Acclimating Your New Fish, Invertebrates, Corals, Macro Algae and Seahorses to Your Aquarium

Acclimating Your New Fish, Invertebrates, Corals, Macro Algae and Seahorses to Your Aquarium

Proper acclimation to a new aquarium is very important with your new livestock. Please read through this simple step-by-step guide on how we recommend acclimating newly arrived livestock from our facility to your aquarium. This quick acclimation guide is easy to follow and developed from our experience over the years of shipping saltwater livestock from our Maryland facility, Seahorse Savvy, throughout the entire United States.

Begin Acclimating Your New Livestock as Soon as They Arrive!

It is very important to acclimate your new livestock as soon as they arrive to you! Any extra time in the box is stressful. Please make sure someone is available to receive and acclimate them when they arrive so they can start settling into their new home. It is important that they are brought indoors and out of the weather as soon as they arrive especially in extreme temperature areas. We ship our livestock UPS Priority Overnight service. Most areas have early morning delivery but delivery could be at any time on the delivery day. If you need a certain delivery day feel free to add this in your notes when placing an order. We ship out Monday-Thursday and are flexible.

Seahorse Savvy Acclimation Guide-Acclimating Your New Livestock to Your Aquarium

1. Open box in a dimly lit room.
2. Turn off aquarium lighting. (Bright lighting can stress your newly arrived seahorses).
3. DO NOT OPEN BAG. Float bag in aquarium for 30 minutes to temperature acclimate.
4. After 30 minutes open bag and immediately place livestock into your aquarium. DO NOT PUT BAG WATER IN AQUARIUM. 
5. Leave aquarium lighting off for the first arrival day to reduce stress and allow your new tank mates to quietly settle in.
6. Offer appropriate food a few hours after your livestock has been fully acclimated.
7. We do not recommend adding fish to an acclimation box. These can make your new arrivals feel exposed, stress or possibly cause damage to the fish if they get confused and try to escape and swim into the sides. We recommend releasing them into the aquarium or quarantine aquarium and allow them to go hide while they acclimate and settle in.
8. We do not recommend any medicated or freshwater dips on new fish arrivals as this can cause stress when they first arrive and should be avoided.

Special Notes:

• We pack our fish and invertebrates with a safe ammonia blocker to avoid ammonia poisoning during shipping and keep your livestock safe. We do not ship our livestock in any medications such as copper. 
• We do not recommend dipping Gorgonian corals or Macro Algae in Coral dips as they are sensitive to this.
• We do not recommend using any medications with invertebrates as they are sensitive to these.
• We recommend and encourage good quarantine practices with your new livestock no matter where you source your livestock from including our facility.

What is Expected and Normal Behavior for Newly Arrived Livestock

• For fish, it is normal and expected for them to hide and be a bit shy for the first few days or longer depending on the species.
• For fish, it can take a day or two for them to start eating after being introduced to a new aquarium. 
• For invertebrates, many are nocturnal and not very active when they first arrive such as sea cucumbers, conchs, serpent starfish, cerith snails and others. This does not mean they have passed during their travels and we recommend acclimating them to the aquarium right away.

It is Very Important to NOT Drip Acclimate Your Fish!

Many folks are familiar with drip acclimation of newly arrived aquarium fish or inverts and may be tempted to do so with their new arrivals. It is very important to NOT drip acclimate your newly shipped fish when they arrive! In our experience fish when shipped are sensitive to ammonia. For this reason we recommend temperature acclimating them as described above and do NOT drip acclimate! Additionally, long drip acclimation processes can add stress to your new arrivals and should be avoided.

Why you should NOT drip acclimate: When a fish or invertebrates is packed in a shipping bag their is very low CO2 levels. As your livestock travels to you they produce CO2 in the water from respiration. CO2 lowers the pH of the shipping water. Ammonia is also produced from your seahorse during shipping from waste. At lower pH levels from CO2 production ammonia (NH3) is converted to the much less toxic form ammonium (NH4). The moment you open the shipping bag the CO2 is being released from the shipping water and the pH begins to rise. When this occurs the less toxic form of ammonium is converted to the very toxic form ammonia. Exposing your fish or invertebrate to ammonia for any period of time puts them at risk for ammonia poisoning and is also very stressful on your new arrivals. With proper acclimation as we recommend you have no worries of this risk. Our fish, invertebrates and other tank mates handle slight changes in pH and specific gravity well. This is why it is very important to follow our simple acclimation guide. We also provide this guide in the box with every order shipped out. If you have any questions please contact us.

Water Parameters 

Please make sure your water parameters are within range and your aquarium is cycled before ordering your new livestock.

***Please make sure your aquarium is fully cycled before ordering your livestock and adding them to your aquarium! A saltwater aquarium generally takes 6-8 weeks to fully cycle. If you have any questions about cycling your aquarium or if you are not sure if it is fully cycled please contact us, we are happy to help with this.

We package our livestock with great care and high quality packaging, you have nothing to worry about and our livestock ships very well. If you have any questions about how to best prepare for your new arrivals please contact us at orders@seahorsesavvy.com or give us a call 410-618-3604 today. We are happy to help and want you to be a successful keeper. 

Contact:

If you have any questions or concerns when your new arrivals arrive please contact us via email: orders@seahorsesavvy.com or call us by phone: 410-618-3604. We have a live arrival guarantee and must receive photos of any DOA’s within 2 hours delivery of your order. Please send a photo of the animal in the unopened bag and outside of the bag. If you have concerns please contact us right away so we can help. Thank you.

Live Arrival Gaurantee Policy: https://seahorsesavvy.com/pages/live-arrival-guarantee

We hope you enjoy your new livestock. Please let us know if there is anything, we can help you with. We are happy to help and appreciate your order!