Acclimation question for the Challengers..

[brewmaster15]

Hi all,
I had mean't to ask this in beginning but for reference facts, could you all tell us how you acclimated the fish when you received them for the contest?
Thanks,
Al

[Second Hand Pat]

Post #14 in the grow-out thread...


By the time I had stacked the bags for a picture the bag temp had cooled to 86.

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So I hurried to get the bags into the tank so they did not cool down to fast. The fish seems pretty lively in the bag. Once the bag temp matched the tank temp I cut each bag (fish were double bagged) and eased the fish into a net (these guys are tiny) and eased them into the tank (drop and plop). No bag water in the tank.

The strain in the tank is rooibos tea just to darken the water a bit. I do this with all my wild fish. No lights. You can see their fins are clamped a bit and have one under the heater. Now to let them recover from shipping. No sure when I will try to introduce food. I would like to see them looking for food before trying.

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[modealings]

I floated the bags for 15-20 min, strained out the water in a bucket, and dropped them in. Since they were in the bags for a couple days and unfortunately one didn’t make it through shipping, I was in a rush to get them in the tank. That being said, this is how I usually do it.

[Tshethar]

Hope this will help those who will be receiving fry from Al this week... Here's what I did (post #11 in my thread):


Fish are here!!!!

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Thanks for everything, Al. I can only imagine what the last day has been like after all the work you've put into these guys, with the packing job one small slice.

Floating them, temp at 83-84.

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Looking good in the bags...

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Decided to go with net and dump... only so much time at home today, and they look ready to go.

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One fish headed to the top corner, but everybody else is out and about from the get-go...

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And thanks for the sponge. Stacked it and will hope for the best there.

Leaving them for the rest of the day and will see what they look like in a few hours.

I think maybe the most important thing is what came next, which was Al's recommendation to dose with salt at 1-2 tbs/10 gallons to help ease them in. I'm not sure if it is for osmotic pressure to help with O2 or for possible nitrite toxicity, but it did seem like a nice tonic for them. Kept it up for a while afterwards.

[jeep]

Since my shipping was delayed and I had one DOA, I just took them out and put them in..

[Captain Discus]

I think I was one of the last to get my fry and the bags had leaked a bit. the box looked like it was in a war and lost.
A couple of bags were very low maybe a couple of tablespoons of water. I took a large bag and dumped all the fry into one large bag so they would all acclimate together.
introduced a few drops of blue and tiny bit of salt no lights. a very short acclimation time was used only 10 minutes just until the water warmed. I lowered the level of water in the tank to increase the percentage of their old water to new because of the low water in bags. several were very sickly looking but after a couple of hours they began to swim upright and looked good enough for me to finally breath. Then I changed the water with new that was as close to temp as I could get it. The next morning with lights on did first feeding, They all ate except for the runt only fed them BBS. Then took some of the food supplied ground it up to dust then added water to make a paste the runt began to eat this. This may not be the recommended way but it worked this time.
I hope this helps. Thanks for reading.
Tom.

[Mando]

Seems like most did a dump and go and some matched temp. What is recommended? I’ve always done a dump and go for all my other fish but when I first did it with discus they darted around for a few seconds then swam normal. I actually got scared of this method with discus.

[RickMay1]

I floated the bags for 15-20 min, strained out the water in a bucket, and dropped them in. Since they were in the bags for a couple days and unfortunately one didn’t make it through shipping, I was in a rush to get them in the tank. That being said, this is how I usually do it.

this is how I do it as well.

[Phil4Discus]

Seems like most did a dump and go and some matched temp. What is recommended? I’ve always done a dump and go for all my other fish but when I first did it with discus they darted around for a few seconds then swam normal. I actually got scared of this method with discus.

I'm not a challenger, nor have a dealt with discus at this size, but I typically check the parameters of the water in the bag or ask the breeder what they have. If the pH and temperature are close to what I have, I let the bags come to temp and then drain the liquid and dump the fish. If it's far off (for example, my pH is about 7.4, if their water is 6.7 or below or 8.0+) then I'll do a drip acclimation by dumping the fish and water in a bucket with a couple cups of tank water. Then drip the rest until the bucket is nearly full.

[warblad79]

Mine is very simple...drop & plop style. I never leave the fish inside the bag for too long because it will stress the fish even more and die from ammonia. Normally, I would prep the QT prior to their arrival. Once they arrived I would immediately cut the bag and transfer the fish to QT. I always dump the water bag into the sink and ensure not to get in the QT since they are dirty and toxic.