- Controversial, contentious, tendentious,
several words I looked up in the thesaurus today.
I'm predicting that several of my fellow hobbyists
will vehemently
disagree with the advice I'm about to give you
in today's video.
They may be right,
but I still believe that on the whole,
this is the best method.
(whimsical music)
Selamat siang my fellow and future reefers.
Matthew here, your BRS beginner guru
coming at you this week with episode 34
in the beginner how-to guide
for salt water aquariums and reef tanks.
How to drip acclimate fish
and some inverts like shrimp, crab
and snails, but not corals.
Definitely not corals
because there are several extra steps you have to do,
which we'll cover in a later video.
There are several hobbyists out there
who firmly believe that we shouldn't drip acclimate fish
for reasons I will elucidate upon shortly.
And I totally understand their point,
but ah yes,
you knew, there was going to be a but,
but I've used this method for years
and I still firmly believe it's the best method out there.
But not only that,
there are several big online retailers,
such as Liveaquaria
saltwaterfish.com,
Blue Zoo Aquatics,
and even Petco
that recommend a similar drip acclimation method.
So for now, until proven, otherwise,
let me teach you how to drip acclimate fish.
Why do we drip acclimate fish?
The simple answer is because
the water from your local fish store
or from the container it was used to ship in,
has different water parameters,
than the water in your home aquarium.
And if you just plop new fish
into your quarantine tank,
the differences in temperature,
pH, and salinity
can shock those fish which leads to stress
and stress often times leads to disease and death.
So, drip acclimation gives your fish time to adjust
to the new water parameters in the quarantine tank.
And did you guys notice how I keep saying quarantine tank
and not display tank?
I'm trying to like,
subtly send you vibes.
Well I guess not so subtly now because I'm telling you,
but I'm trying to subtly send you vibes saying,
"No, no, no, you never place new fish
into your display tank.
You're only going to ever consider placing them
into a quarantine tank."
Please, please set up a quarantine tank.
Don't put new fish into your display tank.
It's just a bad idea.
What about inverts such as
snails,
crabs,
conches,
and shrimp.
Well, they're even more sensitive
especially to salinity changes,
so drip acclimation is super crucial for them.
Should we drip acclimate fish?
Okay, here comes
the great debate.
But, I don't wanna over play it
and I actually hesitated even adding this section in,
because it might just confuse beginners.
Those who say we shouldn't drip acclimate
are still currently a small minority in this hobby.
But I think you're gonna see comments
either in this video,
on forums, or other videos
where people will say that drip acclimation
is a terrible thing to do
and I think you need to at least understand
what they're saying
and where they're coming from.
But, a quick disclaimer here.
This really only applies
to fish that you bought online
and that had to be shipped to you.
If you just went to your local fish store
and just drove them straight home,
then drip acclimation's a totally fine thing to do.
When you purchase a fish online,
the retailer is going to fill the bag part way with water
and then fill the remaining portion of the bag
with pure oxygen,
thus giving the fish enough O2 to survive
until it arrives at your house.
During that shipping progress,
the fish is going to breathe
and excrete which is going to increase the ammonia levels
and the carbon dioxide levels inside that bag.
Ammonia is super toxic to your fish.
But as the fish breathe in that bag,
the carbon dioxide level builds up
which lowers the pH
and a lower pH means that the ammonia remains
in non-toxic form.
As soon as you open up the bag,
the carbon dioxide is released
and oxygen begins to flood in.
That oxygen will raise the pH inside the bag.
A rapid rise in the pH means
that the previously non-toxic ammonia
is changed into its toxic form
and could very quickly damage the gill tissue
on that fish, causing death.
But how quickly the toxicity of the ammonia increases
depends on a lot of factors,
including how much ammonia was in the bag,
how quickly the oxygen enters the water,
and how quickly the pH rises.
This is why you often hear
that you should never add an air stone into this process.
Because the air stone will increase the surface agitation,
which means that oxygen will get into the water quicker,
which will increase the pH
and increase the toxicity of the ammonia.
