Loaches Online Forum

Okay, so for those who don't recall, I have a not so tiny juvenile loach (3-4") named Larry in my 29 gallon and bought three other smaller clowns which have been going through the "fish gauntlet of quaranteen in the 10 gallon tank. They have gone through "general cure" from API, maracyn 1 and 2and that horrible anti-parasite fishfood from Jungle ( that I do not even think a staving goldfish would eat) and suffered some, but have lived and are actually doing fine now. They have not grown a lot but have grown some, so I can't tell about "skinny dz" but they have no spots or gross things growing on them and are eating okay.
My plan had been to go out of town for Thanksgiving and then come home and put both Larry and the Q-loaches into the nicely cycled 75 gallon tank that I have set up specifically for loaches.(By the way, thanks Diana for the suggestions....The academy of Science was AMAZING and Aquaforest is a VERY cool store!)
Right now, there are seven rainbow (3 bosemani and 4 turqouise), some ottos in the 75g and the water parameters on both tanks are SIMILAR, but not exact.
I do not have aTDS meter and do not know how important this is. The pH in the smaller tank is about 6.8-7.0. This tank has driftwood and all real plants. The larger tank is with FAKE plants and FAKE driftwood and decorations ( I am realizing that I do not like the fakey look, so am going to transition to real wood and plants, but that takes time and money. Right now, there is only a great big hortwort in there.)
pH is a bit higher in there 7.2-7.4, but the pther "dipstick" (Jungle Quickdip) parameters are about the same.
75g: KH 100, GH 75, NO2 0, NO3 10-15
29g: KH 80, GH 75, NO2 0, NO3 (tr) - just did a good cleanand H2o chnge!

I am nervous about HOW to do this without killing the fish, esp Larry, to whom I have become attached!
Any thoughts? Should I grow some gonads and just give it a go? ...or should I do something else? Is my testing system totally inadequate (I know it is not GREAT, but what I had avaialble in the LFS)

Oh, is it true that I should plug up holes in my deocrations so that my loaches do not get stuck insdie there.

Sorry to blabber on so long. Any help is apprecitated.

If you're worried about the differences in water parameters, you could drip acclimate the loaches to the new tank.

I have heard the expression on this forum, but do not know precisely what it means, ( or it there is a more detailed explanation) other than the obvious from the title.
I do not know if there is a sticky about this topic, but I am sure I can find it somewhere. I guess I was wanting to make sure there was not some OTHER big glaring issue I will see in hind-site (hind-site can be a painful teacher, esp common to the less experienced).

Thanks for the advise!

In a nutshell, drip acclimation is a slow and gentle process of introducing a new addition to your tank. It can be accomplished by performing the following steps:

1) Add fish and current tank water to a container of sufficient size that it won't overflow easily.
2) Get some air tubing and tie a knot in it, but don't pull the knot too tight.
3) Start a siphon from the destination tank to the container with the fish using the knotted tubing.
4) Once the siphon is running, tighten the knot until the siphon flow becomes a drip (2-3 drips/sec is generally acceptable).
5) At regular intervals, remove some water from the container with the fish (for example, every 15 min, remove a half cup).
6) Depending on how detailed, paranoid, etc. you are, you may desire to test the water with a TDS meter or with the standared Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate/Ph tests to determine when you've dripped enough.
7) Once the parms are equal between the new tank and the acclimation chamber, add the fish to the tank (try to avoid adding water from the acclimation chamber to the display tank though).

I have used this method for well over a year to acclimate marine fish, inverts and corals and it has worked like a charm every time. The hardest part of this process is getting the temps correct before adding the fish to the tank. You may need to float them. When I get new fish from the store, I usually try to acclimate them in the bag they came in so I can float the bag for a while after the parms are matched.

Hope that helps.

I also use airline tubing but start the siphon with a syringe and use one of these valves to control the drip rate:



At least for freshwater fish, temperature is by far the least important parameter. Ironically, it's the only thing many people accommodate while ignoring TDS and pH when implementing the common float-bag-release technique.

Your parameters are close enough to simply add the fish from the 29 to the 75.
The dipsticks measure ppm for GH and KH.
The difference between 80 and 100 is only about 1 German degree of hardness. This is not a problem for the fish. (1 German degree of hardness = 17.9 ppm)

Drip acclimation is a very good way to ease them even into this small a change. My biggest problem with it is that the bucket gets cool. Wrap it with a towel, if needed.