your new livestock arrival procedure - poll

[jedimaster1138]

So I've read more threads, articles and books than I can recall regarding procedures for new arrivals. I'm trying to figure out what works best for me and what's reasonable for what I CAN do.

I thought it would be useful then to have a chance for people here to post what you do, and most importantly - what you've had success with over the years. I think that's where the really useful part of it is. (And honestly what I'm interested in hearing) There's lots of theory and such out there, but who better to get real experience from than your friends and peers who are trying to accomplish the same goal - happy, healthy livestock in your display tanks.

So post your procedure! The more detail the better, but whatever you think is useful to us all.

Fish, inverts, coral. Heck, even macro, if you do anything other than dump it in your sump If anything differs by species too, that would be illuminating as well. Do you dip or bath? What kind of times? Medicated dip (meth blue? formalin?) Then drip and into QT? Rinse first? If so what sorta water to rinse...pH adjusted fresh or salt? How long in QT? Do you treat medically in QT or just observe? CoralRX? Revive?

One more thing - let's not make this thread be a criticism of other people's procedures. Let's keep it to "this is what I do and have been for x long" and leave it at that. The point of this is meant to be simply explaining what you've had success with over at least several repetitions

Looking forward to the replies.

-Joe

 

[MatthewScars]

This is done to death.

Put them in a plastic container, drip acclimate them for an hour, put them in.

Others will add 'I put them in QT for 2 weeks. blah blah' Then they will repeat what I just said above.

Rinse and repeat.

Were you looking for a new and innovated answer to an age old dead horse question?

EDIT: you do the same for corals, except you dip them with Revive or whatever before/after you drip acclimate. Hope this helps!

 

[jedimaster1138]

See that's kind of my point, it's been discussed at length in various theory threads. For example, this is a fairly well received post/thread from someone with a good rep: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1939508 yet it pretty much discounts the drip method and advocates straight into QT as soon as you open the bag. Various vendors have their own requirements for their guarantees too.

I simply want to know what people are actually doing in actual practice and think it would be useful for everyone on the forum to hear other peoples' success. If you don't want to post your procedure, you're under no obligation to do so. :-D

 

[MatthewScars]

You tricked me into posting what I do

Hey man, if you want to buy a fish and just take a chance by not acclimating it to the temp, salinity, water params, go nuts. If you wanna risk it just for speed because youre impatient, do your thing. I just dont see any reason not to take it slow.

If you take 'SK8TERZ' word for the ammonia build up when you open the travel bag, you still will dump the fish in a new container and start dipping in fresh water. This will dilute and ammonia build up or whatever. It just makes logical sense. Also, im not a chem master, but where does all this deadly ammonia come from when you open a travel bag supposedly?

 

[jedimaster1138]

You tricked me into posting what I do

LOL. Success!

It's all good man, this is the point of the thread...why I wanted to know what people here are doing successfully. Lots of people have strong opinions, just looking for more data to analyze, tis all. I don't have a strong opinion on any procedure whatsoever myself. Just trying to figure out what others are doing with success and derive my own procedure from that.

For the record, here's SK8R's explanation of the ammonia bit...comes from later in the same thread.

Sealed bag: the fish respires co2 into the water. This drops the ph. The fish poos. But the low ph keeps the pollution in the form of harmless ammonium.

Open bag: co2, trapped in the water and held there by the pressure, gasses off quickly and leaves the water. PH then rises fast, causing non-toxic ammonium to become toxic ammonia.

This assumes non-chemist me has got the rises and falls the right way around: but this is what happens. It was ammonium, which doesn't smell and is harmless, and mutates rapidly to stinky, highly toxic ammonia.

I think that makes sense, but it's been a while since I knew chemistry that well either.

 

[ohana888]

for fish & inverts - i add 2 drops of seachem prime. then drip for at least an hour depending on difference of salinity & ph - of course, bigger difference slower drip. then into QT for 2 wks to make sure no hitchhikers & eats my foods.

for corals - i dip in coral rx for 15 minutes & lugol's for 1 min.

so far so good except one fish...

 

[Imbarrie]

Not done to death, I would like to hear what people are actually doing also.

I have a brief acclimation period, longer for inverts, and no QT.

I do want to start dipping corals though and want to see what others are using.

 

[rookie07]

Fish with similar salinity to my own get temp acclimated, then put into tank (same for inverts).
Coral get temp acclimated and then i put revive coral cleaner into the bag, then after 5-10 minutes i remove from bag and put in my tank.

I do not QT nor do acclimate in any way other than temp (assuming the salinity is similar to mine).