 PM, Theplatymaster said:

i have no problem with it, considering i consider myself a unoffical scientist...

For transparency and under the hopes that I never offend anyone here I want to clarify:

I operate under the assumption everyone here is a big ol’ nerd. Case in point some of the most liked and viewed topics in recent history are personal studies done by @dasaltemelosguy @Guppysnail @Odd Duck et. al. Incredibly in depth with lots of data. 
 

I do not want to be exclusionary ever nor do I assume my professional cohorts in the sciences. We are all here for a love of the hobby, and there is no right or wrong way of doing things in this hobby, that would make us “superior” to.

I just hope noone takes my jokes at the expense of themselves! Just meant to be light hearted fun!

 

[Guppysnail]

On 3/16/2023 at 3:55 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

For transparency and under the hopes that I never offend anyone here I want to clarify:

I operate under the assumption everyone here is a big ol’ nerd. Case in point some of the most liked and viewed topics in recent history are personal studies done by @dasaltemelosguy @Guppysnail @Odd Duck et. al. Incredibly in depth with lots of data. 
 

I do not want to be exclusionary ever nor do I assume my professional cohorts in the sciences. We are all here for a love of the hobby, and there is no right or wrong way of doing things in this hobby, that would make us “superior” to.

I just hope noone takes my jokes at the expense of themselves! Just meant to be light hearted fun!

 

I laughed so hard at the EW I cried. Your humor is always enjoyable. 🤗

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 3/16/2023 at 1:39 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

it would drop an entire point (10-fold) in about the first 50 minutes.

Oh good, I estimated about an hour, so I was not as far off as I feared!  🤣  That said, I feel like an hour is a lot of time to do acclimation. 

On 3/16/2023 at 1:39 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

So, it may not be immediate, but I think this alone could be fatal to many fishes. Add the simultaneous ammonium to ammonia conversion and it sounds risky.

Not arguing.  To be clear.  Just discussing.  Assuming that 45 minutes moves the pH by 1 unit, then you'd need a starting pH of around 8 to shift into that really risky territory.  I'm guessing that most fish arrive closer to the 6 or 7 mark.  Additionally, higher pH water is often (though I recognize not always) associated with higher GH and KH.  This leaves me wondering what the impact would be given their buffering capacities?  I honestly don't know right now (especially as I am being interrupted constantly as I write this with cries of "dad watch this!" as my children jump off the couch 🤪).

On 3/16/2023 at 1:39 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

It gets somewhat complicated when it's near normal pressures as solubility and temperature then become dominant factors. O2 enjoying better solubility than CO2, and both are better when water is cold.

Totally!

On 3/16/2023 at 1:39 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

I guess it depends on the definition of "instantaneous"! 🤣

Pretty clear, at this point, that's the crux of what I got hung up on.  I was way too literal!  😝

On 3/16/2023 at 1:47 PM, boylesdowntothis said:

perhaps "instantaneous" was a poorly chosen term on my part!🤣

Hey man, as a biologist when a chemist tells me something is instantaneous, I take them seriously!  Imagine if you'd been a physicist?  I would have assumed we'd started talking about quantum entanglement.  🤣

On 3/16/2023 at 1:57 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

“Ew! the scientists on the forum just nerded all over my topic”

This is why, as you know, we normally do this on DM's; to spare people silly semantic arguments about the limits of the word "instantaneous".  Who knew we were talking about instant oatmeal and not instantly the lights came on.  🤷‍♂️  Okay.  Apparently everyone.  But me.    🤓

[rockfisher]

I don’t have a lot to add, but I’ll try. I’m a plop and drop guy. I ship a lot of fish out and I suggest to buyers that they do not drip acclimated. I the only time I have gotten messages that fish died after the arrived alive are when they are drip acclimated. I also order some very expensive plecos. A very expensive habit. I have seen sellers go from telling you to drip acclimate 5 years ago to moving  drop and plop. I recently ordered some zebra plecos  and king tiger plecos which were more that I’m willing to say. Both seller sent acclimation instructions and the both said to drain the fish and put them in the tank. Not as scientific as everyone else just what I have noticed over the years.

[Odd Duck]

Great reading!  I love nerds, scientists, and even better - nerdy scientists!  It staggers me how much collective brain power is in this forum!  Thank you all for contributing!

