Properly adding a new fish to your tank
- Thread starter Brian
- Start date
NateHanson
Non-member
Fish, I just buy from a store where they've been for a few days and look healthy. Then just drip acclimate them and toss 'em in.
Deafasa
Well-Known Member
For fish, I try to leave them in a QT tank for two weeks. For starfish and shrimp I drip acclimate them and add them to my main tank. For crabs and snails, I acclimate by adding water to the bag, a shot glass at a time every 15 to 30 minutes and then add them to my main tank.
~Flighty~
Now with more baby
I've found the problem with drip acclimating is the temperature. The bucket you have the fish in cools(or starts out cooler after a drive) Then you drip warm tank water into the bucket and the tank water "floats" on the surface and doesn't mix (if the fish isn't swimming around franticly). It is like making a black and tan with beer. Mmmm, Beer. You can tell this is happening if you stir the water a little and see those little wavy mixing lines in the water (anyone know the name for those).
I give the outside of the bag a quick FW rinse to remove anything that got on the outside that I don't want in my tank.
Then I float the bag to equalise the temp with MHs off so the air in the bag doesn't heat up.
After a few minutes I put a hole in the top of the bag above the water line and attach the bag to the glass with the magnet float.
I use a turkey baster to remove some water from the bag and add some tankwater.
I repeat this step every 10 minutes or so a bunch of times, slower if the fish looks stressed, faster if he doesn't seem to care
Then I take almost all of the water out of the bag and fill it with tankwater
Then I cut the top off of the bag and let the fish swim out
I remove the bag still full of water to keep any solids at the bottom of the bag out of the tank
Another advantage of this method is that the fish gets to scope out the tank before you drop him in and he never has the stress or injury potential of a net.
I give the outside of the bag a quick FW rinse to remove anything that got on the outside that I don't want in my tank.
Then I float the bag to equalise the temp with MHs off so the air in the bag doesn't heat up.
After a few minutes I put a hole in the top of the bag above the water line and attach the bag to the glass with the magnet float.
I use a turkey baster to remove some water from the bag and add some tankwater.
I repeat this step every 10 minutes or so a bunch of times, slower if the fish looks stressed, faster if he doesn't seem to care
Then I take almost all of the water out of the bag and fill it with tankwater
Then I cut the top off of the bag and let the fish swim out
I remove the bag still full of water to keep any solids at the bottom of the bag out of the tank
Another advantage of this method is that the fish gets to scope out the tank before you drop him in and he never has the stress or injury potential of a net.
NateHanson
Non-member
They're called Schlieren Cindy. It's a german word.
I actually dribble acclimate mine in a tupperware that's floating in my sump. Occasionally I blast in some sump water with a baster to keep things stirred up.
And I don't net the fish. I move them from container to tank by hand.
Nate
I actually dribble acclimate mine in a tupperware that's floating in my sump. Occasionally I blast in some sump water with a baster to keep things stirred up.
And I don't net the fish. I move them from container to tank by hand.
Nate
Scuba_Dave
Non-member
~Flighty~ said:
For saltwater & fresh "mixing"/floating it is a halocline
Thermocline describes the seperation between cold & warm water
see both of these while diving in Mexico - Cozumel
nunofs
Non-member
I quarantine fish for 4 weeks in a 10g tank... last time I did this coupled with hyposalinity (1.010) to make it easier on the fish (less salt = easier breathing/osmosis) but mainly to take care of any ick they might be carrying (they looked healthy at the store, but I'd rather not take a risk). It's worked well for me, I'm doing it again with the new fish I got yesterday.
Btw, I take around 3 or 4 days to drop and raise the salinity in the QT from a normal reef level to hyposalinity and back.
Regarding acclimating fish (before they go to the QT), what I do is dump the water in the bag into a 5g bucket, and every 5 minutes I pour a cup of water from the tank into the bucket until temperature matches (I agree with Cindy that with drip acclimating it's hard to keep a constant temperature)... then I just scoop out the fish and dump them into the QT. For transfer between the QT and the main tank, at the end of the quarantine, there's really no acclimating needed because I'll make sure, over the last couple of days of quarantine, that the main parameters (temperature, pH) will match.
Nuno
Btw, I take around 3 or 4 days to drop and raise the salinity in the QT from a normal reef level to hyposalinity and back.
Regarding acclimating fish (before they go to the QT), what I do is dump the water in the bag into a 5g bucket, and every 5 minutes I pour a cup of water from the tank into the bucket until temperature matches (I agree with Cindy that with drip acclimating it's hard to keep a constant temperature)... then I just scoop out the fish and dump them into the QT. For transfer between the QT and the main tank, at the end of the quarantine, there's really no acclimating needed because I'll make sure, over the last couple of days of quarantine, that the main parameters (temperature, pH) will match.
Nuno
~Flighty~
Now with more baby
I think Nate is right, the lines are called Schlieren, you see them because of the iso-, thermo-, halo- clines. Now what I want to know is did you know the word "schlieren" or did you have to look it up?Scuba_Dave said:
I definately agree with Fingolfin too. Propper tank and healthy fish to begin with.
