Acclimating Your Fish to Its New Home
By Rochelle Caviness
When you bring home a new fish, you cannot simply upend the plastic baggie into your aquarium. Doing so will not only likely kill the new fish, but you will also contaminate your existing tank with any bacteria or parasites that are in the store water.
Additionally, you should never bring home a fish if you do not already have a tank prepared for it.
Preparing the Tank
You cannot simply fill a tank with water and expect that your new fish will be able to survive in it. Tap water can contain a host of additives that are harmful to fish. Chlorine and chloramine (a compound of chlorine and ammonia) are the most notorious. Before you can add fish to your tank, these elements must be neutralized. Sodium thiosulfate will neutralize the chlorine, and is readily available at most pet stores. If chloramine is in the water, you will also need to use a product like Amquel to neutralize the ammonia. To find out what is in your tap water, call your local water department and ask.
To create the proper water environment for you new fish, you will also need to wait for the tank to go through a complete Nitrogen Cycle. During this process, the tank will acquire the bacteria necessary for a healthy tank.
Your Tank is Ready, Now What?
Once you have your tank ready, it's time to purchase your new fish. They will be put into a plastic bag with some of the water from the store's tank. The fish can survive in this bag for a number of hours, but the sooner you get the fish home, the better.
Once you get your fish home, don't dump it right into the tank! Your fish needs to be acclimated to both the water temperature and the water chemistry of the new tank.
If you are adding a new fish to an existing tank of fish, the new fish should be quarantined in a separate tank for two weeks. This quarantine period allows you to observe the fish, and to make sure that it is healthy.
If you are going to quarantine your new fish, it should be acclimated to the quarantine tank. When it is moved to the main tank, it will need to be acclimated to that tank.
How to Acclimate Your Fish to Its New Home
Place the plastic bag, filled with the fish, in the tank of water for about 15 minutes. This will allow the water temperature in the bag to equalize with that in the tank.
Add a ¼ cup of tank water to the bag every 15 minutes. Do this 4-6 times. The purpose of this is to totally replace the original water in the bag with tank water. This gives the fish time to adjust to the water chemistry of their new home. During this process, if the bag becomes too full, simply remove some and use it to water your houseplants, or pour it down the drain.
It's now time to add the fish to the tank. Net the fish out of the bag and carefully place them in the tank. Be careful not to allow any of the bag water to get into the tank. It may harbor harmful bacteria or parasites.
Whether you have placed them into a quarantine tank, or main tank, watch them carefully for the next few weeks. If you placed them in your main tank, be sure to remove them at the slightest hint of illness and quarantine them, both for treatment and for the health of your other fish.
The process of acclimation is the same for both fresh and saltwater fish, and both should be quarantined.
By following these easy steps, you will insure that your new fish is introduced to its new home in a tranquil and healthy manner.
