Pico Acclimation

[Jeb0823]

Just wondering how you guys go about acclimating your coral to your pico tanks sinse it is difficult to float the bags in it and remove too much water for acclimation. My setup is a 2 gallon tank with around a .50 gallon sump.

[Stephensx04]

I float my bags one at a time or two depending on the size of the bag. Drain water out of bag so coral still covered and start adding tank water. after a while put coral in tank. then top off used water with new SW. kind of a mini water change. You can do drip aclimation too.

[brandon429]

I have not acclimated any animal Ive ever purchased no joking. I found most of what was written as inflexible to be flexible, so I just add all animals to .023/78 degree water 460 calcium and about 10 dkh.

 

never had an animal or coral die in the first few days after an addition, the animals I lost were later on for reasons other than general stress in the tank. not acclimating has simply never hurt anything but no one else will agree likely

 

only bought small reef animals so this excludes fish but includes common shrimp and crab species for small tanks. for fish Id acclimate.

also an exclusive bag switch is performed, usually a shrimp or crab is netted and then xferred, or a coral just lifted out and xferred, but not an extra drop of lfs water touches my tank. its not their fault, but the constant in/out of the frag tank at a coral shop includes frags from all over the world theres never a population constant, so at any time you can be adding string diatom particles to your tank. the bag is not dumped into the show tank!

 

 

 

B

[.Newman.]

this is how I do it:

 

1. disconnect the ATO sensor.

2. take out some water with turkey baster.

3. float the bags in the tank and clamp them to the side so that they dont sink releasing their water into your tank (that is if you already opened them)

4. after floating the bags, empty water from the bags until theres only enough to cover the coral and start adding little by little of your water from the tank (not the water you took out thats already cold; unless its not cold. also if you drip acclimate you dont have to do any of this, personally i never got the hang of drip acclimating.)

5. after acclimating enough, rinse frag with bag water, treat with peroxide, with dip or w/e you use to prevent pests, rinse the frag and put it in the tank.

6. finally either do your weekly water change or just replenish the water (with new SW) up to the normal water line and turn your TAO sensor back on.

 

For that reason I also do my water change when ever i get livestock in, and always have fresh SW mixed the day before shipment arrives. Never have i lost anything.

This is just my way, like you asked

[jgpico]

this is how I do it:

 

1. disconnect the ATO sensor.

2. take out some water with turkey baster.

3. float the bags in the tank and clamp them to the side so that they dont sink releasing their water into your tank (that is if you already opened them)

4. after floating the bags, empty water from the bags until theres only enough to cover the coral and start adding little by little of your water from the tank (not the water you took out thats already cold; unless its not cold. also if you drip acclimate you dont have to do any of this, personally i never got the hang of drip acclimating.)

5. after acclimating enough, rinse frag with bag water, treat with peroxide, with dip or w/e you use to prevent pests, rinse the frag and put it in the tank.

6. finally either do your weekly water change or just replenish the water (with new SW) up to the normal water line and turn your TAO sensor back on.

 

For that reason I also do my water change when ever i get livestock in, and always have fresh SW mixed the day before shipment arrives. Never have i lost anything.

This is just my way, like you asked

thats what i did with my new addition and it worked great. i didnt know you can treat with peroxide though

[jgpico]

this is how I do it:

 

1. disconnect the ATO sensor.

2. take out some water with turkey baster.

3. float the bags in the tank and clamp them to the side so that they dont sink releasing their water into your tank (that is if you already opened them)

4. after floating the bags, empty water from the bags until theres only enough to cover the coral and start adding little by little of your water from the tank (not the water you took out thats already cold; unless its not cold. also if you drip acclimate you dont have to do any of this, personally i never got the hang of drip acclimating.)

5. after acclimating enough, rinse frag with bag water, treat with peroxide, with dip or w/e you use to prevent pests, rinse the frag and put it in the tank.

6. finally either do your weekly water change or just replenish the water (with new SW) up to the normal water line and turn your TAO sensor back on.

 

For that reason I also do my water change when ever i get livestock in, and always have fresh SW mixed the day before shipment arrives. Never have i lost anything.

This is just my way, like you asked

thats what i did with my new addition and it worked great. i didnt know you can treat with peroxide though

[.Newman.]

its similar to treating BBA in FW with peroxide. kills the stuff dead. pests hate it so they leave the frag when you treat it.

[Jeb0823]

Thanks for the replies guys. Thats about the same as I have been doing already. It is just a big pain to doing it in a big tank where there is plenty of water volume to play with.

[jgpico]

definitely cheaper than coral rx lol.

[.Newman.]

well coral rx is probably better haha.

[thesmallerthebetter]

I have not acclimated any animal Ive ever purchased no joking. I found most of what was written as inflexible to be flexible, so I just add all animals to .023/78 degree water 460 calcium and about 10 dkh.

 

never had an animal or coral die in the first few days after an addition, the animals I lost were later on for reasons other than general stress in the tank. not acclimating has simply never hurt anything but no one else will agree likely

 

only bought small reef animals so this excludes fish but includes common shrimp and crab species for small tanks. for fish Id acclimate.

also an exclusive bag switch is performed, usually a shrimp or crab is netted and then xferred, or a coral just lifted out and xferred, but not an extra drop of lfs water touches my tank. its not their fault, but the constant in/out of the frag tank at a coral shop includes frags from all over the world theres never a population constant, so at any time you can be adding string diatom particles to your tank. the bag is not dumped into the show tank!

 

 

 

B

 

im with brandon on this one.

 

the only animals i have ever done an acclimation on were freshwater stingrays/sturgeon/paddlefish and a handful of wild caught mullet that i converted to freshwater.

 

every coral i have ever had goes straight from close visual inspection to the tank.

 

i too have never lost anything to what i could call lack of acclimation (again, aside from the first few freshwater elasmobranchs i was experimenting with)

[brandon429]

you had paddlefish thats sick as in awesome man!

[Mr. Microscope]

First, clamp off ATO hose.

 

For corals, I take some water out of the tank with a small Tupperware. Temp acclimate for about 10 min. Then add coral to lugols mix, rinse with regular tank water (in another container), and plunk it into the tank. For critters, temp acclimate and slowly replace water in bag with water in tank. If the bag is too big, I'll put them into a small container that can float in my tank. Afterwards, I top off the tank with fresh salt water to where it should be.

[thesmallerthebetter]

you had paddlefish thats sick as in awesome man!

 

i dug up a pic just for you brandon

 

 

little guy was one of two that i special ordered a few years back. he quickly grew to about a foot before moving to a friend who keeps several in addition to sturgeon. surprisingly my little guy took to silversides on a stick within hours of being introduced to the tank. one of my favorite fish ive ever maintained, and very happy to have had the chance

 

edit: i hate to hjack the thread haha.

 

on the topic of pico acclimation, floting the bag and or starting a drip may work in some occasions, but in my applications (picos of far less than a gallon) the bag holds more water than the tank haha. i find its best to forgo the stress (for both me and the livestock) and add directly to the tank

[.Newman.]

cool another person that kept paddlefish! (i knew someone else from another forum that did)

its awesome that it took silversides, even though its mostly a filter feeder (not exclusively i am aware)