Acclimation Fish and Inverts.

Congratulations on your new friend! At the Tech Den we like to offer our customers the best start possible for their new marine inhabitant. This quick acclimation guide will help your animal adjust to their new home. Acclimation is used to accustom the new animal to the tank’s conditions, such as salinity, temperature and PH. Not all sea creatures are compatible, so you should ask a team member of the Tech Den or research using a trusted website, when making your fish list. During the process of acclimation, you should always keep close attention to increased stress and hyperventilation and should be kept to a minimum where possible. In this case it may be best to reduce the amount of time when floating the bag.

ACCLIMATING STEPS:

1. Float the animal (still in the bag) in the fish tank for approximately 30 minutes so it can settle and get used to the water temperature.

2. Put the fish into a recommended 20L bucket using the bag water.

3. Use airline tube to create a dripline from the tank going through the grate in the weir, to hold it in place in the display tank, and suck on the opposite end of the tube to create water flow.

4. After the flow starts tie lose knot closely towards the end of the tube, this knot will control the flow rate.

5. Once the knot has been tied place the tubing into the bucket.

6. Adjust the knot as necessary to create a drip rate of 2-3 drops of water per second, into the bucket.

7. Once roughly 5L has been dropped into the bucket for a small animal or 10-15L for a bigger animal; and the salinity, temp and PH match, scoop them up and into the tank.

8. Discard bucket water and refill the tank with new saltwater

Generally not as fragile as we think, but for best results, a drip acclimation similar to that of fish but an even faster drip could be used.

However in the last 5-10 mins of the dripping process it is advisable to add some type of coral dip solution to the water to aid in pest removal and coral health.

It's advisable to use an air stone to agitate the water during a coral dip.

Products such as Coral RX Pro or TLF (Two Little Fishies) Revive are both good dip products.

After the dip is completed, rinse the coral off in some more aquarium water in a seperate bucket so that any dip solution doesn't enter the aquarium.

Also discard the drip bucket water and never let it enter the aquarium.

In the dipping and dripping time you may see some nasty and some not so nasty creatures fall of the coral.

If you know it to be a good guy and you can get it into the aquarium water fast enough then it shouldn't die.