# feeling frustrated- new fish dying



## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

Ok so my 20 gallon is getting down in fish so I went out an thursday and bought some new fish.
I got 2 red serpae tetras, a platy and a guppy from the same store. I checked out the tanks for about 45 minutes and found the fish to be busy and healthy looking.
I spent an hour acclimatizing them.
So next morning the one serpa was dead. Returned to store for another plus 2 more to make a school in case it had died of fright.( total 4)
( angel fish is pretty big and so is BN pleco-- maybe it died of fright?)
All serpas swimming together and getting in trouble- chasing the angel fish around and checking out the betta.
ON Friday morning another serpa dead.

Sat and watched tank. All fish minding own business and doing fishy things.
Lunch time another serpa gone.
7am saturday morning 2 serpas left- swimming together about tank -seem normal.
8 am went to feed a treat and found one dead . last serpa has been eating the cyclops treat and at 10 am is very much alive and hunting through the gravel for more food.
The guppy and platy are doing fine. The other few fish left in the tank are fine so what went wrong with the serpas??

I am thinking that sometime when you buy new fish they are carrying a virus that kills the old fish in your tank. What if I have a virus in my tank that my older fish are immune to and that is killing the new fish?
however that does not explain what is going on with the serpas as the platy and guppy are fine.
I am so frustrated with having killed these little guys. There isn't a mark on them or anything to be seem- they are just dying while swimming.
Some type of flu?
Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10-20.
Ph unknown probably in the 8 range. water very hard.Store uses softened water.


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Mousey, I'm sorry about your frustration. There may be something to your theory. There is no telling what what has gone on with the fish at the pet shop. The one thing that does stand out to me (you probably could have predicted that I would say this) is your choice of soft water fish in a hard water enviroment. It can't be good for them.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

I hear you about the soft water fish in hard water but I have had the same black skirt tetras for over 6 years in one tank- they won't die!
and in another tank I have cardinals and glow lights that are about 2 years old.
I just use my tap water.
I was chatting to the manager this morning at Big Al's where I bought the fish and he says that the water there in the store is a mix of hot which is softened and cold which is out of the tap.
The store is a 5 minute drive from me so our cold water should be from the same source.
He has a dgree in marine biology so I feel he knows a wee bit about fish as well as he has nine tanks himself.
He is mystified about the deaths too and says serpas are usually very tough.
he has a friend that breeds discus and has for over 30 years but cannot get any swordtails to survive in his tanks - says they drop dead overnight.
I dunno- it is frustrating. 
I wonder if the Seachem flourish is a problem, I also use ferts?
I would think not but who knows.


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## <3~Pleco~<3 (Jan 31, 2009)

Could it be that the serpae tetras were newly brought to your LFS. I have had this happen to be numerous times. I have bought fish that died overnight caused by stress cuz they were just shipped to my LFS, and then they were moved to my tank not much after that.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Sometimes they get hurt (suffocated) in transit and die within a week. Usually though, there are others from the same shipment that drop dead in the store. No clue, I think the home fish carrying something is a possibility.


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## Superfly724 (Sep 16, 2007)

I'll just post things I've learned from previous forums I've visited and my own personal experiences.

Tetras survive best in a PH zone of about 7.0. Mine died if it was anything above 7.0.

Also, from what I've heard, an angel fish is too large for a 20 gallon aquarium. The lack of space could cause him/her to get aggressive with the other fish and that might be what's killing them.

Hope this helped!


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2009)

mousey.....just how big were those tetras? it is possible that the angel took them out. like i said before i honestly think u got a mean angel.


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

I might offer a suggestion about unexplained fish deaths after being shipped. My upfront warning is that it is going to controversial and I hesitate because I feel as if I have caused enough controversy on this forum over the last couple of weeks. But what the heck... here goes. The normal way to acclimate fish is by floating the bag or by the drip method. In my opinion, both are a terrible mistake. During shipment both ammonia and CO2 build up in the bag and PH takes a nose dive. We all know that ammonia is toxic to fish. Fortunately it is not as toxic at a low PH, so while in the bag the fish do OK. However, as soon as we open the bag PH shoots back up so the ammonia becomes much more toxic. This is where fish are damaged. They may not die until we get them home... The fish would be much better off getting them completely out of the shipping water and into our aquarium ASAP. Open the bag, dump the fish and water into a net letting the water drain away and the fish directly into our tank...