NateHanson
Non-member
I knew it. I know lots of useless crap. Like what a rhombus is. 
Jill & Brian
Reef Hiatus
Not that we have been reefing that long, but we got a free 40G tank that we use for quarrantining all incoming fish. We are on our second fish in the quarantine tank
We acclimated them by floating the bag and adding a small amount of tank water a couple of times until the bag is full. Then we net the fish and put them into the QT tank. We qt them for about 2 weeks.
For transferring to the maiin tank, we made sure the water was the same parameters and switched the fish in a container.
-Brian
We acclimated them by floating the bag and adding a small amount of tank water a couple of times until the bag is full. Then we net the fish and put them into the QT tank. We qt them for about 2 weeks.
For transferring to the maiin tank, we made sure the water was the same parameters and switched the fish in a container.
-Brian
nunofs
Non-member
I guess this is one of those things that have strong proponents on both sides of the issue, and the reasons on both sides are equally valid.
I can see how putting a fish in a small tank for a month can stress him, but on the other hand he's in a "safe haven" where he doesn't have to compete with established fish, territories, etc...
The main reason I quarantine, though, is to protect the existing livestock already in the display tank as much as possible from external contamination. To me, that's more important that the temporary lack of space a new fish will have to endure.
Nuno
I can see how putting a fish in a small tank for a month can stress him, but on the other hand he's in a "safe haven" where he doesn't have to compete with established fish, territories, etc...
The main reason I quarantine, though, is to protect the existing livestock already in the display tank as much as possible from external contamination. To me, that's more important that the temporary lack of space a new fish will have to endure.
Nuno
NateHanson
Non-member
I agree with you on all those principles Nuno. I don't pretend that I have a philisophical motive for not quarantining fish. I'm afraid it's purely logistical. I've QT'd one fish (a mail-order fish that needed a lot of attention) and I'm glad I did. But it was a pain having a separate system set up, and I'll admit to the occasional impulse buy.
Also, the motivation to QT is less convincing to me, because I don't really think it's reasonable to expect any quarantine regimine to completely prevent the existance of Ich in a tank, especially if you don't also quarantine all inverts, corals, etc when adding them to your tank. I think most diseases are much harder to exclude from the tank than they are to suppress through good husbandry and healthy fish-keeping.
That said there are very few downsides to QT, and if I had room in the basement to keep a 30g tank set up, I'd probably always QT fish just for another measure of safety.
Nate
Also, the motivation to QT is less convincing to me, because I don't really think it's reasonable to expect any quarantine regimine to completely prevent the existance of Ich in a tank, especially if you don't also quarantine all inverts, corals, etc when adding them to your tank. I think most diseases are much harder to exclude from the tank than they are to suppress through good husbandry and healthy fish-keeping.
That said there are very few downsides to QT, and if I had room in the basement to keep a 30g tank set up, I'd probably always QT fish just for another measure of safety.
Nate
nunofs
Non-member
True, there's no 100% safe way to prevent external infections... even quarantining everything (I don't have enough space to do that), there's always something that can be hidden during quarantine and only manifest itself once in the display tank. And then there's all the live rock and live sand, and who knows what comes with those.
FWIW, I've been doing dips (using Reef Dip, I want to move to Interceptor in the near future) on all incoming corals... I dip a freshwater dip on the clam I got the other day... inverts (namely shrimp) are a bit harder, because you can't use too much iodine (so Reef Dip is out) and they don't tolerate a FW dip well... so for shrimp and snails I just acclimate and throw then in the tank. Not perfect, obviously.
Nuno
FWIW, I've been doing dips (using Reef Dip, I want to move to Interceptor in the near future) on all incoming corals... I dip a freshwater dip on the clam I got the other day... inverts (namely shrimp) are a bit harder, because you can't use too much iodine (so Reef Dip is out) and they don't tolerate a FW dip well... so for shrimp and snails I just acclimate and throw then in the tank. Not perfect, obviously.
Nuno
NateHanson
Non-member
I agree with you on the Reef Dip and interceptor Nuno. I think we all need to get in that habit if we want to keep our corals safe these days.
OP
OP
Brian
Jim Nabors is WAY cool!!
No no Ray, he went in after about an hour drip acclimation and has been rearranging the rockwork since (gotta love these jawfish! ) No I was just started thinking how carelsee I am about warding off any parasites or other problems from finding their way into the tank so I wanted to see what others are doing, but it would seem we're almost all the same.
) No I was just started thinking how carelsee I am about warding off any parasites or other problems from finding their way into the tank so I wanted to see what others are doing, but it would seem we're almost all the same.
nunofs
Non-member
Btw, I thought I should mention that my determination in quarantining comes from bad experiences with freshwater tanks... I once lost about 50% of my fish because I introduced new fish that appeared healthy but obviously were not. Since then, I make it a point of doing a quarantine.
Nuno
Nuno
