Acclimating Fish Ordered Online

[MickS77]

The question came up earlier about matching your tank parameters to the parameters of the fish arriving by mail. I'm curious what everyone does in that case? Do you worry about? what experiences you've had good and bad?

I personally just float to temperature, then "plop and drop" discarding the water

Edited August 10, 2020 by MickS77

[Mikeg]

I feel like they are so stressed, the best thing you can do is get them into some known good water parameters as soon as possible, so I just plop and drop. I live in CA and don't have a ton of issues with the temp they arrive usually and don't have to heat my tanks a ton really.

[shkote]

Unless it's a much more sensitive species of fish, or shrimp, I always plop and drop. I have never had an issue with it, but can say I have had issues with drip acclimation before. Some shipping water can get downright nasty. 

 

[Daniel]

Like @Mikeg  and @Lynze I open the shipping box, lift the bag, slice the side of the bag with an Exacto knife. Water and fish plop and drop into their new tank. So basically no acclimation.

I don't have a quarantine tank either because most fish go into a dedicated tank.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Daniel

[MickS77]

10 minutes ago, Lynze said:

Some shipping water can get downright nasty. 

 

Exactly why I prefer getting them out of that bag water ASAP. 

[Daniel]

@MickS77 I think polls like this will be fun. @DaveSamsell tried a few early on in the forum but there wasn't one that caught fire. This one has a chance.  Can you add a 'Plop and Drop' option seeing how it is the run away favorite so far?

I see 'Plop and Drop' as part of option 2, except I don't float to temperature. I never seen that temperature matters. Not saying it couldn't matter, just that I have not seen it.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Daniel

[MickS77]

4 minutes ago, Daniel said:

@MickS77 I think polls like this will be fun. @DaveSamsell tried a few early on in the forum but there wasn't one that caught fire. This one has a chance.  Can you add a 'Plop and Drop' option seeing how it is the run away favorite so far?

I see 'Plop and Drop' as part of option 2, except I don't float to temperature. I never seen any temperature matters. Not saying it couldn't matter, just that I have not seen it.

Okay I added options depending on peoples definitions of what "plop & drop" is. Which is also interesting. 

[Daniel]

My theory on 'Plop and Drop' with bag water is it saves the fish from being netted. Whatever nasties that are in the bag, those nasties are already in the fish, and though there might be a spot of ammonia in the bag water, that NH₃ is diluted quite a bit by the tank water. And I am not talking about putting a quart of bag water in the tank, the amount is usually incidental.

[Cory]

For import orders myself, with say 300 cardinal tetras in about a gallon of water going into 10 gallons, we do strain the water for meds/ammonia. But from buying on Aquabid or from a store etc for my personal fish, I add water and fish to my tanks as my tanks have never had a problem handling it.

[Meow Aquatics]

if the temp is close enough I plop and drop. If not, float for 15ish minutes first. 

[Daniel]

Don't forget to vote in the poll at the top of page

[FinalFins]

I clicked the wrong one as I voted, but I'll share my thoughts.

Personally my thought is that since the fish have been in the bag water for several hours I prefer to get them out straight away. Ammonia is a dangerous substance and I prefer to have my fish exposed to it for the least amount of time as possible. So I float them for temperature then I put them straight in, discarding the bag water. True acclimation takes weeks, and they won't fully adjust to the new conditions for a bit. The acclimation process when you get a fish is just a quickened version of it, to ease the transition.

[ForestJenn]

I didn't vote because I've never ordered fish, but weirdly, I talked about this with a friend of mine over the weekend.   He has been struggling with shrimp via mail order recently.  3 orders failed on him.   He believes it has to be something he's doing because both the vendors he used are reputable.   His most recent purchase was through a more local vendor and he seems to be having more success and he assumes it's because of a smaller difference in water quality.

Based on his experience, I'd probably go for acclimating more slowly, but getting the fish out of dirty shipping water makes for a compelling argument as well.   I'll be watching this poll and tucking away the results in my brain for the future!  😉

[varanidguy]

I always take bag temp, if it's within a few degrees, I plop and drop discarding the bag water. If the bag water is way off temp wise, I float then plop and drop. The amount of ammonia built up during shipping scares me.

[StephenP2003]

For a time, I was using the nifty drip-acclimation product off Amazon that allows you to drip directly into the bag while it floats -- the big fish-shipping retailers even recommend lengthy acclimation periods-- but one day on whim I decided to test the bag water, and I now agree with others that it's probably better to just get the fish into clean water. I really focused on slow acclimating the sensitive species, when it was those that probably needed plop and drop the most. I still drip LFS fish.

 

[Andy's Fish Den]

For fish that I order from overseas with my local club when we import, I temp acclimate by floating or letting bag sit out for 15 min or so then open bag and catch fish out then drop into QT tank. If I ordered form someone in US shipped overnight I just float to temp acclimate then dump fish and water in. I figure most sellers fast the fish for a day or two before shipping and most likely the fish have been in bags lass than 24 hours so the water shouldn't be too awful. Now, if the water is cloudy and smells bad, I net fish and plop n drop.