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2009)

you have a point there Ron. and no. i dont think you create controversys. its quite fun talkin to you actually.


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## COM (Mar 15, 2008)

Mousey - you've been shopping at Big Al's, haven't you?

I've noticed that Al has been stocking the weak, sickly, and dull-colored Serpaes for a while now, as have almost all of the US retailers as well. I don't know where they are coming from but the strain is so weak and gross that I refuse to buy any of them. I think that is your problem.


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

you are right on the money ron...if you went into a wholesalers establishment on shipment day ; you would see them do just what you said...they place a large net over a 5 gallon bucket and dump the bag of fish into the net.then dump the fish into a tank of clean water..the bucket is dumped down the drain..
floating the bag and/or drip acclimating is nothing but a waste..it will kill your fish in rapid fashion..


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## Superfly724 (Sep 16, 2007)

Yeah, I bought a BN Pleco and floated the bag for a good 45 minutes, because this is what I had been told to do. When the float time was done, I emptied the water from the bag into the toilet and put the fish in the tank. He swam down to the bottom and rested between 2 plants. I then went to a friends house for the night. When I came back the next day, he was in the same exact position. Upon touching him with the net a film of some nasty stuff fell off his stiff body. $10 down the drain.


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

I completely agree with not floating your bag as all it does it make your fish sick and really the only acclimating it does it temperature acclimation with helps nothing. 
But otherwise I completely disagree with drip acclimation being useless. I drip acclimate all of my fish in a 5 gallon bucket for almost an hour before I put them in my tank and I have never had a fish die during the acclimation nor have I had a fish die (besides like 1 out of 15 cardinal tetra) within 5 days of being acclimated. I believe drip acclimation is a very good means and should be tired. 
And also they are right that you NEVER add the water from the pet store directly into your tank.


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

But I am also 20 years old and have way less experience than Loha does so I could very much be wrong lol, I'm just voicing my opinion as something you could try if you like but im not trying to step on Loha's toes or anything lol


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Keep in mind that this ammonia build up occurs after shipping a fish. As in overnight. If a fish is in a bag for 30 min. it is not as much a problem. But tallone... if they have been in a bag for a while even the drip method is a no-no. When you pour the bag into the bucket to start a drip, the fish is in the toxic soup. You slowly dilute the soup as the drip-drip-drip fills the bucket. But the fish is being damaged.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

The dump the fish method works if conditions are similar. However, if the water the fish are in is full of salt and you dump them into soft-water, you can kill a fish. If you got fish from a PetChain with open cups of salt and you want to keep them in near rainwater, be careful. The plop and dump seem fine for Malawi cichlids (I never lost one moving it), but not all fish are so tolerant.

I've started adding Prime to the water I bag fish in. In theory, it will help protect them from some of that ammonia. Bag-buddies do the same.


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## <3~Pleco~<3 (Jan 31, 2009)

Does putting the fish straight into the tank stress them more than letting them sit for a while in the bag?


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

tall one..i don't mind having my toes stepped on a bit..you are welcome to do it any time you feel the need to express your opinion..
just remember..you have a huge zit on the end of your nose and a blue booger hanging out.....lol....you just gotta change that avatar...
one of the reasons i don't tell folks that they have to do what i do..i am really weird and do weird things..my craziness may not work for others..plus...i am really ornery..i have breeding secrets that can get difficult or impossible fish to breed...but since i don have the facilities to do it i don't bother...but i still will not give those secrets away..nor will i sell them..
i wouldn't even give my mother my BBQ rib recipe....lol..
this is a fun hobby...so much for us to learn.there is a lot of secrets about the fish that are actually written..the secrets are between the lines..but first one has to learn how to find what lives between the lines..sounds crazy huh....


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

EMC, you are correct. The risk of transfer shock is real. The risk of ammonia poisoning is also real and IMO a much greater risk. The important thing for us all is to become as educated about all this as possible and use common sense. The key point is what loha pointed out. The wholesaler are doing the rip and dump method. They consider it the best way. They have money at stake.


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## Toshogu (Apr 24, 2009)

I've selected for hard to kill fish, so I've been doing the rip and dump all survived except for an angel that refused to eat for 2 weeks and a guppy that had a bad fungus infection that i didn't notice when I bought from LFS. Seems to take everything about 2-3days to get used to the tank and do thier thing. Usually most of em found a dark spot to hide in for a long while.

