how do you acclimate your fish? drip or float or both?

how do you acclimate your fish to your main tank???

 

if i were you....i only floated my clowns but i drip most of my stuff....i would just float them for 30 mins+ and u should be fine

 

If I get them shipped, I don't acclimate at all. If I pick them up locally, I float them for about 10 minutes.

 

Yep me too..I have never acclimated a fish other than floating for 10 minutes. The only thing I drip acclimated was my mantis.

 

Inverts like shrimp are a different story. I always drip acclimate shrimp.

Also, I never add the water from the fish/shrimp/whatever bag into my fish tank.

 

i would never buy a fish online

 

so you all float the bag and add tank water little by little?

 

I don't even add tank water. I just stabilize the temperature. Never lost a fish due to acclimation issues that I know of.

 

Why not?

 

it's better if you can acclimate it some... maybe irr got lucky b/c his LFS runs parameters near his... but you want to acclimate the fish/invert to pH and osmotic pressure, which varies by salinity. If the salinity of the fish's water closely resembles the salinity of the tank, then chances are you'd be ok putting the fish right in if pH is close enough after 15 minutes of floating the bag to acclimate temperature. Otherwise, do a couple of small water exchanges with the fish bag to slowly adjust the salinity.

I have found that drip acclimation can stress fish, but I haven't lost a fish due to dripping them in.