AQUARIUM ACCLIMATION GUIDES

First and Foremost, if you want to save a lot of broken hearts... Quarantine!

Benefits
1. It’s proactive rather than reactive. Rather than treating fish once you see a problem you can eliminate almost all problems before they occur
2. It allows you to keep your fish in a high water quality, low stress environment while they are making the critical acclimation to captive life.
3. It allows you observe health and feeding habits with very few variables, which means better treatment and care of the fish long term
4. If a fish is getting picked on, gets an infection, develops fungus, or for any reason needs to be medicated it allows you to treat the fish in isolation.
5. In case of an emergency, the backup tank is there ready and waiting. There need be no panicked trips to the pet store.
6. It is extremely cheap. A good quarantine system can be as simple as a heater, a sponge filter, and a 10 gallon tank.
7. Quarantine systems are safely and easily kept in out of the way places like a garage or closet.
8. Quarantine systems do not need to be cycled or maintained when not in use. A fresh quarantine can and should be made with each use at no detriment to the fish.

Freshwater Fish Acclimation Guide

Fish are a lot more fun when they're alive! That's why you should follow this acclimation guide to ensure they suffer minimal damage from the changing physical and chemical water attributes they go through from switching tanks.

1. Turn off the lights in the tank and leave them off throughout acclimation of the fish, at least an hour.

2. In order to equalize temperatures float the bag in the tank (it's a good idea to rinse off the bag with tap water and towel dry before putting in the tank).

3. After about 10 -15 minutes open the bag and either clip it to the side of the tank or roll the edges of the bag so that it floats in the tank without any water exchange.

4. Every 15-30 minutes add ¼ to ½ a cup of water from the tank into the bag. This helps to slowly equalize chemical conditions (pH, Alkalinity, etc.). The longer you make this process the better, if your bag fills up, dump some of the water from the bag into the sink to make room.

5. Now net your fish out of the bag (even better use a small plastic cup with a couple small holes acting as a strainer, this can be a little easier on fins than a net) and place in your tank. Its best to keep our water out of your water because you don't know what might be residing in our tank be it chemical or biological.

Following these simple steps could save the life of your fish and will definitely make it a happier camper.