# How do you adapt fish to a new ph?



## maddog1240 (Nov 5, 2006)

Ok, here's the plan....
I am going to have my tank set up, fully planted, with a ph of around 6. My question is, how do you transfer the store bought fish from their maybe 7.5 ph to mine? (discus)


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi maddog1240,

I float the bag in the aquarium for about 10 minutes, then pour out about 20% of the water in the bag and add that about of aquarium water. I repeat that process for an hour, then transfer the fish. Of course I monitor the fish for signs of distress and pause if observed.


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

For delicate fish with a large change in water quality I drip acclimatise them. Just get a large bucket and then a length of airline with a tap on and slowly drip tank water into the bucket over a couple of hours. Of course make sure the room isn't too cold!


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## wkndracer (Mar 23, 2008)

While not as gentle as the drip method I tend to get distracted with other tanks/tasks and dripping has been a problem with over flow. (only once was enough)
Zero losses in two years doing the following. I open the bag containing the fish and place it in a pitcher. Using a measuring cup and egg timer I add a ½ cup of water every 5 minutes until the bag is full. Draining ½ to 2/3’s of the volume from the bag I repeat with 1 cup additions until filled a second time. Drain the majority of the water into the sink by folding the bag over my hand (trapping the fish in the bottom) then place the fish directly in the tank. Not just pH but GH content can shock new additions. 
This method has worked very well for me.


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

I too used an airline with a control at one end to control the drip rate. That way, I did not have to float the bag in the tank water. Floating the bag right under the tank light can be very stressful for the fish inside the bag. Before starting the drip, I dropped a pH probe into the bag to find out the exact pH difference. As the bag pH got close enough to the tank water pH, I moved the fish into the tank. To speed up the process, sometimes I removed half of the bag water part way through the drip process. Depending on the initial pH difference, the drip process could take more than three hours.


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## maddog1240 (Nov 5, 2006)

Wow, thanks!
The drip idea sounds ideal to me, adding the water as slowly as possible to get them used to it.
..but wkndracer, zero losses, nice! Ten minutes isn't too short for the fish to get used to it?

Well I'll take all this to mind and get back to it when I actually get my tank going. lol.

Thanks,
Spencer


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## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

Q tank...you should be using it anyways. 

I slowly replace the water in the Q tank with tank water. in about 2 weeks when I transfer them over, its very close to 100% tank water.


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

TAB said:


> Q tank...you should be using it anyways.
> 
> I slowly replace the water in the Q tank with tank water. in about 2 weeks when I transfer them over, its very close to 100% tank water.


Not sure I get that... when using a quarantine tank a person still has to acclimate the fish from the bag water to the quarantine tank water.


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## tranr (May 20, 2009)

I recommend drip acclimation as bartoli mentioned above. It's the only thing I do now for my shrimp and fish, and they do very well.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

TAB said:


> Q tank...you should be using it anyways.
> 
> I slowly replace the water in the Q tank with tank water. in about 2 weeks when I transfer them over, its very close to 100% tank water.


Yup, exactly right! I used the drip method before and have found out that the quicker you can just release them into the tank rather than screwing around for hours, the less stressed the fish are. Get them acclimated to the tank temp and they'll be fine.
And we all should know the importance of the q-tank.


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

JanS said:


> I used the drip method before and have found out that the quicker you can just release them into the tank rather than screwing around for hours, the less stressed the fish are.


Acclimation is for easing out any shock that would have been caused by the drastic change in water parameters. It gives fish the time to adjust their biological system to the new water parameters. When the bag water parameters are very close to that of the tank water, I can see skipping acclimation. But what is the likelihood that the bag water is similar to the tank water? I have seen water parameters differed by as much as 0.9 pH (tank 6.1 versus bag 7.2) and 362 TDS (tank 413 versus bag 775). Mind you, the bag water was always crystal clear to the eyes.

One way of reducing fish stress during dripping is cutting down on the light reaching the fish. I placed the transparent fish bag inside a translucent green or blue color bag and then placed that bag inside a bowl. I also avoided any light source directly on top of the bag. Often I saw fish moved around in the bag while dripping was going on. No sign of stress.

When it came time to move the fish to the tank, I did not want to add the bag water to the tank nor did I want to insert a net into the bag to net the fish. I placed a net on top of a bowl large enough to hold all of the water in the bag. With one hand holding the bag opening twisted, I placed the bag upside-down into the net and all the way to the bottom of the bowl. With the twisted opening pressed by the bag's weight against the bowl bottom, water did not rush out when I removed my hand. Then I slowly pulled the bag up to let water slowly escaping through the twisted opening. That ensured that as water was getting out of the bag, the pressure inside and outside of the bag were the same and therefore wouldn't crush the bag against the fish. After pulling out the bag, all the fish were in the net and it was just a matter of moving the net to the fish tank.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

I understand the theories, but we all have our own methods we've found to be the least stressful over the years, so to each his own.


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

Of course, if you care to explain why you think your way is less stressful, I am all ears.


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## maddog1240 (Nov 5, 2006)

Well my tank's ph is 6.8 at the moment, maybe I'll lower it another couple points.. 
But I think I'm just going to dump the fish from the bag into a VERY large bucket I just found.. the bucket's like around 3 FEET tall! Then I'll drip it for a couple hours until maybe a little more than half the bucket is full. Then scoop um up and throw um in! (figure of speech. lol.)

Sounds good?


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## bartoli (May 8, 2006)

Yes, even though the whole process is a bit lengthy, I believe it is easier on the fish when they get to stay in the water that they came with and experience gradual transition. Of course, the actual duration depends on the drip rate and the initial difference between the bag water and the tank water.

In addition to pH difference, I have read that TDS difference can also be taxing, especially to a larger body fish.


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