General Aquaria Discussion • Bucket Acclimation

[CichlidAndrew]

How many fish can fit in a 5 gallon bucket when acclimating a shipment. All fish are around 1-2 inches

[CichlidAndrew]

Also, should i clean the buckets with bleach?

[Toby_H]

I personally avoid using bleach on my fish equipment, but many do so with no problems. Provided you rise 100% of the bleach out there will be no problem but missing a little bit can have drastic results. So be careful if you do… I have dedicated fish buckets, it makes such things much easier.

The acclimation process will only take a couple of hours and you will be adding clean water to them the entire time, so you shouldn’t need to worry about their bio needs. So the question of “how manyâ€

[CichlidAndrew]

So do i just get airline tubing and siphon it into the water. What exactly should I do?

[Toby_H]

Put the fish and the water they came in into a 5 gal bucket... If the fish are likely to come from different tanks @ the breeders place then ideally you would want to use a separate bucket for each. When I bought 3 varieties of Apistos from the same breeder I put them all in one bucket even though the came from different tanks at the breeder‘s... you choose the risk your willing to take...

Start a siphon from the aquarium to the 5 gal bucket with standard air tubing... most suggest to tie a knot in the tubing to slow the water flow... I personally set the bucket on a shelf so the rim of the bucket is slightly above the rim of the tank. Having the surfaces of the bucket & the tank so close the siphon will flow very slow, plus this way I can't get side tracked and over flow the bucket...

Wait until the bucket is nearly full and transfer the fish into the aquarium (ideally do not put the water from the bucket back in the tank).

It's a rather simple overall concept but everyone has their own techniques to make it easier or more effective...

[Donfish]

Get one of those cheap plastic airline valves and use it to control the drip rate

[dogofwar]

If the fish are coming from a mail order shipment (or will otherwise be in the bag for a long time), I just dump the fish into a net (discarding the shipping water) and put them directly into their (quarantine) tanks.

Getting the fish out of the shipping water and into their new homes is most important.

Never lost a fish this way over many shipments.

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

If the fish are coming from a mail order shipment (or will otherwise be in the bag for a long time), I just dump the fish into a net (discarding the shipping water) and put them directly into their (quarantine) tanks.

Getting the fish out of the shipping water and into their new homes is most important.

Never lost a fish this way over many shipments.

but do you inquire beforehand as to what conditions they lived in??

I will inquire beforehand as to what conditions they came from, and try to get as close to that. I also tend to put them in a bucket and add water. when I have time I use an airline syphon (with plastic valve/clamp on it, to regulate the flow) or when I have lots of fish I put them out in buckets and added 200-300ml with a jug every 3-4 minutes.

but quarantine is the most important thing to do.

[Toby_H]

A high organic content will lower the PH... fish waste is a high organic content...

So even if the breeder/shipper has the exact same PH as the buyer/receiver, the water that the fish arrive in is likely to be lower than yours as well as the breeders...

Within my own tanks I flip fish between tanks constantly without care or concern... but I'm confident all my tanks have relatively the same PH... I don't make that assumption when bringing in fish from other peoples tanks...

I also admit many of the steps we take are precautionary steps that are usually unnecessary... we just never known which times those steps really are necessary... so it's best to be careful every time...