Introducing fish from diff pH - Aquarium Advice

Daid · 09-23-2009, 05:09 AM

Hi,

My tanks have cycled
pH: 7.6-7.8
NH3: 0ppm
NO2: 0ppm
NO3: 10ppm

Currently with 6 guppies.

The pH from the LFS is about 7.2-7.4. How would i introduce new fish from the LFS into my tanks without having them get fin clamp or pH shock.

I know about floating the bag in the tank and slowly adding water, but is that enough? I've had fish get sick/die even when i do this.

Cheers

ricardo48 · 09-23-2009, 05:53 AM

A PH drop of 0.2 is not going to cause any harm so I would not worry about it. If it was anything over 1.0 whole point I would then be more aware.

I personally add a scoop of aquarium water into the bag with the fish in as it sits in the aquarium waiting for temperature to equilibriate.

I do this every 5 mins with about half cup of water... helps gradually bring PH in line with what aquarium is. Gradual change rather than dumping straight into tank.

marchmaxima · 09-23-2009, 06:31 AM

There's an article there on the different acclimation methods in the articles section.

Daid · 09-23-2009, 06:45 AM

Thanks,

I've read the article and I've done the Floating Bag method, out of 3 guppies. 1 have died, 1 is sitting at the bottom and 1 seems okay. This is after the 5th day...

The first day, they seemed fine. But after the 2nd/3rd day they started to clamp their fins.

ricardo48 · 09-23-2009, 07:28 AM

What is the GH/KH of your water?

Daid · 09-23-2009, 08:25 AM

ohh dear

Does that affect things? I haven't read much about the GH/KH. Would a big difference in GH/KH affect the fish?

I've only got the API Master Kit.

I currently add aquarium salt/conditioner to the tank which would make it ATLEAST 180ppm (10dGH) for GH and 330pm for NaCl.

Edit: I've also got shell grit in my gravel (rock + shell bits)

ricardo48 · 09-23-2009, 09:01 AM

10Gh is about medium hardness.... in the middle between hard and soft water.

What is your KH? Any drastic/large changes can have possible stress effect on fish but nothing to cause death ( unless dealing with very sensitive species )

**jsoong** · 09-23-2009, 12:17 PM

The change in salt level might also be a problem. Also, with shells in your tank, your water parameters (GH/KH) would be different from the lfs's.

I like to do drip acclimatization. This is a prolonged version of the bag & add water routine. Basically, I put the bagged fish in a container, & rig up an airline hose to drip water into the bag slowly, letting the bag overflow into the container. The goal here is to slowly dilute out the bag water with your tank water over several hours. <I usu. add 3-4x the water volume in the bag.>

Sometime, the new fish is just sick to start or the rough catching/handling at the lfs is the problem rather than your acclimatization.

Daid · 09-24-2009, 06:22 AM

Would a big difference in salt/pH/hardness be a problem?

No matter how hard i try to acclimatise some fishes to my moderately hard/slightly salt FW tank, they end up dying within a few days or getting sick. Is there anything that can be done?

marchmaxima · 09-24-2009, 07:08 AM

It's not a problem per say, but a big difference certainly requires extra attention. The bigger the parameter difference, the harder it will be on your new fish. If your water parameters are very different to where they came from then you will have to acclimate them slowly over a longer period of time. I am also an advocate of the drip method. Since I swapped to this method, I haven't lost a fish.

I spent 2 and a half hours acclimatising some fish shipped from Darwin to me in Melbourne. This was due to the large difference in water params and I also factored in stress caused by the 3000km trip. I know how well I feel after travelling that far

Just another thought... Are you getting all your fish from the same source? If you're getting them from an LFS, its possible that they are already sick when you get them. Some LFSs are better at keeping fish than others. Perhaps try another source?