Ghost shrimp... dunno how many I have, sometimes I see em, sometimes I don't. Like I know I still have 3 around cause I saw em run out to grab pellets. But idk what thier numbers are. anywhere between 3 and 30.. course then again I've only come across 5 shells.. which could have been molt, or hulled out by fish. so 3-35 idk. And I'm not about to rip out everything just to find out. But I have considered it.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

So its a risk assesment. Depends how long the fish have been in the bag and how similar the water is likely to be. Test the water if you can, It doesn't take long to buffer a bucket of clean water to be in the same ballpark as the shipping water.


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## Superfly724 (Sep 16, 2007)

Apart from ordered fish, you all would say it's still a good idea to float the bag if you just brought the fish home from the store 30 minutes away? I've always done it, but wondering if it's a totally necessary step.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

yes I was a t Big Al's and no these were not "new" fish. They were the ones from afew weeks ago. They were in the 'marked down' tank where they put all the odds and ends from the previous shipment. Any other fish I have bought from this tank over the years have been hardy- they have to be the way they are moved from tank to tank in that store.
Hmm maybe they have been moved once too often!
Anyways if these are poor quality serpas I wonder what the 'better' quality ones look like?
These were a very nice red with red/black fins edged with white.
There is one survivor today- I am very pleased.
I have watched the angel for extended periods and he has been well behaved towards the other fish- he checks them out but has not really attacked . he gets a bit aggitated with the betta so i have shuffled him to another tank. 
Angel is still ripping up the plants though.
The method I use when acclimating fish is this.
I float the bag for 20 minutes to get the temp adjusted I open the bag and syphon out 3 turket baster fulls of water and add the same amount from the tank they are going to. I repeat this approx three times then net the fish out of the bag and pop into the tank.
it has always worked for me in the past.
Is this too long??It takes about an hour.
With my platies and guppies I never acclimate between house tanks. I try to keep them all about the same temperature and I put the fish to be moved in betta cup, carry them to the tank I want them in and just toss them in. They never saeem to mind and just start swimming the the others of their kind.
I guess I would be more cautious with tetras or more delicate type of fish.


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2009)

temp variation cant be all that much of a difference from the car to house so why aclimitize the packet?

how much water will be in that bag? 500ml? 750ml? pushing a big bag would carry 1ltr. trasporting the fish in this, lets say for 2 hours, which i tend to do if i have other things to do, will increase the ammonia level and CO2 level and drop the pH level? am i right so far? once we open these bags and float it in the tank, the ammonia level shoots up and the pH as well climbs? so, while in the bag, the lower pH level is killing the fish and when floating the fish, the ammonia in the "stew" is killing the fish slowly?

ok lemme get this right. what u'll are suggesting is that if the water params in the bag is the same as the tank, moving the fish directly into the tank is not gonna damage the fish all that much and give it a better chance of survival?


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

Haha does this avatar get it done for ya loha? lol i assure all of you that i have no big zits on my nose and my boogers are a perfectly normal color. 
I guess drip works for me so well because I work at a pet shop so my fish are never in the bag that long and i always choose the healthiest ones. The shop i work at also doesn't use the rip and pour method, we drip acclimate all of our fish lol


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Tallone, does your pet shop receive fish that have been in transit for awhile. Like overnight. If so, why do they consider the drip method the best?


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

yeah we get our fish from g&g aquatics and they are flown in overnight and then shipped to use through UPS. The way we do it is we use the Styrofoam boxes they come in, dump the fish into each one they came in, drip acclimate them for about an hour, then scoop all the fish out of the boxes and put them into the tanks, our thursdays are pretty slow for some reason so thats when we get the fish in and we have the leeway to make sure we acclimate them properly instead of just trying to sell them all as fast as we can. Im not saying we don't have deaths but we don't have a lot of deaths and are told we have the best fish in the area (we get away with only a 3 day warranty on the fish lol so we must be doing something right).


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Why do they consider drip the best way? Is it because that's the way it's always been done? Do they even know about the possibly of ammonia poisioning? They would not be the first pet shop to be doing it the wrong way. We all used the drip method until just a very few years ago. I would say most pet shops still do. Some are catching on to a better way. As loha said, wholesalers are picking up on this a little quicker. They have a lot more fish at stake. Believe me, tallone, this is not my idea. I'm not that smart! Do a little google searching and see what you find. You might end up as a hero at your pet shop...


