How To Acclimate Fish To Your Tank

This article presents information on how to acclimate fish and invertebrates to your aquarium.

So you've went out and bought some fish and the store told you to float the bag in the tank for 15 minutes and then release them into your aquarium. Right? Wrong! The only thing floating the bag accomplishes is that it brings the water in the bag closer to the temperature of the water in your tank. We need to be concerned about more than just temperature. The aquarium water chemistry is just as important as the temperature.

Don't be afraid to ask the fish clerk to test the store's tank water for you. They shouldn't mind testing their water right in front of you. They're trying to sell fish right? Ask them for, at minimum, the pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings. When you get home, test your own water to see how much the two sets of results differ. This can provide you with some insight into how slowly and for how long you should acclimate your fish.

There are a few different recommended methods for acclimating tropical fish to your tank water and we'll talk about each of these methods.

The most commmon tropical fish acclimation methods are:

• The Floating Bag Method
• The Bucket Method
• The Drip Method

The Floating Bag Method
This is probably the most common acclimation method and it works well. You just need to be careful when floating a bag full of unknown water in your tank. Ideally, you're floating the bag in a previously setup quarentine tank but, sadly, many new hobbyists don't use a quarantine tank. After you've been in the hobby for awhile and experience any sort of fish disease outbreak you'll soon come to realize the importance of a simple quarantine tank.

After you leave the fish store you will want to go straight home to avoid ammonia accumulating in the bag (in the form of fish waste). Once you get home, open the top of the bag and remove about 25% of the water from the bag. Replace this water with the same amount of water from your tank. Float the bag in your tank and bring down the hood opening on the open end of the bag to help keep the bag secure. Every 10 minutes add about 1 measuring cup (use less if the bag is smaller) of your tank water to the bag. Repeat this process for about an hour. After an hour has passed use a small net to get the fish out of the bag and gently place the fish into your tank. The main idea here is to slowly get the fish used to your tank water (acclimated). Do not dump the bag water into your tank! If you do, you risk exposing your tank to any parasites or diseases that were in the dealer's tanks.

Some fish may be difficult to net while in the bag and you don't want to damage the fish while trying to net them. If you're having difficulty netting the fish, get a large bowl (large salad bowl works well) and carefully pour the bag water into the net, allowing the bowl to catch the water. You could bypass the bowl altogether and do it over a sink but make sure that the drain plug is in place just in case you miss the fish with the net.

By slowly adding small amounts of water from the tank we are slowly acclimating the fish.

The Bucket Method
This method is basically the same as the floating bag method, but instead of floating the bag in the tank you're putting the bag inside a clean bucket instead. The bucket method is better than the floating bag method because you don't have to worry about any of the bag water entering your tank.

Open the top of the bag and remove about 25% of the water from the bag. Replace this water with the same amount of water from your tank. Every 10 minutes add about 1 measuring cup of water to the bag. Repeat this process for about an hour. After an hour has passed use a small net to get the fish out of the bag and gently place the fish into your tank.

The Drip Method
The drip method is recommended for most saltwater fish and invertebrates because they can be more sensitive to pH, specific gravity and other water chemistry changes.

To do the drip method your going to need a bucket, a vegetable clip with a suction cup for holding the tube in the tank and a length of air pump tubing that is long enough to extend from your tank to the bucket. Place one end of the tube into the veggie clip and then place the veggie clip into your tank. Tie a knot in the tubing to regulate the amount of water flow coming out of your tank. Get the siphon going and place the other end of the tubing into the bag in the bucket. You'll want a slow drip, drip, drip going. Aim for drips every one to two seconds. If you're having troubles using the knot to regulate the drip rate, any type of strong clip should work. Vice-grips (locking pliers) or c-clamps would work as well.

How long you do the drip method depends on what your acclimating. If your doing this method for most freshwater species you should be ok doing it for an hour or so before introducing the fish to your tank. If you're doing this method on a saltwater invertebrate you may want to take 2 or 3 hours for this acclimation procedure. If you have a good pet shop and you trust their advice, ask for and follow their recommendations on the amount of time needed for acclimation.

Acclimating new fish to your aquarium is a critical step and should not be taken lightly. Getting into the habit of using proper acclimation methods is a good way to ensure your long-term success in this wonderful hobby!

