Homer_Simpson

Most people are aware of what drip acclimitization of new fish involves. Others may not and may find this useful.

Here is my home made fish acclimitazation setup. In the 10 years that I have had fish, I have tried both the regular float bag method of new fish acclimitazation and the drip method. And hands down, I have found that I have had much fewer losses with the drip method, although I am sure that some would argue that other factors were likely involved to account for the fish deaths. For a c02 injected plant tank, I think that using such a setup becomes even more important considering that new fish from a non-c02 injected aquarium store tank may not quickly adapt to a c02 injected tank and so may not survive the transtion.

Equipment:

(1)Empty Ice Cream Bucket like this or any other container to hold the water from the bag and fish.


(2)Airline tubing. I use 4.5 feet and find that more than enough.


(3)A clip like this. Cheap at the dollar shop.


(4)A mini-clamp like this one. Probably the most important piece for the setup. I got mine from a local fish store for 69 cents.


Now to put it all together.

(1) Insert one end of the airline tubing about half way into the aquarium that you plan to place your new fish into and clip the tube to the side of the aquarium as pictured. Your hood cover may sufficiently hold the tubing in place that you may not need to clip it on. That's your call.


(2) Now suck on the air line tubing to get a water flow. As you will get a big gush of water coming out, you should use another bucket to catch the water until you get the clamp on to the other end of the tubing and adjust it to control the flow. I prefer a drippy faucet type flow. 1-2 drops of water/per second but you can adjust the flow to your liking. Once you are done, you can leave the end of the tube with the clamp inside the bucket of water/positioned on top(the weight of the clamp will keep it in place) or you can even clamp the tube to the side of the bucket as pictured. It doesn't matter, all methods will work. With a slower flow, you can leave the fish in the bucket longer to acclimitize to your aquarium water. A faster flow rate, means less acclimitazation period. I guess that could mean good or bad, depending on the fish. I have found that I get the best results with longer vs shorter acclimitization periods. If you don't plan to do this with your c02 injection off, then I highly recommend a really slow 1-2 drop of water/second rate and leaving the fish in the bucket longer.

Jookie

That's pretty cool! Since I have access to hospital stuff, I just made a drip acclimation setup using old IV tubing and an IV bad with a slit cut in the top to add tank water. Works like a charm. I haven't lost a shrimp or fish since.

hoppycalif

Is the objective to slowly drip tank water into the container of LFS water the fish came in? So, you pour the bag of fish into the container, then drip in tank water until that container is nearly full? If you forget about it, I assume it just runs over.

Homer_Simpson

You are correct Hoppy. You empty the LFS water and fish from the bag into the container. Although not necessary, I sometimes empty a cup of water out of the bag(depending on how much water the fish came with) before emptying into the bucket.

Usually, I find the ice cream pail is usually measures 25% full of LFS water when I empty the water into the pail. I usually set the drip to no more than 2 drops/second and wait until the pail is about 1/2 full before dumping the water and fish into the tank. I have a UV sterilizer running, but if you don't, some recommend netting the fish and transferring into your tank to prevent nasties from the LFS water entering your tank. The only problem is that if your fish has something nasty, it is likely using your fish as a host and will spread to other fish whether you net it into your tank or dump it with the water into your tank, unless you set up a quarantine tank and put him/her in there first or run a UV sterilizer.

As far as forgetting about it. The estimated time that the bucket would fill up at 1-2/drops per second is several....several...hours. One day, just for the heck of it I may time it, just to see exactly how many hours. The smaller bucket can be placed inside of a much larger bucket to prevent a spill over should one forget about the bucket. My guess is that if you place the ice cream pail in another pail or bucket 3-4X the size of that bucket or just use a 3-4X bucket larger than the ice cream pail, it would probably take a day for that bucket to fill and I am sure someone would notice before a whole day went by. I just chose the ice cream pail because it seems like a practical size to use for handling purposes. I usually just set it and do something else for a couple of hours(laundry, watch a movie, exercise, etc.,) then come back and empty the bucket of water and fish into my tank. I just transferred a Siamese Algae Eater into my 40 gallon Algae Farm using this method. And the SAE is already busy tearing off and consuming strips of dieing/soft Green Dust Algae. He has been at it 24/7 - 7 days a week since I got him/her a week ago. He suffered no ill effects adapting to the c02 injected tank.

