drip acclimating

[RockoC87]

im drip acclimating a green chromis, after the bucket fills up can i pour it into my aquarium or what do i do, i need advice or like steps on the whole correct procedure..
thanks,
chase

[CD]

Hi Chase! :D

OK...steps for drip acclimation:

1. determine the difference between the salinity/temp./PH in the bag water and your tank. Personally, I think the temp. and salinity have the most impact on acclimating critters, but some may disagree. Anyway, the larger span of difference between the bag water and your tank, the longer the acclimation time should be...having a refractometer in lieu of one of the lesser expensive (cheap) plastic salinity meters is a HUGE help. Lets say for instance the bag water (that the fish is in) reads 1.030 salinity, and your tank water reads 1.025 (optimal) - with these readings, I would drip acclimate for about five hours. IOW, the bigger the difference in salinity, the slower the drips should be - shock is probably one of the most prevalent causes of losing newly acclimated fish.
2. As you are drip acclimating, periodically remove some of the water in the drip bucket and throw it out - do NOT put this in your tank. Make sure you leave enough water for the fish to swim comfortably, but not so full as to make it easy for the fish to jump out. As far as why you want to dispose of the water - because fish poop in the bags, and produce waste/ammonias...basically stuff you don't want in your tank.
3. Once the salinity in your acclimation bucket is either right on, or within .01 of where your tank water is, remove the fish from the bucket and either place in tank (this is ONLY if the temperatures differences between bucket and tank are VERY close) OR if the temps. differ, place fish back in a baggie using the acclimation water, and float the bag for about 15 to 20 minutes to let the temp. regulate before you release.

PHEW - hope I covered everything. ;) :D

LMK if I left something out, or if you have any further questions.
W.

[thedude]

One thing to add:

When we drip acclimate fish we also add ammo-lock to the water. Like Wendy said, fish still produce waste in the hours they are bagged and all of this builds up. The PH in the bag water will be low as well (no fresh CO2) and as you bring it up, the ammonia will rise as well.

[AlexKilpatrick]

Another thing to be careful about. If you do a long drip-acclimate like Wndy describes, you are going to be taking a lot of water out of your tank. If you replace that with freshwater, you will be dropping your salinty. So, you shoud have some fresh saltwater to replace what you are removing via acclimation.

Also, not everyone agrees on the need to do this long of an acclimation. I am pretty sure that the fish stores don't do much of an acclimation at all. However, I think most everyone agrees that a long acclimation won't hurt, so it is the conservative choice.