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Acclimation Procedures
Total Aprox Time: 1 hour

This is a simple guide that should give you some general ideas about acclimating new fish, corals and invertebrates. These are general ideas and it is up to you to do the research and find the correct acclimation procedure for your particular species.  

1. As soon as you receive your animal it is recommended that you float the bag in your aquarium for about 15 min. The lights on your tank should be off.
2. After 15 min you can open the bag and dump most of the water out. Be careful not to add that water to your tank.
3. Now place the animal in a small bucket. You may have to tilt the bucket so that the animal remains submersed. To minimize water temperature fluctuation it is recommended that the bucket float in your sump if that is possible.
4. Now take a long piece of airline tubing and attach a 6-12 inch piece of 3/8” rigid tubing to it. Then put the rigid tubing into top of the aquarium. You may need a suction cup to keep it in place. Now if you have an air control valve you can put that on the other end. If you don’t have an air control valve you will need to tie a knot in the line. First start a siphon by sucking on the line. Now make the knot tight enough or adjust the air control valve so that the flow rate is only about 2 to 4 drops per second.
5. Once the bucket is ¾ filled remove half of the water. Once it is filled up again you are ready to add the animal to the tank.
6. You can skip this step if you placed the bucket into your sump to minimize water temperature change. First put the animal into a container or bag that you can hang in the tank. Leave the animal floating for about 10 min.
7. Now you may release the animal into the tank.  Leave the aquarium lights off for a few hours to allow the animal to adjust to its new home.

     Notes: You may need to speed up or slow down the process if the animal is showing a lot of stress during the above procedures. Some animals cannot be exposed to oxygen and care must be taken to ensure that they are not. Some animals need much longer to acclimate to tank conditions and it is recommended that the above procedure be slowed down to last at least 4 hours for those animals. Remember these are only guidelines. We highly recommend the drip method over other methods and if followed properly your animal should acclimate to your tank conditions with minimal stress and in a short period of time.