The Bucket and Drip Method of Acclimatising Fish
Usually, I'd float a bag of new fish in their new tank for twenty minutes before slowly exchanging
about 30mls of water every few minutes to allow both temperature and pH to equalise. The
alternative method is to empty the
new bag, water and fish, into a
bucket or container (1) and set up a
slow drip of water from their new
tank via a siphon (2). A piece of
airline tubing with a plastic valve
allowing a drop per second is ideal.
Once the depth of water in the
bucket has doubled or tripled, you
can check temperature and pH ((3),
net the fish into the new tank (4)
and throw the water in the bucket
away. This method avoids
introducing any of the shipping
water into your tank.
What happens when something goes wrong?
Fish can arrive dead or badly distressed, bags can burst or your parcel might get lost. You might also find
you didn't get what you thought you ordered or the fish/plants are clearly not of “merchantable quality”. If
there is something obviously wrong with your shipment, first take photos and then try to rescue what you can.
Contact the supplier, by phone if possible, as soon as you can and explain the problem. If the box was
damaged, the transport company or the supplier may give you a refund or replacement order. Some of the
better suppliers will replace the order if you didn't contribute to the problem (say by leaving the box in the sun
for half the day or just tipping the bag of fish into a new tank with acclimatisation). Others, sadly, take a less
generous approach and will just say “bad luck” and point you to a disclaimer buried deep in their website. It's
up to you whether you deal with these characters again. The fact is, some people, even some well-known
aquarium businesses, don't do the whole quality-control and shipment thing very well at all and have a pretty
caviler attitude to customer service once the dollars are in the till.
Plants Have Issues Too
While buying aquarium plants on-line doesn't have quite the
same set of issues you get with fish (I wouldn't insist on a
heat/cold pack or overnight shipping, for instance) there's
an extra dimension to consider – snails and algae. The
best method I know for avoiding bringing in nasties on new
plants is to give them two “dips” - one in a solution of
Potassium Permanganate (“Condy's Crystals”) - at a few
grains per litre, and one in dilute household bleach at about
a cap-full in a litre of water (you can also use Hydrogen
Peroxide instead of household bleach). Give the new
plants about 10 minutes in each bath and then rinse
thoroughly in tank or tap water at around 25 degrees. This
is not 100% bug proof, but snails, snail eggs and most
forms of algae will be killed. This protocol should probably
by used on any aquarium plant you are introducing to your
home set up – not just for those you get through the post.
Do your research before you order
Apart from making sure that what you are buying is appropriate for your tanks and skill level, there are few
things you do to help ensure you are dealing with a good supplier. If their website has a feedback page,
that's a good place to look for other customer's experiences. Secondly “google” the business name and see
if there are other reviews on-line. Look specifically for recent comments about their shipment record. If you
can't convince yourself that they are good people to deal with, ask for others' experiences on an on-line forum
– such as the CDAS forum or AquariumLife. Read between the lines. People are reluctant to “bag” a
business, particularly one that might be good in other areas. Some businesses also go out of their way to