What MORE to do in a fish's first day in the aquarium?

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xXDiamondNekoXx

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
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Jun 22, 2015
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Location
Tampa, FL
My lyre tail guppies are in their tank now. i have floated them in their bag for five minutes and carefully put them in the tank with the lights off. What else is there to do for them to get used to the tank and be happy?

:fish2: :fish1:
 
You should really be acclimating all fish to your tank for at least a half hour. Did you just let them float to adjust the temperature or add water? Also, is the tank cycled? Ideally, you want to drip acclimate fish for at least an hour in the tank, but with hardier fish like guppies a half hour bag acclimation should be okay. Please let us know if your tank is cycled.
 
My tank is cycled, and I let them float to adjust and gradually poured water in the process : - )

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Depending on the fish I drip them all a minimum of 1 hour. Most 2 hours. And inverts 3 hours or more. Dripping some tank water at least every 10-15 minutes. This helps condition fish to your tank parameters. A short acclimation can be stressful to them and has been known in some cases to cause mysterious deaths when parameters were in normal ranges.


Caleb
 
I had never heard of mysterious deaths happening. Still, I thought it was recommended to float for 15 min.. I have aquarium salt and it says it can help reduce the stress of fish. Should I use it

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IMO I'm not a salty person. Never used aquarium salt. Never found the need to. Some add salt though. Floating the bag is to acclimate them to the temperature to your tank. Drip acclimating them by adding a little of your tank water acclimates them to your set of tank conditions. Your water is different from the water at the LFS, that's why it's good to drip them.

Most of those mysterious deaths were saltwater fish or invertebrates. Though I would not be surprised if I read some cases with freshwater fish as well.

Caleb
 
How long you acclimate should depend on water differences and the fishes "sensitivity" IMO.
More important is you should have NEVER added any water from another tank to yours!
Even without the use of a quarantine tank not adding "crap" water is a huge step in disease intervention ,again IMO.


This site has a proper acclimation article more should use it!
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/acclimation/
 
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