Acclimation guide for Saltwater fish, corals, and invertebrates

figured i would post this for those who dont know. i thought my snails that i just got, were dead cause they werent moving. but this site helped me out.

http://www.aquacon.com/acclimation.html

very nice find curtis, i didnt know about acclimation when i first got my sw tank. about 5 snails died cus of that

well lets just hope i didnt kill mine.
i didnt do the drip method.
i added water slowly over a hour. then put them in the tank.
i believe i was supose to do the drip method for 2 hours.

weres ur snails at? try and put them on the glass

on the ground where the landed. they havent came out of their shells yet. they were stuck on the sides, till i knocked them off the sides of the bowl, to dump them in the tank.

some snails cant right them selfs and will die if they dont get turned back over.

they are all sitting up right, they are just not moving around like they were in the bag and the bowl

i drip acclimated mine for an hour, and they were all fine. when i first bought snails i just put them and about three never came around and died. the other two died about two weeks later.

well i just put them all in a big bowl and added some water every 20 till it was full. the 3 hermit crabs are all out and doing fine. but the snails are just sitting there. i guess i will find out if i killed them or not in the next day or so.

do drip acclimation from now on, its easy and ive noticed that all my livestock is lively within a hour

I never acclimate. I just leave them in bag and sat 'em the aquarium for 1-2 hours.

i did the drip process with the damsel. the only reason i didnt do it with the snails and hermits is because they were in 3 different bags and i didnt have 3 long air hoses to use.

could of put them in one bag

no need to drip acclimate, you can use many methods for acclimating. with snails i drain most of the water inthe bag and let them sit in the tank for 10 minutes and then release, to make sure they are good i hold them next to the glass till they grab on (some take alot longer than others). for fish i let sit in tank and slowly add water a little at a time for an hour to an hour and a half sometimes longer while dumping bag water as necessary. i do the same thing for corals and nems as well

You can always put them all in a bucket. then drip acclimate them like that for about an hour. That is how i do it.

I drip acclimated everything. Yoou just need some air tubing to make a decent dripping tube. tie a knot in the end that goes to where your fish is in a container and set it to drip every few seconds. It acclimates the fish to the water temp, and the water itself. I do mine for at least an hour. Some take longer. For the health of the fish, do a little home work BEFORE you purchase that fish. He may have special needs for aclimating, enviroment and/or feeding requirements. If you have a nice refuguim set up, some people use that to aclimate the fish, and use it as a temporary quarentine tank for a few days.