Just to quickly clarify, I have mostly been a proofreader for our Oh, so brilliant @dasaltemelosguy studies and accomplishments.  It warms my heart to even get a mention as being part of it all, but I’m barely even the side kick to the superhero.

Now, I have really nothing to contribute to the discussion as far as the actual chemistry stand point.  So other than to mention that fish are very likely much more adaptable than we give them credit for being, I’ll let the chemists battle it out.  😆  In the wild, fish certainly swim through significant temperature changes and likely some pH changes without any issues.  They not only survive, but thrive and often reproduce in response to the temp and pH changes caused by rainwater.  That being said, I’ll share some of my experience and thinking on why I don’t always do the same method and some thinking behind what triggers me to use different methods.

Who here has used a cool, or even downright cold, water change to trigger cories to breed?  🙋🏻‍♀️  To get cichlids to breed?  🙋🏻‍♀️  These are well known breeding triggers and a normal, natural consequence of storms.  I think when these are obvious breeding triggers it’s something that fish have adapted to dealing with in nature so there’s likely lots of wiggle room when doing a drop and plop.

That being said, shipped fish are massively stressed on arrival, usually.  I’ve pulled bags out of boxes and seen fish circling from likely ammonia tox with other fish dead in the bag.  That’s got to be some significant stress.  In that situation, I don’t take the time to do anything but take pics for evidence, quickly check the bag temp with my IR thermometer, float the bag long enough to reduce any big temp differential if it’s more than a 2-3 degrees, then plop and drop as fast as possible.  I want those fish out of that clearly toxic water as soon as I can possibly make it happen.  It’s very hard to say if it was stress, toxic water, or pH shifts, etc, to judge what caused any death loss when you’ve dumped fish directly after arrival in that condition.  Even knowing that fish can handle some temp shifts very well when they’re healthy and happy, I don’t want clearly sick fish to have to deal with a parameter change that I can minimize or I would plop and drop immediately and wouldn’t even float for temperature.  I have done that, too, if they looked bad enough.  Did it kill them faster?  Who can tell when they are literally dying in front of your eyes?

So, I’m mostly plop and drop since I figure there’s enough toxins in the bag one way or the other that I want shipped fish out of toxic water fast.  Most local fish from individuals I float for temp, then plop and drop because there’s not going to be lots of difference in water parameters.  When I buy at our local expo, I temperature float, and do plop and drop because most will have been bagged the day or night before the expo so I want them out of potentially toxic water.

If I’m buying from someone local that’s on well water, I absolutely drip acclimate in a bucket with a fairly rapid drip (only shrimp get a slow drip).  Well water around here can be extremely high GH, KH, and pH, and even sometimes high nitrate.  They’re not long in the bag or bucket so minimal risk of ammonia or excess CO2, but big differences in parameters means they get a rapid drip acclimation from me (about a gallon per hour rate, but only for about 20 minutes so I use maybe 1-2 quarts, then top off the tank with fresh dechlor water).  If local on city water, I treat just like an LFS purchase, confirm temp isn’t far off, then plop and drop into quarantine tank.

Did I mention EVERYBODY goes into quarantine tanks?  I haven’t done shrimp into QT previously (haven’t bought shrimp for a couple years until about 2 weeks ago) but I will be from here forward if I get more shrimp unless they go into their own, exclusive tank.  I’ve been lucky in the past that I didn’t introduce any shrimp diseases.  The bloody marys I just got went into their own tank so it’s a “forever” quarantine tank.  Some will get moved around if they reproduce well, but it certainly won’t be until well after 30 days, so still an effective QT period.

Moving fish from one of my own tanks to another, I usually put the fish in a specimen container of their own tank water until all are caught, then mix some water from the new tank into the specimen container just by pressing the container down into the tank and letting some water flow in, then usually dump water and fish both, or sometimes dump fish through a net and drop the fish, depending on how long I’ve had the fish and if they (or any shipping or tank mates) showed any sign of illness while in quarantine or since I’ve had them.  Safest would be to always pour into a net and drop only the fish, but when I’m pretty confident they’re healthy, I don’t worry too much about pouring in tank water between my tanks.

All that being said, I think nearly all the time, unless your water has a chance of being very different than your local store or fellow hobbyists (if you, or they, are on well water for instance), you’re pretty safe with plop and drop whether local or shipped (at least with fish).  I always slow drip shrimp since they will have very minimal toxin build up in the bag even if shipped, and are known to be fairly intolerant of parameter changes.

