Acclimating divers den fish for ph?

[trmiv]

Ordered a Starlicki damsel and Tomini Tang from Divers Den yesterday. They are going into a QT where I will set thr salinity of their water so that isn’t a concern. Also temp is obviously covered by the pre-bag opening float. My concern is ph. I know thr ph drops super low in the bag due to co2 build up. Is it important to slowly acclimate them to the qt tank ph, or lower the ph of the qt tank? My biggest concern with slow acclimation is the ammonia toxicity so I’d really like to match salinity and temp and release as quickly as possible.

[brett_schn]

Temp and salinity is fine. Don’t drip acclimated though


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[alton]

Follow the instructions that come with the fish

[ThRoewer]

Temperature is the most important thing to acclimate to. pH should not be too big of an issue, and salinity is the least concerning as long as the difference is not too large into the wrong direction. Fish handle a salinity drop from nominal ocean salinity (1.022 to 1.028) to therapeutic hyposalinity (1.009) without any problems. I actually just recently saved a pair of newly bought Papua percula by putting them straight out of the bags into hyposalinity.
The other way around may pose danger to the fish's kidneys if the fish came in water with a salinity below 1.016. In that case a slow acclimatization to higher salinity is required and you better adjust the QTs salinity to the salinity the fish came in.

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[scooter31707]

You going to hear people say don't drip acclimate and you going to hear some say I have been doing drip acclimation for X amount of years. IMO/E, I don't like during it, especially with fish coming overnight via shipment due to the ammonia buildup. I just match temp and salinity and go for it. never had a failure. I have dripped twice and I lost both fish, probably a matter of 4 hours after going in the QT. So it may have came from the ammonia buildup or it could have been operator error.

[RedStangGA]

The only time I lost a fish in QT, and I haven't had that many to be truthful, was when I did an extended drip acclimation per Live Aquaria's instructions. I can see the case for it for LFS bought fish but even then, the LFS' I went to recommend float and match salinity or have salinity a little lower. I'd need a compelling reason to drip acclimate again.

[ThRoewer]

Fish can handle change in water parameters quite well with the most notable exception of ammonia turning toxic due to pH change. For that reason it's not a good idea to drip acclimate fish that were shipped long enough to cause ammonia build up.

I would however always do drip acclimatization with crustacean, especially with shrimp. IME ammonia build up isn't really an issue with them, but they are extremely sensitive to salinity or other water parameters changes, especially if they are just before moulding. I hardly ever lost a shrimp due to drip acclimatization, but had quite a few arrive dying because the guy at the store took water to bag the shrimp from a different system with different water parameters.

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[trmiv]

Ok thanks for the advice. I've got heated 1.027 salinity water, plenty of ro/di and a clean QT tank ready to go. I'll float for temp, quickly match their salinity in the qt water and release.

[sfdan]

If memory serves me correctly, the last shipment I got from DD has a SG of about 1.025. My guess is they keep the DD salinity pretty stable, so I'd set your QT to about 1.024 to reduce *your* stress level so you are much more likely to not have to do anything to match the bag salinity to your QT.

And even if the bag was a little higher, going from 1.027 --> 1.024 is no problem to the fish, going from higher salinity --> lower salinity is really not a problem, whereas going the other direction could be a problem.

I'm still pretty paranoid about it, I use a syringe to sample the salinity of the bag before opening it, but I always pre-set my QT on the low end of what I expect the salinity to be (1.018 for LA, 1.024 for DD) so hopefully I don't have to do anything. If I'm within 2-3 points and the bag is higher salinity than the QT, I know I'm good and don't have to adjust anything. Fortunately this has been the case the last few shipments and I've saved myself some stress.

Then of course you have the entire QT period to slowly get the salinity to the level of your DT so starting a little lower is no big deal.

[trmiv]

Well hopefully these fish are still alive when they show up. A "mechanical failure" delayed their delivery. They were supposed to be here before 10:30am and now it's "end of
Day". So hot ups truck all day in the south. Great.

[alprazo]

Originally Posted by ThRoewer

Fish can handle change in water parameters quite well with the most notable exception of ammonia turning toxic due to pH change. For that reason it's not a good idea to drip acclimate fish that were shipped long enough to cause ammonia build up.

I would however always do drip acclimatization with crustacean, especially with shrimp. IME ammonia build up isn't really an issue with them, but they are extremely sensitive to salinity or other water parameters changes, especially if they are just before moulding. I hardly ever lost a shrimp due to drip acclimatization, but had quite a few arrive dying because the guy at the store took water to bag the shrimp from a different system with different water parameters.

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I can't agree more. The only things I would add:

For starfish, crabs and urchins, I now dry acclimate. I leave them out for about an hour or two and then add them to the tank. This is how it is done in nature for tide pool creatures.

Second - for fish that have had long transit times of have polluted the bag. After temp acclimation, when I open the bag, i add amquel or prime. I then take a bucket of tank water and bring down the pH to match the fish. I transfer the fish to the bucket and slowly bring up the pH. I have seen the pH as low as 5.

[trmiv]

Fish finally arrived. Salinity of their water was right on the border of 1.026/1.027. My qt tank was set at 1.026. So I floated for temp and released. I’ve got the room dark but from what I’ve seen they appear to be doing fine. Glad that delay didn’t cause issues.

[trmiv]

Happy to say these two are doing great so far. Out swimming around today and snacking very eagerly on spirulina brine.