Small Fish Tank Setup

For the freshwater beginner we would not recommend a small fish tank setup to start out with tropical fish. The reason being because it is more difficult to keep the water parameters stable in a smaller volume of water. A small tank also drastically reduces the types of fish you can keep.

However, many do start with just a small fish tank, so we want to give you a list of items to use with your small aquarium so that you can increase your chances for success in tropical fishkeeping. If you need help with setting up your new tank, check out the tropiucal fish tank.

Below is a typical start-up kit for a small 2 gallon mini-bow aquarium. It comes with a lighted hood, a small packet of sample fish food, an undergravel filter and a small air pump. You will need to get some other items as well for your aquarium. As mentioned previously, a small tank can be more work than a large tank because you really have to stay on top of those water changes to prevent the small aquarium from becoming too polluted. Here is a list of the bare minimum things to have for any small aquarium:

• small tank (we don't recommend using an undergravel filter) and a couple of replacement media cartridges.
• Substrate (aquarium gravel)
• Small aquarium vacuum
• Fish Food or Goldfish food if keeping goldfish
• Small fish net
• Get a test kit that tests the ph, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels
• 5 gallon bucket
• Small aquarium air pump (used in conjunction with the filter)

Small Fish Tank Setup Kits

Please don't go out and get a bunch of tropical fish right away. Let the aquarium cycle first with a hardy fish like the zebra diano even fishless. Please read about the nitrogen cycle for more information such as starting this cycle and how to speed up the nitrogen cycle.

Also, if you are going to be running a small fish tank setup be prepared to perform aquarium more often.

White, Green and Yellow Cloudy Aquarium Water

Some of the more common causes for cloudy aquarium water are bacterial blooms, algae blooms, high levels of dissolved organic carbon and/or the use of new driftwood.

White Cloudy Aquarium Water
If you have white cloudy water or gray cloudy water in your fish tank and you have just set it up, it could be the dust from the gravel or sand. Be sure to thoroughly rinse your substrate before adding it to your aquarium. This can be difficult to do with sand but the dust particles should settle in a day or two.

If your tank has been setup for a short time this may be the result of a bacterial bloom that happens in a newly setup tank or when too many tropical fish were added too soon. This situation will correct itself when a sufficient amount of bacteria establishes on your biological filter. See the Nitrogen cycle for more information on this process.

You can help keep your tropical fish from getting stressed by performing 25% water changes daily and feeding them less until the nitrogen cycle has finished.

Green Cloudy Aquarium Water
Usually the result of an algae bloom. The green water will not harm your fish but it is not the most pleasant thing to look at. This happens because of the amount of nutrients and the amount of light entering the aquarium. Your tank water is nutrient rich, which may mean that you're feeding too much, your tank may be overstocked or you're not doing enough water changes or a combination of all the above. Avoid placing your aquarium where it could receive direct sunlight. Direct sunlight will cause not only algae problems but temperature fluctations as well.

To correct this problem, perform 25 percent water changes daily, rinse out or replace the filter media to reduce the amount of nitrates, feed your fish a little less and leave your tank light off for a few days or until the water clears up. If you do practice good aquarium maintenance and still have algae problems, look into testing your tap water. You may be introducing nitrates and possibly phosphates into your tank via the water changes and not even know it. Also look into keeping live aquarium plants which will compete with the algae for available nutrients.

Pond keepers sometimes use a UV sterilizer on their outdoor ponds to help control algae growths. While we agree that these sterilizers can have a positive effect on the algae growth in your tank, there are better, less expensive methods to use for controlling algae in the aquarium and we recommend you try some of the ideas presented above.

If that doesn't work, as a last resort, you could use Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Algae Destroyer. The algae destroyer should clear up the algae problem quickly. Please use as directed on the bottle. This is just a quick fix and we recommend that you figure out what's causing the algae problem in the first place.

Yellow Cloudy Water
Yellow aquarium water can be the result of several factors. Fish waste, driftwood, decaying plant matter and other dissolved organic carbons (DOC). This often happens in tanks that have new driftwood and it is because of the tannins in the wood being released into the water. This should subside after the driftwood has been in the aquarium for a couple of months.

To best way to fix the yellow coloration of your tank water is to perform more frequent partial water changes along with the use of activated carbon. Activated carbon has many uses in an aquarium filter including removing small amounts of DOC, removing water smells and making the water look cleaner or polished. Try to change out the carbon on a regular basis, at least every couple of months if not sooner.