I don’t know if that really clarifies anything for anyone, but it’s how I decide on whether drip or drop.  😃 

 

[DeadStang]

On 3/17/2023 at 9:33 AM, Odd Duck said:

All that being said, I think nearly all the time, unless your water has a chance of being very different than your local store or fellow hobbyists (if you, or they, are on well water for instance), you’re pretty safe with plop and drop whether local or shipped (at least with fish).

A minutiae question...how long is "long?" My LFS is a 2 hour drive. They have well-processed city water and I am on a sketchy well. I am pretty new to the hobby and have always been instructed to acclimate with water added/subtracted every 15 minutes while floating the bag in the tank for temperature. It takes me about an hour. So far, I haven't killed any fish doing that, but maybe I am needlessly stressing them? Is 2 hours in a fish bag long enough for the ammonium/pH changes to develop? Am I allowing them to be in ammonia-saturated water after I open the bag, letting CO2 off-gas for the ammonium-->ammonia rxn to start, when I "drip" acclimate them? From a total water type/parameter change, drip acclimation sounds best in my situation, but maybe the drive home from the fish store is too long and I should temperature acclimate, then just "toss" them in my tank instead?

[rockfisher]

On 3/18/2023 at 4:44 AM, Pepere said:

I would not be at all concerned with a 2 hour drive.

shipped fish are in their bags for 2-5 days…

I total agree I I don’t worry about fish I ship until day 5. Unless temps are high. A day trip for me to head to Miami or Tampa(about 2:30 and 1:30 each way) and back to get fish would not worry me.

[boylesdowntothis]

On 3/14/2023 at 4:51 PM, knee said:

I've drip acclimated shipped wild caught fish only because they were wild caught and I was afraid to shock it with my water. I put prime in the bag, as soon as I opened it, then dumped it in a different container to start drip acclimating. This was back in 2016 before I found out that prime doesn't do anything for ammonia. The fish survived and even spawned a few times so I thought prime actually did something for ammonia until I saw an experiment done on a saltwater forum. The experiment showed that prime doesn't detoxify ammonia (free ammonia) as seachem claims. They didn't test on freshwater but that was enough for me not to drip acclimate fish anymore. 

I don't drip acclimate fish anymore but I still do with shrimp because they're just more sensitive to different water parameters.

 

 

On 3/14/2023 at 4:54 PM, Theplatymaster said:

so other dechlorinators do?

i thought i'd add my take on just the chemistry and not on the fish or the practice we're discussing. the chemical in prime, fritz, tetra and cloram-x DO reduce ammonia and nitrite substantially and nitrate but barely so.  this action was awarded patents and reviewed by chemists for that purpose. in fact, one reviewer i studied under, weirdly enough, his name was hopkins from john hopkins u- but no relation though! 

i believe it was charted in @dasaltemelosguy article on prime here on the forum. das also cites an issue i share. Seachem states this protection reverses after two days. this is impossible as das states. it forms a stable salt from ammonia and nitrite and there is no available energy to reverse this reaction unless the ph was raised to almost ten. if you look at the fritz charts from their patent in das's article, you'll see it is very effective in reducing ammonia and nitrite and slightly effective in reducing nitrates.

yes, i also saw that reefer chemistry discussion you mention but they are speculating and frankly, they're discussing the wrong chemicals. i'd use the patent data highlighted in das's charts as it was peer reviewed. 

[Odd Duck]

On 3/17/2023 at 11:10 PM, DeadStang said:

A minutiae question...how long is "long?" My LFS is a 2 hour drive. They have well-processed city water and I am on a sketchy well. I am pretty new to the hobby and have always been instructed to acclimate with water added/subtracted every 15 minutes while floating the bag in the tank for temperature. It takes me about an hour. So far, I haven't killed any fish doing that, but maybe I am needlessly stressing them? Is 2 hours in a fish bag long enough for the ammonium/pH changes to develop? Am I allowing them to be in ammonia-saturated water after I open the bag, letting CO2 off-gas for the ammonium-->ammonia rxn to start, when I "drip" acclimate them? From a total water type/parameter change, drip acclimation sounds best in my situation, but maybe the drive home from the fish store is too long and I should temperature acclimate, then just "toss" them in my tank instead?

