Acclimating shipped fish

[Afkomjorgen]

My fish are shipping from ORA to my LFS about an hour away. I have asked the lfs to not open the shipping bags or add the fish to their system.

the plan?

— prep new salt water & bring to temp. Temp acclimate fish. Add the fish to the new salt water in buckets & drip acclimate to match ph and salinity?
Or at that point does it even matter? Should I just temp acclimate and put them in since they wouldn’t be in the suppliers water

I’m worried about the ammonia buildup since they will have been shipped.
I also know my salinity is a little on the high side and I’ve been trying to work it down.

tips appreciated. It’s been a really long time since we got new fish

tank is 2 yrs old. Fish being added. Dwarf angel, blenny, goby, dottyback

 

[lapin]

Sounds like no QT.
Salinity matters.

 

[FishyFishFish]

I’m not sure if it will work if it’s coming straight from ORA, but one tip I’ve heard is to ask for an extra bag with just their tank water in it. You can then use that to match the salinity without having to open the bags your fishies are in. I have no idea whether that actually makes any difference or not.

EDIT: that assumes that it is going into a QT/holding tank so you can adjust the parameters. It’s probably not helpful if the fish are going straight into your DT.

 

[Afkomjorgen]

Sounds like no QT.
Salinity matters.

I was told by lfs qt doesn’t matter if it’s not coming from the ocean. Originally they had agreed to qt for me but they said it didn’t matter from ora
So I didn’t have any qt plans, no ):

 

[Afkomjorgen]

I’m not sure if it will work if it’s coming straight from ORA, but one tip I’ve heard is to ask for an extra bag with just their tank water in it. You can then use that to match the salinity without having to open the bags your fishies are in. I have no idea whether that actually makes any difference or not.

EDIT: that assumes that it is going into a QT/holding tank so you can adjust the parameters. It’s probably not helpful if the fish are going straight into your DT.

They would be. I don’t have much in the way of a qt set up. I have a stock tank I used when I moved houses but it’s not ideal. It also holds almost 30 gal of water so I’d need to make quite a bit.

I do like that idea though I will probably use it for any lfs bought fish

mostly thinking is it ok to use new fresh salt water to acclimate the fish in the buckets or is that going to be just as shocking to them as putting them in the dt? I don’t want to use the shipping water if it’s toxins will make them ill

 

[crvz]

Lately I’ve made up a clean batch of water the day before the shipment. I usually make it at 1.021, as that’s a typical salinity for an LFS or online store (liveaquaria ships fish at about that level, never bought anything but inverts from ORA so not sure what you’ll get).

When the shipment comes in, I will float bags for temp acclimation, then take fiah out of the bags immediately and place them in the clean water, discarding the water from the shipment. Then I’ll drip acclimate to the tank for an hour or two to get the fish to my tank salinity (1.026).

I’ve had loads more success this way over the last couple years. I used to pour the shipment water into a bucket with the fish and drip acclimate, and I suspect ammonia burn was an issue a couple times for me in the past.

 

[crvz]

Note: I have had issues with raising salinity too quickly on fish. One time I had a pair of seemingly very healthy gold rim tangs I had in hypo treatment for ich for over 8 weeks. Raised their salinity from 1.009 to 1.025 over 12 hours, and I lost both of them. Should have stretched it over a long period of time. I would think new salt water with matching salinity would be far better than dropping them right into the display tank with a disparate salinity.

 

[iReefer12]

Lately I’ve made up a clean batch of water the day before the shipment. I usually make it at 1.021, as that’s a typical salinity for an LFS or online store (liveaquaria ships fish at about that level, never bought anything but inverts from ORA so not sure what you’ll get).

When the shipment comes in, I will float bags for temp acclimation, then take fiah out of the bags immediately and place them in the clean water, discarding the water from the shipment. Then I’ll drip acclimate to the tank for an hour or two to get the fish to my tank salinity (1.026).

I’ve had loads more success this way over the last couple years. I used to pour the shipment water into a bucket with the fish and drip acclimate, and I suspect ammonia burn was an issue a couple times for me in the past.

This is what I’ve been doing also. I always ask ahead what salinity they’ll be shipped in, then float the bags (lights out) for about 30 mins. Then I take some tank water and mix in RODI to bring down the salinity. Then place the fish straight into the bucket with the tank water that matches the bag salinity. It’s worked quite well.