I usually check & compare a couple of paramaters before setting new livestock loose in my tank. If salinity & pH are fairly close, I don't take very long with any acclimation process. Last fish I added were a Yellow Tang & Sleeper Goby a couple of weeks ago. I put them both in a 1 gallon plastic ice cream container with some of the water from the bags they came in. Salinity in the LFS water was a bit lower than my tank water & pH was higher. pH is one of the parameters that swings in most people's systems, but it generally does so slowly. It's also a parameter that represents a large change between numbers, that is, a 1 point change in pH could have more effect on livestock than a 1 point change in salinity, particularly if that change is very rapid. Depends on the critter too, I guess. Some are more sensitive than others.
Anyhow, after checking those two numbers I added some tank water manually with a cup to the 1 gallon container. A while later I scooped some out of the container & added more tank water. Several cycles of that & I released the hounds. The Tang was fine other than being a little freaked with the new surroundings & some harassment from Singapore Angelfish. No biggy there. The Sleeper Goby seemed quite distressed though & rather than head for the sand, he was swimming near the surface & gasping rapidly. I ended up shepherding him down to the sand bed with my hand since he wasn't settling down & I was afraid he may jump out. He made a few more panicky trips to the surface the first day or two, but has now settled in fairly well. I've tried pretty much every acclimation method including drip. Not sure if there's a best way to do it, as per my most recent experience, different livestock appears to have different sensitivity to change in environment. The only one I recall having lost a few days after adding was a Tuxedo Urchin, but it had spent a long trip in a bag from Vancouver to here, so who knows whether it was the trip, poor acclimation or simply a weak specimen to start with?
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