help - new loach died unexpectedly

[YellowFinned]

. . . snip . ..
No Kris!!

Once you have opened the bag, and immediately so, the water in it ain’t no good any more.

This is what to do (IMO only):

* take the bagged fish home and do not open it at all
* float the bag for about twenty minutes
* take the bagged fish out of the tank
* put a net over a bucket
* now open the bag and quickly empty the fish into the net so that all the water goes in the bucket below
* quickly take the netted fish and put it in the tank
* throw the water in the bucket away

Doing this is going to instantly kill the fish if there are drasticlly different water chemistries between the store and your tank!

So then the question is which shock is the lesser, the change when you open the bag, or the change between shop water and your tank water.

i.e. dumping the fish into your tank straight away
or drip aclimating the fish in the bag with water from your tank.

I'll vote for the drip system.

Each to his own.

[chefkeith]

....point:

While we cannot say that close TDS values imply safe instant acclimation, I think we can say that two low TDS values do. Maybe we can even define "low"? (Of course, low values would also be close).

There are a few exceptions. Someone could use RO water and drive up it's TDS with salt, while having have a 0 kH and 0 gH.

Low TDS is under 150.

0-70 is very soft
70-150 is soft
150-250 is slightly hard
250-320 Moderately hard
320-420 Hard
420+ Very Hard

The implication is that if one runs healthy tanks (frequent water changes --> low TDS!) and if one always gets fish from a healthy place (ditto), then the no-acclimation approach may actually be safe.

I do need to think more about it.... maybe get a TDS meter and play with it a bit....I think there is yet more stuff involved.

Any recommendation you can make on the meter?

I have a Hanna TDS meter that goes upto 9,990 ppm that cost about $20 on Ebay. Try to avoid the cheaper ones that only go up to 990 ppm.

[mikev]

....point:

While we cannot say that close TDS values imply safe instant acclimation, I think we can say that two low TDS values do. Maybe we can even define "low"? (Of course, low values would also be close).

There are a few exceptions. Someone could use RO water and drive up it's TDS with salt, while having have a 0 kH and 0 gH.

Low TDS is under 150.

Possibly I did not say clearly. Forget about kH/gH for a second. Let t1 be the TDS of your tank, t2 be the TDS of the bag water. I assert that if
t1+t2 < L
for some L then we can safely move the fish without acclimating (and not thinking about what are the dissolved solids).
I don't know what the value of L is, maybe around 50?


Thanks for the meter recommendation.

[fishy_friend]

It could be lack of oxygen. If there are a lot of fish in one bag and they're left there for more than 15 mins, oxygen in the water can quickly become depleted.

[mikev]

I have a Hanna TDS meter that goes upto 9,990 ppm that cost about $20 on Ebay. Try to avoid the cheaper ones that only go up to 990 ppm.

Thanks a lot. Ordered it.

Would you happen to know if there is a way to measure dissolved O2 in the tank water?

(this is not a curiosity, but relates to a pretty urgent real problem)