How To Acclimate New Fish To Your Aquarium
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 It
is important to remember that aquatic animals are sensitive to rapid changes
in their environment. A sudden change in temperature or water quality can
send a fish into shock. If a fish dies within a day or two after you buy it,
the chances are good that it was not acclimated SLOWLY to the conditions in
your aquarium. The following procedures will help a fish to adapt to the
water conditions in your tank.
Please note that saltwater
fish require longer acclimation:
Regardless of whether you
have salt or freshwater fish, start by feeding the old fish in your tank so
that they don’t attack the newcomers. If you have a saltwater aquarium, or
an aggressive community of freshwater fish (most saltwater aquariums can be
classified as aggressive in varying degrees), rearrange the decorations in
the tank to help reduce aggression toward the new fish, by changing the
territories around. Turn off the aquarium lights to reduce stress. Float the
UNOPENED bag of fish in your tank for THIRTY minutes. Then open the bag and
roll the bag down to the level of water in the bag in the same way that you
would roll up your shirt sleeves. This forms an "inner-tube" at
the top of the bag so it will float while opened without sinking.
NOTE! If you are
acclimating an eel, a wrasse, goby or any other torpedo-shaped fish, DO NOT
ROLL THE BAG DOWN! These fish have a tendency to jump out prematurely into
the tank. Instead, open the bag, and while acclimating, trap the top of the
bag under the tank lid to keep the fish from escaping.
Freshwater: exchange 1/4
of the water in the bag with the water in your aquarium every TEN minutes
for a HALF HOUR. Then release the fish. Acclimate snails, crabs and crayfish
too!
Saltwater: exchange 1/4 of
the water in the bag with the water in your aquarium every TEN minutes for
ONE HOUR. Then release the fish. Acclimate SW invertebrates the same way!
Larger fish may be
acclimated to the aquarium using the "drip-line" method. Here, the
fish is placed in a bucket set below the tank which has been filled with
several inches of aquarium water. The fish in the "store water" is
poured into the bucket. A six foot section of aquarium airline is used to
start a siphon from the aquarium into the bucket. A loose "knot"
is then tied in the airline so that the water entering the bucket does so at
the rate of one drop per second. After a couple of hours, the fish may be
netted and added to the tank.
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