Have you compared your LFS water parameters to your well water parameters?  I would not be concerned about 2 hours in the bag, but might be concerned about potential for big differences in parameters from well water to city water.  If there are only small differences, then it shouldn’t be an issue at all.  I would temp acclimate for 15-30 minutes depending on the volume of water in the bag and how much difference in the temp between bag and tank, then I would plop and drop.  Big bags with lots of water will stay at a better temp longer but take longer to get back to a good tank temp if they do get overly cool (or warm).  As long as you’re within 2 degrees, you really don’t even need to temp acclimate.  If it’s more than that, I would usually float bags for at least 15 minutes as long as the fish are looking OK.

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/19/2023 at 5:19 AM, Odd Duck said:

, you really don’t even need to temp acclimate.

i always temp acclimate, especially since i usually walk animals home from the LFS, so im not so sure of the temp in the bag. (though i use insulators to try and keep the bag nice i warm.).

[Odd Duck]

On 3/19/2023 at 4:23 AM, Theplatymaster said:

i always temp acclimate, especially since i usually walk animals home from the LFS, so im not so sure of the temp in the bag. (though i use insulators to try and keep the bag nice i warm.).

That’s a very good plan if there’s much chance the bag temp is more than 2 degrees from tank temp.

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/19/2023 at 5:25 AM, Odd Duck said:

That’s a very good plan if there’s much chance the bag temp is more than 2 degrees from tank temp.

i walked a Mystery Snail home 2days ago,

It was like 50outside. yes, i temp acclimated.

and the bag had a leak (not sure what this has to do with the topic),

[Odd Duck]

On 3/19/2023 at 4:26 AM, Theplatymaster said:

i walked a Mystery Snail home 2days ago,

It was like 50outside. yes, i temp acclimated.

and the bag had a leak (not sure what this has to do with the topic),

😆 Here’s me picturing you walking home with a leaking bag tucked into your coat.  That’s some dedication!  😆 

I took a giant, insulated bag with me to the local expo that had 2 towels inside it (one for between the fish bags and the heat pack and one for over the fish bags) I also had a small, microwaved type gel heat pack inside a bubble wrap pouch at the bottom of the bag.  The gel heat pack didn’t hold heat long enough.  Next time I’ll use a chemical heat pack wrapped inside a towel.

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/19/2023 at 5:37 AM, Odd Duck said:

😆 Here’s me picturing you walking home with a leaking bag tucked into your coat.  That’s some dedication!  😆 

there is a soup company we often order from, that when you get takeout, gives you free insulated bags.

there is also a certain planted community tank company, that when you order plants and the temperature is less then 50F will give you a free liner.

I used both of these bags. (liner in the soup bag, shopping bag in the liner, mystery snail bag into the shopping bag).

also i didnt realize it was leaking till i got back, there was a puddle in the shopping bag, so fortunately nothing got wet.

I just think the LFS didnt tie the know tight enough, i fixed that BEFORE acclimation (i love my LFS, but dont trust their water), and then everything was fine.

This general conversation on acclimation seems like something that might turn into a livestream topic...

Edited March 19, 2023 by Theplatymaster

[modified lung]

Usually when there's a lot of disagreement on a topic like drip vs plop, that's because it all depends. First, I want to say that if whatever you're doing works, then you're doing it right. Really that's all you need to know here. Second, fish are very different between species so it's impossible to generalize ...but I'm going to do it anyway 👍👍.

For pH swings, consider the native water of your fish. Fish from soft, low KH, low pH environments are exposed to pH swings regularly and have evolved ways to deal with it.  That's why discus breeders can plop their fish in almost straight RO water with no issues. It doesn't matter in their case.

Fish from harder, higher KH, higher pH waters don't always handle pH swings as well. But that also depends. The more calcium in the water the less pH swings affect these fish. The GH/KH balance also seems to matter. It's best to have them within a few points of each other. That's assuming your GH is mostly from calcium and your KH mostly from bicarbonates.

Also although pH swings can matter, they seem to matter less than KH swings—specifically bicarbonate swings—even more specifically bicarbonate swings downward. That's because when pH goes down, bicarbs are removed from the fish's body. The fish can adapt over time and reabsorb enough bicarbs to prevent prolonged changes in blood pH as their environment's pH goes down. But if the water KH also goes down too fast, then those bicarbs can disappear faster than the fish can reabsorb them and the fish might die after a week or two. 

