Placed my order from live aquaria

rsheets

Well I have an order in with live aquaria. Got about 30 fish comming. I'll be getting them tue. I'm getting some angels, cherry barbs, false julii corys, dwarf gouramis, silver dollars, a Swordtail, diiferent kinds of guppies including endlers live bearer. Sure I'll be busy for a while aclimating.
I am looking for suggestions on the drip method, I have usually just added water to the bag a little at a time. But with this many bags I'd like to do the drip method, I think it would be a lot easier.

NC Frank

I usually use 2.5 or 5 gallon buckets. Pour the fish from the individual bags into their own bucket. The chemistry of the water of the different transport bags will be different so do not place them in the same bucket. If there isn't enough water to cover the fish wedge one side of the bucket so that the fish is covered in the water they came in.

Take some airline tubing and put a loose knot on the side that is going to go into the bucket. Place the other end in the destination tank. Start to siphon some water from the destination tank into the bucket and tighten the knot until the water starts dripping slowly into the destination bucket. When the water equals 2 parts your water and 1 part the original water take half out and continue the drip process. I usually drip until the vast majority of the water in the bucket is from your destination tank. Depending on temp variance between the destination and the source water you may want to either bag and float the fish now that the water parameters are the same. If ambient room temp is not that far off from the tank temp the water in the bucket should be closer to the tank temp than the room temp so you shouldn't have to worry that much.

Oh... and congrats on the fish. :)

Twistersmom

Absolutely great advice NC Frank!
I usually throw a towel over the top of the bucket as well. My thoughts behind doing so, that the towel will help hold the heat in and keep the bucket nice and dark inside, so less stress on the fish.

rsheets

Good advice thanks for both of your comments.

Frank - The chemistry of the bags will be different? Even if all of the water they come from is the same? Please advise.

willieturnip

All the fish didn't come from the same tanks.

NC Frank

The fish most likely will arrive in different bags from different tanks. In addition during the shipping some will cause more waste in their bags than others.

NC Frank

I usually use cover the bucket somewhat as well. Excellent point that I should have added. Helps keep the temp stable and more importantly is less stressful for the fish.

shane3fan

Another thing you can do to control the drip is to use an air pump 'gang' valve with shut off knobs--you could possibly do multiple buckets from the same valve--Ive never used it in this method though. It should allow you to control the flow to just a steady drip.

rsheets

Got them in!! Everything is alive and well. Dripping as I type. Boy, the endlers livebearers are so small! Can't believe they sent them to me like that. I hope nothing eats them! All of my fish are small, so it should be ok. The silver dollars are the biggest things, but they are still pretty small, plus arn't they herbivores?

Twistersmom

I have never kept silver dollars, but most fish will eat anything that will fit into their mouths.
Glad to hear all the fish made the trip! Good luck with acclimating!