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

Haha of course we know about the possibility of ammonia poisoning lol this pet shop has been in business for over 20 years. We have gone from a tiny pet shop in an outside strip mall to a much bigger pet warehouse lol. 
Ok ill break down why we do it this way:
basically its the way that has worked for us. We don't have a lot of fish deaths after shipments and we can't just dump fish into our tanks because we don't sell all of our fish every week so we need to make sure we dont dump a lot of diseased fish into tanks with the remainder of our previous shipment of fish in them. We know the visual symptoms to ammonia poisoning, clamped fins, gasping for air, red gills, lethargy, red streaking, etc and simply put, our fish don't come in with these symptoms. The only fish we do the rip and dump method with are the goldfish who normally do come in with these problems. the reason we have to acclimate is that our pH normally runs a higher than the fish we get in, around 7.4 as compared to the lower pH of the fish we get in. Over the years we have just learned that we lose less fish through acclimation than we do through rip and dump because sometimes the fish get shocked through the quick change of water. Keep in mind though that we rip and dump for some fish, we acclimate for others, its just what we have learned though trial and error. The way you would get rid of ammonia poisoning in a tank would be to do water changes correct? well isn't drip acclimation sorta like doing a water change? you dilute the water just as you would dilute the water in your tank through a water change. We may do it wrong but it does work for us for the most part.
Keep in mind none of the acclimation water goes back into the tank, its basically a rip-acclimate-and dump lol


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

much better tallone...you are a nice lopoking young man when your face isn't all messed up with what ever you did to the other pic.....lol


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I have to go with trial and error. I went to a guppy show where fish were flown in from all over. Some people were ripping and dumping, some were, well, call it "cup acclimating". Adding a cupful of water to the bag, and dumping a cupful of bag water repeating every few minutes (they do one bag, then go down the line). There were fewer deaths in the cup acclimated section. 

From my experience, I'll say its dangerous to dump a fish into a tank with much lower hardness, is much cooler, or has a much higher pH. 

There are precautions shippers can take against ammonia poisoning in transit. You can use ammonia absorbers and pH buffers. If your shipper has taken precautions, and the fish haven't been in bags long enough to exhaust those precautions, you have to time to do at least a 'cup acclimating'. The more different your conditions, the more likely it is make a difference. 

If the fish are showing obvious signs of distress, get the fish in clean water asap. If you are going to an auction, it doesn't hurt to have a few bags of clean water with you.

If all the wholesalers are going to rip and dump, it means the fish they are getting are coming in with ammonia poisoning. Not surprising that the new fish death rate is rising.


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Tallonebball said:


> Haha of course we know about the possibility of ammonia poisoning lol this pet shop has been in business for over 20 years. We have gone from a tiny pet shop in an outside strip mall to a much bigger pet warehouse lol.
> Ok ill break down why we do it this way:
> basically its the way that has worked for us. We don't have a lot of fish deaths after shipments and we can't just dump fish into our tanks because we don't sell all of our fish every week so we need to make sure we dont dump a lot of diseased fish into tanks with the remainder of our previous shipment of fish in them.
> 
> ...


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Water temp and parameters need to be adjusted. That shouldn't be difficult. Then there is no reason not to rip and dump... The science is there to support the fact that drip system damages fish. Floating is even worse. The cup system you saw EMC is a modified drip system. The key is that the shipping bags were open. I'll bet you didn't see many people floating did you? And EMC, they don't come in with ammonia poisoning (if they do they are really in trouble). The problem occurs after the bag is opened. The sudden release of CO2 and the rapid rise in PH. The amount of ammonia remains the same but is MUCH more toxic at a higher PH. No ammount of ammo-lock is going to completely protect from all that. You need to get the fish out of that toxic soup ASAP.