Good general rules are if the fish is from a soft water habitat, it doesn't matter, plop and drop. If the fish is from hard water habitat, slow acclimate. But to make things more confusing. It also matters what kind of water the fish was born into which, unless the fish is wild caught, we usually have no way of knowing. So basically just just keep doing whatever has worked for you with your water and your fish source.

For shipped fish and CO2, rapid pH a swing happening immediately after opening the bag doesn't really make sense. It's a lot harder to remove gas from water than people think. After opening a shipping bag I'd say the CO2 would take an hour, probably longer, to completely leave. There really won't be a ton of CO2 in the water so there won't be a massive degassing right away like after you open a soda can.

Ammonium changing to free ammonia during slow acclimation into higher pH is a concern. Fish from soft, low pH waters usually have had very little exposure to free ammonia so they're usually much more sensitive to exposure. Definitely plop and drop these fish.

Harder water fish can usually handle a little more free ammonia but still you want to keep exposure low. A 40-50% change of the shipping water will cut your total ammonia level right away and only raise your pH from 7.0 to 7.3 depending. If there's a crazy high amount of total ammonia in the shipping water and your fish are flapping their gills very fast, it might be better to just plop and drop these fish too. But at this point there might already be some serious gill damage and especially most nano fish probably won't survive the week. Adding Prime can also help. I've met wholesalers that say immediately adding Prime to the shipping water after receiving fish reduced their fish losses by a huge amount.

Honestly, shippers SHOULD be fasting their fish for a few days before shipping to prevent ammonia build up but most don't seem to do that anymore. If they did we'd probably see almost zero losses after receiving fish in the mail. But why would shippers bother when they can just blame the customer, am I right?

 

Anyway, almost all my fish are from hard water habitats. I tried plop and drop for about a year and definitely noticed a negative impact on their long term health, stunted growth, shorter life spans. Usually I put new fish in a breeder box and set it to replace all the water within 30 minutes. That's what has worked best for me.

[boylesdowntothis]

On 3/18/2023 at 10:58 AM, Pepere said:

Before assuming it must be, because a patent application was approved…

 

Elizabeth Holmes’s Theranos received 700 patents but never developed its claimed technology, and went to great lengths to conceal its failures.

Patents have been issued for cold fusion devices and methods and antigravity  driven spaceships.

 

I trust dechlorinators to dechlorinate the water I use in a water change.  I trust that water change to reduce Ammonia, nitrite and nitrates..

After doing a 50% water change I can test the tank water and see results that confirm a 50% reduction in Ammonia, nitrites and and nitrates.  If the dechlorinator binds or detoxifies or whatever the residual ammonia, nitrtie, nitrate.. great…   I appreciate the help it gives in that area….   but I retain a significant level of skepticism. 

While I do understand the skepticism, and I truly do, I was a patent reviewer before I went purely into peer work at JPL.

And I fully agree, what Holmes pulled off did indeed sully the entirety of the patent process, at least in reputation if not in actuality.

For example, Holmes literally flooded the USPTO with some 600,000 applications! To put that in perspective, it is the equivalent of ALL the patents the office receives in a year! This indeed was part of her strategy to force fraudulent claims through taxing the system.

However, if you examine most of her patents, what was awarded was wholly different than what we see here with Fritz and Tetra’s patents. For the most part, the USPTO awarded protection to her concepts, NOT her inventions. Nearly all of her 700+ patents are in reality, no more than copyrights. Making her little more than a science fiction writer with copyrights!

Whereas at least in this case, Tetra and Fritz’s patents provided complete equations of tested reactions observed in their labs.

Again, I am not making any assertions as to the veracity of their results, but insofar as equations are concerned, Fritz and Tetra are correct. Energetically, ionically and mathematically balanced.

So I do respect and sympathize with your reservations, especially as none have provided an actual test result for public consumption, I feel it would be unfair to diminish the volumes of great works that have been rightly awarded patents because of one infamous and prolific fraudster.  

 

PS:  I would be remiss if I did not mention the antigravity device. Yes, it's promotion was indeed ridiculous and absurd. However it was not patented as such. What it was awarded was a patent as a balanced field device which created opposing energetic fields that applied equal but opposite forces, simulating antigravity. It's absurdity as you pointed out was the ridiculous quantities of energy to operate. Equivalent to converting the mass of the entire planet of Jupiter by fusion!