Regards

Homer_Simpson

Now that is awesome! An ingenious no cost improvise

I was lucky that I found a LFS store sold the clamps. I found these mini clamps to be the difference maker. The LFS store said that the guys from the Virology Lab loved these clamps. Lol, I wonder what they use them for

:

I found that the clamp gave me the ability to reduce the flow to 1-2/drops per second. Before that, I found it next to impossible to get the flow that low, no matter what other clamps I tried.

fishscale

I used to tie knots in the tubing. Just added knots until I got the drips slow enough.

treefish

Good idea with the clamps and permanent setup. Much more efficient than knots. I've only tried the drip method a couple times. Now I'll be more inclined to do so every time since I plan on making one of these.
Thanks

mabviper

I always thought of trying drip method. The only thing I'm worried about is the temperature of the water. Without a heater, I find that the water in a bucket gets quite cold really fast. Did you find that this is a problem w/ your fish?

Homer_Simpson

No, I never lost any fish. I can see your point though. I am no expert on temperature swings and fish health or acclimitazation, but my guess is that the fish are more likely to be negatively impacted by constant fluctuations in water temperature frequently over several days or hours. They could probably adapt to the odd temperature swing if it was not too drastic and with the drip method, because the water is only flowing into the bucket at a rate of 1-2 drops per second, I would think the any changes in temperature(up or down) would be too slow too have a real impact on the fish(unless you do this in a really cold room) and by the time you put the fish in the water, he would be in the water with the temperature that he has already adapted do. With the float bag method you are dumping larger quantities of water in the bag over a shorter period of time, so I would think that this would cause a more dramatic fluctuation in temperature in the fish bag water.

You do raise a really interesting point though and that is one of the reasons that I am fearful of trying those automatic water change hoses with the siphon that hook up to your faucet. I imagine the temperature change introduced by the new water would probably cause a greater fluctuation in temperature. How do people who use such devices deal with this? Are your heaters sufficient to quickly stablize water temperature after such a change or do you try to match the temperature of the faucet water to your tank water before letting the water flow into the tank. I let buckets of water sit at room temperature and use this water for my water changes.

pawslover

I know some people use a thermometer to measure the temp of the water coming out of the faucet and try to adjust it to the temp of the tank. I don't because I got a python to do water changes on multiple tanks and they are not all at the same temp. I just hand check the water coming out of the faucet and usually aim for just slightly warmer than lukewarm or tepid. Water a little bit warmer doesn't seem to have any effect on the fish IME although a plunge with colder water will as I found out the hard way.

I had hooked up the python and thought I was draining my rainbow tank. I always use just cold water when I'm draining the tanks. I didn't have it on drain, it was on fill. I left the room to go look for something and when I came back, there was a disaster of water pouring out of the tank, COLD Besides the mess I had to clean up, I lost the rainbows from temp shock eventhough I quickly drained the water and refilled with room temp water.

The other warning is to make sure that you don't attach the python to a faucet with a slow running drain as I have had the sink overflow on me on occasion. Despite the mishaps, I love my python and would hate to go back to lugging buckets. My fish/plants would hate it too as I am much better about doing regular WC with the python. Back to the original question, I have not noticed any real temp swings doing the WC the way I have been. I also quit worrying about it so much after reading a post from someone who said that fish handle temp changes all the time in nature when there is an influx of rain/rainwater.

Thanks for posting the instructions on the drip acclimitization method. I had been meaning to try it and now know how to proceed.