fathead anthias is this normal???

[Elmo18]

Yup....IMO....and is what I do, I measure water of the bag...temp....make water just like it (with premixed water, etc), lower the pH, as it does lower itself in the bag. Then release the fish to the QT tank, and adjust from there.

I like to dip, dip...and dip again....and hmm baths are fun.

Better now then never. It is really sad when I see people who think fish is healthy because they show no 'visible' symptoms, only to have it die a couple days later.


Best,
Ilham

 

[steve-s]

You are right fishermann. In the case transporting a fish for a couple hours acclimating them the way you do is just fine. And its probably not going to kill the fish to do it your way with mailorder livestock either, but let me give you an example of the scenario that I believe Steve is describing. Say you order fish online, (or in our case tranship them from the country of origin) and they are bagged for 24-48 hours. The metabolic wastes accumulate (ammonia) and the ph drops in the bag water. The ammonia becomes less toxic in the lower ph but when you open that bag and oxygen starts to mix with the water the ph comes right back up making the ammonia toxic again. Adding water from your system would also cause this ph increase. We have too test ph and salinity of the bagged water in our tranship shipments and time permitting with every shipment mix stock water to match the shipping water. We float the fish to match temps and then take them out of the shipping water and place them in the ammonia free, lowered ph and matching salinity stock water. Then we slowly bring the ph up by dripping system water until the ph of the acclimating pan and the system match. This way there is no ammonia present in the acclimating process to become toxic as the ph rises.

True in most cases, not in this one I think. pH is affected by CO2 not O2 so the leak in the bag would also allow CO2 to escape. The pH would probabley still be somewhat decent and could cause ammonia levels to become more toxic if present. The larger concern would be the salinity jump that most fish must adapt to when taken from the LFS/online usually in the area of 24-27 ppt up to 35 ppt within a short time frame. Some fish come through it, some don't.

Cheers
Steve

 

[fishermann]

Hense the long slow acclimation changing out the bag water.

 

[barrierreefcf]

Yes steve is correct. I did not word the oxygen/ph thing clearly. When you open the bag oxygen starts to enter the water and built up CO2 de-gasses causing the ph to come back up. The CO2 leaving causes the direct affect on Ph. Further if you actively areate the water the CO2 is driven off faster.

 

[steve-s]

Hense the long slow acclimation changing out the bag water.

Won't make a bit of difference. Long acclimation times for fish specifically only amount to stress and potentially being left in a toxic soup. The change in salinity must be done over a period of several days, not hours.

Cheers
Steve

 

[fishermann]

Yes agreed, my bad, I spaced that we were talking about sg, same as bringing out of hyposalinity should be done over days.

 

[prow]

If you have time and remember PM me with the test results (or add it to the thread) as I'm very curious to see what you find. Sorry to hear about the Anthias.

i will post it here and pm you too. not sure if i will get them here on wednesday or friday, work issues. by this weekend for sure though. i think i will use my ph probe/montior, will just wipe it with a alcohol swap before it goes back in my system. so here is what i will be testing; ph-continuously, ammonia every 3-5min and O2-every 3-5min and of course salinity. ok anything else you can think of i should test for? how long should i do the testing at 3-5min intervals, 15min, 1/2 hour, hour????

 

[barrierreefcf]

i will post it here and pm you too. not sure if i will get them here on wednesday or friday, work issues. by this weekend for sure though. i think i will use my ph probe/montior, will just wipe it with a alcohol swap before it goes back in my system. so here is what i will be testing; ph-continuously, ammonia every 3-5min and O2-every 3-5min and of course salinity. ok anything else you can think of i should test for? how long should i do the testing at 3-5min intervals, 15min, 1/2 hour, hour????

I am personally curious as to the sg of the online sellers water (as a LFS we DON'T lower sg), the ph when it arrives, and the level of ammonia your test registers when the bag arrives. I'm not exactly sure how long the testing needs to be done at the short intervals since we don't know what levels you will be starting at. I'd guess 30 minutes would be fine but in a perfect world you'd want to know what was happening until the levels in your acclimating container=the levels in your tank. Remember if there is ammonia in the fish's water its probably better to just get the fish out within 30 min IMO.

 

[fishermann]

I was just wondering that also? I ahve not found sg to be much below 1.021-22 in any fish I ever bought, but I ahven't bought fish in ages except some anthias from Kevin and his levels were fine. I just called a friend of mine in Oakharbour that has really nice fish and corals and he says he keeps his ar 1.021. But he also said that he knows some places that don't carry quality caught fish [he said petco for sure] keeps their tanks at low sg 1.012-14 to keep the ich issues down, so a fish from a place like that would deffinently be in trouble if not acclimated properly. I always used to look for signs of rapid breathing and test the water for ammonia if found and hurried up acclimation if present, but never found it to be a problem from reputable LFS.

 

[prow]

thats what i was thinking about 30 min should be enough to see.
to me a salinity of 1.021-22 is low. i keep my tanks at 1.025-26. adjusting the QT levels to match whatever the water in the bag is sounds like a good habbit to be in. even if it seems not needed. when you get more delicate fish you will have routine down. the ammonia, yeah i would not worry about if buying from a LFS. but online, well, we will see soon just how "bad" the water is/gets.

 

[prow]

Remember if there is ammonia in the fish's water its probably better to just get the fish out within 30 min IMO.

yup yup i was thinking about that. will have a few bags with fish so will one at a time, maybe get a more hardy fish (planned on getting anyway) and take him out right away and just test the water. second will test with fish depending on results of nofish bag. thanks for the heads up.

 

[barrierreefcf]

Can't wait to hear the results!