[LTygress]

On 3/15/2023 at 1:34 PM, boylesdowntothis said:

....Forgive me but as an active, working chemist for JPL Pasadena, I have read much of the amateur chemistry posted on forums and most of it is an exercise in futility. When the equations I’ve seen that are in fact balanced or correct, at least of those I’ve seen, and I’m sure I’ve missed many, are of speculated chemicals so they are unsure if these are indeed the chemicals they seek to criticize!  

My only issue with any of them is that Prime is very concentrated and if *EVER* confused with the others in terms of dosage, an overdose could cause more harm than good. People like to say "dump in more Prime!" when something happens in a tank, and it can turn deadly. The chemicals in Prime are a lot like nitrates - they're harmless *in small amounts* only.

But I'm a fan of drip acclimation for another reason. PH shock and ammonia shock aren't the only issues out there. The American EPA tracks seven main contaminants in tap water. The contaminants range from nitrates (which we all know) to arsenic (yes, poison) and even uranium. Yes, that's right, uranium. I said what I said. These contaminants are found naturally across the world, although in varying degrees. The EPA does not require these to be completely absent from your drinking water though! They only require that the levels fall below a certain threshold! So there's still a good possibility that your drinking water has all seven contaminants in trace amounts. Yes, you might be drinking radioactive products - in super tiny trace amounts that can't be detected.

But out in nature where there are no water purifiers? These contaminants are not really tracked out there like they are for "tap" water. And if you're on well water, they probably aren't tested at all. But fish have adapted to LIVE in these waters around the world. Maybe they were born and bred in an Asian fish farm where the tap water isn't monitored at all. Maybe they are bred in Florida where the ponds full of fish go through a "PH Shock" every morning. Here in America, they actually did a survey about 7 years ago (I would need to look up the article again) and found incredibly high levels of ANTIDEPRESSANTS in a lot of our tap water! So much of the population is on antidepressants, and we aren't metabolizing all of it in our bodies. So when we go to the bathroom, a lot of those antidepressants just come right back out, and end up in the local water sources. And scientists have not yet made any changes to remove this from the water on a regular basis before... it gets filtered and makes it back to your faucet.

How many other things are in our water that we DON'T monitor?

But again, the fish out there have learned to survive with some of this. Whatever is in that water that we DON'T trace, is what they have adapted to. And those chemicals and dissolved solids may affect all kinds of things about a fish. Osmotic pressure (which is *BASICALLY* the pressure inside of a fish's body versus the water pressure outside of it) is a big one that most people don't pay attention to. It's part of why saltwater and freshwater fish can't survive long periods in the wrong water - the osmotic pressure is very different. I know nitrates can affect osmotic pressure, but I haven't studied the other seven contaminants at length (yet). 

So whatever parameters the fish are familiar with, it's better to slowly acclimate them away from those parameters. They may be a soft-water fish, but have adapted to high amounts of calcium in the water (which contributes to higher PH, but isn't the sole reason for high PH). Or maybe they are normally a hard water fish adapted to tannins - which tends to lower PH. It doesn't mean they need a lower PH though, it means they have adapted to the actual presence of the tannins! So you may keep the water in a low PH, but that sudden removal of tannins from their environment still shocks them.

The problem is, a lot of studies have been done on fish but a LOT of information is still out there that we haven't checked. Sure, we know our Temperature, Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, PH, GH, KH, Calcium (although usually only saltwater fish keepers will track that), salinity, etc. But the things that we fish keepers do NOT monitor is what we may have to worry about. I mean, we all known uranium is dangerous and has been known to "mutate" genes, but what does it do to a healthy fish when *suddenly* added or removed from the water? Who has tested this? Anyone? Can you find the results of that test? And what happens if that uranium is suddenly removed, but replaced with arsenic instead? Never enough to kill the fish, just enough to change *something* in the fish.

Most of us don't know these answers, or the testing just hasn't been done. So when someone quotes one part of science like "the PH rises rapidly and creates ammonia" it's still a very narrow outlook on *EVERYTHING* in the water that could be changing between the bag and the tank. So to play it safe, I would rather use drip acclimation to ensure that my fish can adapt a little slower to the changes in the water, than to just plop them in to a new environment where absolutely nothing is the same as it once was.

And so far, the drip method is the ONLY method of acclimation that has ever worked for my imports of fricking altum angelfish. Those things are tough to acclimate in any form!