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

No we dont float bags ever we put the new fish in with the old fish which is why we make the suedo-quarantine tank out of the styrofoam boxes when acclimating. 
And im also sorry if it came off as hard headed, i was more trying to be matter of fact lol
Im one of two "managers" in the store and I will be the first one to tell you we don't do everything right haha but the owner and I are very good friends and he is actually very receptive towards my ideas (hes known me since i was like 7 lol)
The only problem is that we do the rip and dump with some of our fish and it seems that it makes them have a very hard time acclimating to our water and the mortality rate is higher
The only thing I can say is the owner has invested in a very expensive r/o system which is slowly helping to bring our pH etc to where acclimating will be easier.
Haha so ron, your either gonna get me a promotion or in hot water lol but ill assume that you wouldn't steer me wrong haha


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I'll do some research. But personally, I have never opened a bag and then watched a lively fish die while I acclimated it. I have dumped fish from one tank to one with different parameters and watched it get instantly distressed and die overnight. If you always get fish from the same place, you can adjust the parameters before you rip and dip. But if you bring home fish with unknown water parameters, how do you find out without opening the bag? I suspect most of the fish I bring home have been bagged less than 12 hours. Somewhere there is a curve of where in time the ammonia risk outweighs the shock risk and I bet I'm usually on the shock side. And does the curve differ for fish bagged in oxygen, instead of air (there would be less CO2 in the bag)?

In another thread I said I argue if you say 'always'. Show me the data that "proves" rip and dump is 'always' better.

IME, its the soft-water fish that have trouble. Malawi cichlids take dumping in stride even though, being lake fish, you'd thing sudden change would bother them.

Avoid the CO2 build-up entirely. Insist on breathable bags.


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Rip and dump may not always be the best way... Who knows... Its the way I always do it now and I have reasons. Let me tell you my story.LOL... I first found out about this about 4 years ago. I was as skeptical then as you are now. It just didn't feel right. Logic suggested that a slow process should be better and, after all... thats the way it had always been done. But as I read, the science was compelling so I decided to try it. One of my "experiments"... LOL. At the time I was into apistos and unusual west african cichlids. During a period of a couple of months I received two significant shipments of fish. One from Ted Judy in Wisconson and one from Toyin (don't remember last name) in Houston. I did the rip and dump with a perfect result. No losses. The shipment from Ted was lost in transit and took almost a week. Keep in mind apisto are delicate anyway and some of these were wild fish ( expensive too, I might add). I have been a believer ever since. BTW, I documented this process (minute by minute) on this forum. Maybe I need to go back and see if I can find it...


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

EMC, I don't know much about the breathable bags. That may be an answer... BTW I have been web hopping a little. I wish I knew how to enbed links in my posts ( I must admit to a severe lack of "computer" knowledge) LOL. But, I found a discussion on "world of angelfish forum" about this rip and dump thing. It seems as if the popular process is much similar to what we find here. Most do the drip and are skeptical of rip and dump. They are being swayed however, by an importer of a wild altums (a very, very delicate fish). He has experimented with and uses the rip and dump and offers his reasoning. So EMC, it may be just the opposite of your idea that delicate, soft water fish are more in danger with rip and dump. There is some reason to think that the more delicate the fish the more reason to consider rip and dump...


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

my take on the drip and the rip...........
the drip...............
fish in the bag are producing ammonia and co2... both are pretty deadly to them.. if the fish are packed with oxygen ; then the co2 is not an issue ; but the ammonia is..
you get your bag of a couple hundred fish and you start the drip... how fast is that drip? is it fast enough to overtake the buildup of ammonia? keep in mind that while you are putting fresh water in drop by drop the fish are continuing to produce copious amounts of ammonia.. would you not want to get rid of as much of that ammonia as rapidly as possible?.... if you only have a couple of fish in a bag ; and they haven't been in there too long ; the drip is not big deal.. but a large number of fish in a bag is...

the rip................... 
simple..a net is placed over a 5 gallon bucket..the bag is opened and dumped into the net..then the fish are put into a tank..the more established the tank ; the better ; but not always possible.. i really don't worry much about PH or temperature changes unless they are pretty radical.... in nature ; when there is a torrential downpour , there are be rapid changes in both temps and PH.. and it seems that the fish actually like , because right after that they start breeding....

certainly ; each of these methods has it's place.. we do what works for us..i'm a ripper... but i never get just a couple of fish... i don't even know what that is...


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## ron v (Feb 24, 2005)

Hi loha... I like it when you chime in, especially when you are on my side. psssst. I'll send you the $ bill later LOL... And BTW, when the drip is taking place, it's not just the continued build up of ammonia, it's also the increase in how toxic ammonia is as the ph increases.


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