Adding first fish

[danielkc]

Hi, been reading through this forum alot, but am still a bit puzzled. What is the best way to add your first fish to your aquarium? I know there are a lot of ways you can mess this up...

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks ahead!

 

[sinibotia]

Hi, been reading through this forum alot, but am still a bit puzzled. What is the best way to add your first fish to your aquarium? I know there are a lot of ways you can mess this up...

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks ahead!

It depends on a few things. Is the tank cycled, or are you cycling with fish? Did you get the fish at a local store, or from a store far away (or mailed)?

If you got the fish nearby, you can just float their bag for around 30 minutes. Then put a net over a bucket and drain the bag into the net so all the water ends up in the bucket and the fish in the net. The water from the store may have diseases in it so discard it. And then net the fish into the tank.

If the fish came a long distance it may be better to use a more advanced acclimation method.

 

[Nils]

The best way to do it is drip acclimation, but it definitely depends on the sensitivity of the fish. For inverts you want to drip acclimation, because they are very sensitive. For more common fish, like guppies, a float and pour acclimation should suffice.

Drip acclimation is where you have your bag of water with the fish in it in a bucket, you take an airline tubing section and just start a suction from the tank. Then, you tie a knot in the end of the tubing so the water just drips at 3-4 drips a second. This should be done for at least an hour, and once the water has doubled in volume you put out half and keep dripping. Pretty easy and my favorite way to do it. Hope it cleared some stuff up for you

 

[sinibotia]

The best way to do it is drip acclimation, but it definitely depends on the sensitivity of the fish. For inverts you want to drip acclimation, because they are very sensitive. For more common fish, like guppies, a float and pour acclimation should suffice.

Drip acclimation is where you have your bag of water with the fish in it in a bucket, you take an airline tubing section and just start a suction from the tank. Then, you tie a knot in the end of the tubing so the water just drips at 3-4 drips a second. This should be done for at least an hour, and once the water has doubled in volume you put out half and keep dripping. Pretty easy and my favorite way to do it. Hope it cleared some stuff up for you

I've actually found that for fish obtained locally drip acclimation does more harm than good. Your water and your stores water will already be essentially the same, so leaving them in a bucket for a long time is just unnecessary stress. It's definitely the best method for super sensitive fish and fish that came from a far away store or in the mail.

 

[coralbandit]

I roll with Nils on this one.
Local water is not always the same.
Although in the long run fish adapt well to almost all water ,
the initial adjustment is very important IMO.

I will say for 'hardy' fish you don't need to drip more then 1/2 hour,but I have dripped marine stuff for several before($$$).
When you think about it marine water(we all make up) should all be the same more then any other fresh water out of tap?????Huh?

Is your tank cycled?
Do you know what 'cycled' is?

And hey welcome to AA!

 

[exis]

You're right, there are lots of things you can do wrong. One thing i'd say is to have the tank water temperature same as the water your fish are coming from.
One useful link for you Adding First Fish to Your Aquarium | Home Aquarium Tanks

 

[sinibotia]

I roll with Nils on this one.
Local water is not always the same.
Although in the long run fish adapt well to almost all water ,
the initial adjustment is very important IMO.

I will say for 'hardy' fish you don't need to drip more then 1/2 hour,but I have dripped marine stuff for several before($$$).
When you think about it marine water(we all make up) should all be the same more then any other fresh water out of tap?????Huh?

Is your tank cycled?
Do you know what 'cycled' is?

And hey welcome to AA!

I've never had issues just straight adding fish that were in the same tap water source as mine. But I defer to your experience!

 

[Hunter73]

I personally drip acclimate all livestock (same method Nils referenced) after I've floated the bag for 20 minutes. I use a five gallon bucket (keeps jumpers contained...found that out the hard way). I usually drip acclimate about 2 hours for everything. I do use a heater in my bucket set to same tank temp. Very easy, plus I can be doing other things while they're acclimating.


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[ScotJudd]

The main thing when adding new fish to your tank is to avoid stress.
Sudden changes of temp, Ph, Kh, Gh etc etc will stress them. So slowly acclimatise them. My preferred method is to float the bag in the tank, roll down the bag to form a ring full of air. Every minute or so I add a small amount of tank water to the bag and remove a similar amount and discard it. I continue to do this until the bag is mostly tank water. Then I gently net or hand remove the fish and let them swim out of the net or my hand into the tank.
All this is done with the tank lights OFF. the tank lights are left off for a couple of hours with just the room lights on. I think this is quite a worthwhile step.
NEVER add the fish shop water to your tank and always, if you have a QT, quarantine your fish for a minimum of two weeks before adding to the main tank (I prefer 4-6 weeks).


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[mikem691]

As far as to drip or not to drip. I recommend reading this from Jeff Rapps

Tangled Up in Cichlids

 

[Reygan2]

The main thing when adding new fish to your tank is to avoid stress.
Sudden changes of temp, Ph, Kh, Gh etc etc will stress them. So slowly acclimatise them. My preferred method is to float the bag in the tank, roll down the bag to form a ring full of air. Every minute or so I add a small amount of tank water to the bag and remove a similar amount and discard it. I continue to do this until the bag is mostly tank water. Then I gently net or hand remove the fish and let them swim out of the net or my hand into the tank.
All this is done with the tank lights OFF. the tank lights are left off for a couple of hours with just the room lights on. I think this is quite a worthwhile step.
NEVER add the fish shop water to your tank and always, if you have a QT, quarantine your fish for a minimum of two weeks before adding to the main tank (I prefer 4-6 weeks).


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^This is how I've done it since I started. Simply floating the bag does match the temp, but that is only a small part of the acclimation process. IMO drip acclimation is effective but also more involved. You run the risk of the fish getting too cold if you don't run a heater in the bucket.
Great response ScotJudd!


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