But I would really love to see Ryan and Randy
focus on this for a future BRS Investigate series
so, we can know once and for all
whether drip acclimation is a good thing or not.
But for now, the prevailing wisdom still says
that the benefits of drip acclimation by far
outweigh the possible side effects of ammonia toxicity.
Okay, here we go the nine steps.
I feel like I've been doing a lot of nine steps
and I just don't like the number nine.
So, in the future, I'm gonna try to figure out
how to add an extra step in there,
so we can get a nice even 10.
But, the first step in the drip acclimation process
is to inspect the livestock.
This step only implies if you purchase your fish online
so, if you got it from a local fish store
just skip over to step two.
Start by dimming the lights in the room
before you open up the box.
The fish have been in a completely black box
for at least 24 hours
so, If you open them up to a very bright room
it can stress them out.
So, just dimming those lights down before you open the box
can really help reduce their stress.
When you open the box,
just make a mental note of the temperature.
Does it seem overly hot?
Does it seem overly cold?
Pull out each bag and inspect the livestock
to make sure not only is it alive
but that it looks healthy.
If there's an extremely sick fish
or a dead fish,
stop what you're doing,
take pictures immediately
and don't open the bag.
Because an open bag signals to the online retailer
that you may have, in fact,
done something to kill the fish.
If any of the fish are dead,
take those pictures,
put the fish back in the box,
and immediately send an email to the retailer
because often times, you have to send that email
within the first hour of arrival
if you want to get a refund.
But hopefully everything will look great
and you're gonna move on
to step two, temperature acclimation.
Start by dimming
or turning off the lights in your quarantine tank.
But if you're saying, "But Matthew, I don't know
how to set up a quarantine tank."
Stay tuned,
because next episode we'll go over it.
Then you wanna float the bags
in your tank, being careful not to cover up the weirs.
I did this once with a tank that had a sump
and all the water from the sump
kept filling up into the display tank,
but none of it could go back down to the sump
because I covered the weir
and luckily I caught it before it flooded my house.
So, just make sure its not blocking the weir
or whatever sort of overflow filtration you have.
Float the livestock for about fifteen to thirty minutes.
The goal here is to make the temperature inside the bag
match the temperature inside your quarantine tank.
Sometimes, unfortunately the livestock just arrive
in really bad shape.
Maybe, there was a delay in shipping
or it was really hot or really cold outside.
You can temperature acclimate those fish
for a lot longer if you need to
because sometimes, just increasing or decreasing
the water inside of the bag
can bring those fish back to life.
Just an important note to benay here
do not open the bag at all during this process.
Remember, we wanna keep the carbon dioxide in that bag
so, the pH stays low.
As soon as we open up that bag,
we risk ammonia toxicity
which can kill the fish.
Step number three.
Cut open the bag,
empty the water and the livestock into a bucket.
You'll need to make sure,
either you have a small bucket
or maybe even tilt the bucket on its side,
so that there's enough water in the bottom for the fish.
A little trick I learned
when cutting open the top of the bag,
make sure the bag is in the bucket
because as soon as you pierce the top of the bag
all of that air will come out of it
and the bag will loose its shape.
And the bag could easily fall out of your hand,
and onto the floor,
and make a mess,
and maybe even injure the livestock.
When you are pouring the water
and the fish into the bucket,
make sure you're doing it
as close to the bottom of the bucket as possible.
Doing it up high could injure the fish
as they hit the bottom of the bucket when you pour it in.
Also, you need to make sure that the fish
does not get caught in the bag.
This happens all the time
because the fish doesn't wanna get poured out.
So, it can totally get stuck at the bottom of the bag
which can lead to a lot of stress
and maybe even death.
Well everybody,
that completes part A of the drip acclimation process,
but stay tuned for next episode
because we will go over steps four through nine
and complete the entire drip acclimation process.
As always everybody,
thank you for watching.
Happy reefing, be well.
We'll see you next time.
(whimsical music)