Acclimating and freshwater dip for new fish.

[Mr. GoodStuff]

Hey guys, had a quick question about acclimating new fish. I’ve been reading about freshwater dipping new fish before putting them in a QT. My question though, aside from temperature acclimation, is it really necessary to drip acclimate a fish that you’re freshwater dipping? To me it seems a bit pointless to drip acclimate to your tank water if you’re dipping them in freshwater anyways?

 

[Old Fritz]

Hey guys, had a quick question about acclimating new fish. I’ve been reading about freshwater dipping new fish before putting them in a QT. My question though, aside from temperature acclimation, is it really necessary to drip acclimate a fish that you’re freshwater dipping? To me it seems a bit pointless to drip acclimate to your tank water if you’re dipping them in freshwater anyways?

You want to drip acclimate the fish first so they reach the same parameters of your tank. Which includes ph and alkalinity. You will want to add seachem buffer to raise the ph and alkalinity to what your tank is currently at. If you use regular freshwater they will probably die from the rapid change in ph (unless the water you are using has a high ph). The freshwater dip typically only lasts 5 minutes so the fish don't really acclimate to a lower salinity.

To be quite honest I don't drip acclimate. Most of the time I just throw them in without issue... unless I'm dealing with something super sensitive then I change the salinity of the water to a lower level as it is easier for fish to go from a high salinity level to a lower salinity level (please don't shoot me for how I add fish I just think the sensitivity of fish is over exaggerated)