What You Must Know Before Releasing Your Fish Into Their New Aquarium

So you’ve went out and bought some fish and the store told you to float the bag for a while and then release them in a tropical fish tank, right? Wrong!

You need to make certain your fish are much more acclimated to the water in a tropical fish tank than that.

Don’t be afraid to ask anyone where you purchase the fish what you should do. They shouldn’t mind testing their water right in front of you.

They’re trying to sell fish right? Ask them for, at minimum, the pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings. When you get home, test your own water to see how much the two sets of results differ.

This can really help you set the right water for your tropical fish aquarium.

The floating bag method is probably the most common acclimation method and it works well. You just need to be careful when floating a bag full of unknown water in your tank. Ideally, you’re floating the bag in a previously setup quarantine tank but, sadly, many new hobbyists don’t use a quarantine tank. After you’ve been in this a while you can get much more used to how things are done.

Once you leave with your fish, you will want to go straight home to avoid ammonia accumulating in the bag (in the form of fish waste). Once you get home, open the top of the bag and remove about 25% of the water and then replace this water with the same amount of water from your tank.

Next, float the bag in your tank and bring down the hood opening on the open end of the bag to help keep the bag secure. Every 10 minutes add about 1 measuring cup (use less if the bag is smaller) of your tank water to the bag. Repeat this process for about an hour. After an hour has passed use a small net to get the fish out of the bag and gently place the fish into your tank. The main idea here is to slowly get the fish used to your tank water (acclimated). Do not dump the bag water into your tank! If you do, you risk exposing your tropical fish tank to risks.

Some fish may be difficult to net while in the bag and you don’t want to damage the fish while trying to net them. If you’re having difficulty netting the fish, get a large bowl (large salad bowl works well) and carefully pour the bag water into the net, allowing the bowl to catch the water. You could bypass the bowl altogether and do it over a sink but make sure that the drain plug is in place just in case you miss the fish with the net.

This is a great method to use because when you slowly put in the water, you are acclimating the water to the proper way it should be.