The drip method for aclimating newly purchased fish

**Piscine** · 04-13-2010, 12:33 PM

I acclimate my fish using a bucket, a 6ft (2 meter) long piece of air-line, and a chip clip. I have proven this method over and over again and will never go back to "floating the bags" after seeing the amount of stress it causes..

Dim lighting always makes for a less stressful acclimation.

Cut a slit in the bag and gently dump the fish, and the water the fish came with, into the bucket.

If there isn't enough water to keep the fish fully submerged, tilt the bucket to the side and put something under the edge to keep the bucket tilted until the water level is higher later in the process.

DO NOT tilt the bucket far enough to spill. (duh)

Stick one end of the airline into the tank into which the fish will be going into after acclimation.

Do not submerge the line more than an inch or so into the water. (This will prevent accidentally draining your tank in the event that you forget about it. I have large tanks, so if you have a 10 gallon tank and a 5 gallon bucket, you may need to submerge a little more. :)

Close lid on airline, or secure it from coming out of tank however you wish.

Draw a siphon, stick other end in bucket.

Quickly kink the line, and put the chip clip on the kink to hold it.

Adjust the kink to allow a small amount of water through. Literally just a little more than a drip will do.

Keep an eye on your bucket and do not let it overflow.

An hour or two later, you should have a calm, fully acclimated fish.

MAKE SURE and net the fish out of the bucket, and discard the water left in the bucket. (This is to prevent any disease that may be lurking in the water from getting into your tank.)

I have never lost a fish with this method, and have done it over 40 times with a %100 success rate.

**tanks4thememories** · 04-13-2010, 01:40 PM

Can this be a sticky? Nice Post!!

**Irish2539** · 04-13-2010, 01:44 PM

I brought two of my large fish in buckets to my LFS and my LFS used this method to acclimatize them! They said it was best way and showed me how to do it...

I deff agree this shud be sticky

**Lady Hobbs** · 04-13-2010, 02:22 PM

Now a stickie. Nice post.

It has been pointed out to me we already have a thread on this subject that I had overlooked. This article has pictures to better show you how this works.

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aqua...ip+acclimation

**Wild Turkey** · 04-13-2010, 04:17 PM

Theres actually 3 I think

Not a big deal though

I can clean it up today, I'll fix the video for mine as well.

**Wild Turkey** · 04-13-2010, 04:44 PM

All of them are stickied here http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aqua...ad.php?t=62211 with room for any future authors

Great job Pisc and AH

**tanks4thememories** · 04-13-2010, 06:48 PM

Originally Posted by Wild Turkey

All of them are stickied here http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aqua...ad.php?t=62211 with room for any future authors

Great job Pisc and AH

awesome wild turkey thanx!!!

**tanks4thememories** · 04-13-2010, 06:48 PM

Originally Posted by Piscine

My first sticky ever!

And thank you Ms. Lady Hobbs. :)

GRatz Piscine it is a well organized post!! Now with the 3 of them readily available we can just link to them when answering questions instead of having to reinvent the wheel...lol