i am searching for some more fish for my brakish set-up and i have found many that i like but they are in freshwater right now. What would be the fastest way to acclimate them to my brakish water. My sg right now is on the high end at 1.015. ----------I have heard that you should start them in fresh and raise the SG .02 per week. But that will take for ever. Is there a faster way. -----Can i drip acclimate them for say 48hours. Like 1 drip every few minutes. I have been thinking about this and it seems that our brackish fish also encounter freshwater at times in the wild and make it just fine.
buying brackish fish in FW--how to acclimate
- Thread starter hybridtheoryd16
- Start date
honestly, i just acclimated mine slowly, get an eye dropper, put the fish in a bucket, and add one eye dropper full every 10 minutes until the bucket is full, then if you want, keep the fish in there, dump some, then continue the process of adding more water, this acclimatizes them well.
the reason i say once the bucket is full, to dump and refill slowly again is because you want the SG in the bucket as close to your tanks as possible, and when i did it, when the bucket was full the SG was still a bit different, though i dunno if that was enough to kill them, i didnt want to risk it.
the reason i say once the bucket is full, to dump and refill slowly again is because you want the SG in the bucket as close to your tanks as possible, and when i did it, when the bucket was full the SG was still a bit different, though i dunno if that was enough to kill them, i didnt want to risk it.
An eye dropper??
...We dont have 2 days to acclimate a fish. Run a drip line from the tank into a bucket for 90 minute, thats it
...We dont have 2 days to acclimate a fish. Run a drip line from the tank into a bucket for 90 minute, thats itAgreed. The fish would probably die from ammonia poisioning at that rate. 6 drops an hour what is that like a table spoon.
I put my fish in a bucket and run a piece of air tubing from the tank to the bucket. I tie a knot on the end of the tubing so I can control the flow of water tighten the know to slow it down loosen i to speed it up. Then I just let it drip into the bucket at about 2 drops per second until the bucket is almost full. Then I add my fish. This has seemed to work very well for a while now.
i had no idea you could move a brackishwater fish that has lived in frshwater for a long time to highend brackish water in the amount of time it takes to normally drip acclimate. I will give it a try.
hybridtheoryd16;2354636; said:
i use the drip method. i have my tank similar to yours. around 1.016 at the moment. but im pushing mine for high end/marine for my green spotted puffer
brackish fish can deal with changes in salinity extremely well. they have to in the wild. if there are heavy rains up river, the salt levels in the water will plummet drastically. a 90 minuit drip would be fine. there are quicker and more drastic salinity changes in their natural habitat. and they cope fine, and have done for millions of years.
mixing up the salinity in your brackish aquarium is good for the fish, as it creates a more natural environment. but the most we can swing is +/- 0.002 SG, otherwise the tanks benificial bacteria will crash. but rivers deal with it effortlessly.
the only reason we take so 'long' aclimatising fish is because of the stress caused in the journey of LFS to home aquarium, and by waste in the bag caused by the fish itself.
marine fish can deal with these changes too. if theyre stuck in a rockpool in summer here in the uk. the summer water temp is around 16 degrees C, rock pools can hit up to 25 degrees C in extreme cases. in that time water has evaporated from the pool, raising the salinity. when the tide comes back in, water that is up to 9 degrees C below the pool temp will flood in, along with water that is of a less salinity. the fish have learned to cope to living in these tough conditions.
fish are tough, very tough. know the limits of what they can handle, but dont push it. ie dont just throw them in
hybridtheoryd16;2341936; said:
I lived on the little river in miami (which feeds biscayne bay) this is what got me onto brackish fish the turn around of the salt is over 8 hours but the salt is less of a problem, it is the ph you have to look at. You can have low ph but high salinity if you use Aquarium salt and not ocean salt (which contains buffers and minerals ) which effect ph you have so slowly ewith buffer raise ph to 8.0 and then over six hours then raise salinity