Acclimation setup

[djatl]

I'm currently cycling a new tank, and thinking about getting the Acclimate by Reef Gently. (I have some Amazon gift cards!)

http://www.amazon.com/Reef-Gently-Ac...7279920&sr=1-2

I'm going to be acclimating a lot of fish over the next year, so I think I'd get some mileage out of this. Is this overkill for the average fish keeper? Anyone have any experience with these setups?

Thanks

[Joe0813]

im new to saltwater tanks and im thinking about getting one too

[Ron Reefman]

I got one at MACNA in 2010 and I have used it for a variety of jobs. Sometimes it's more set up than it's worth, but it can really come in handy.

[Jocko]

I have an older model that doesn't have the auto-acclimation feature and I still love it. I use it for various random purposes including as a fish trap. It's great. Like a swiss army knife. Well a boxy acrylic one. Heh.

[fishgate]

Wow! That is a cool product! Can someone here that has one go to the Amazon site and write a review and provide the dimensions of the box? The description sucks.

[djatl]

Glad to hear some others have used it successfully. I agree that it may be handy for a number of things. I was curious if anyone has used this to transport fish directly from the fish store?

I came across a couple of reviews on YouTube that focused on acclimation. Shouldn't be too hard to find.

Here's the dimensions from the Reef Gently website. They have a regular and an XL size.
- Regular Dimensions: 7-5/8" L x 3-3/8" W x 6" H
- XL Dimensions: 11" L x 5" W x 9" H

I'm debating whether I want to spend the extra $30 for the bigger size, since I don't expect to have bigger fish for a while. But I like the idea of giving the fish extra room while they're acclimating, and the partition is a nice-to-have, but since they're going to spend time in my QT, they better get along anyway.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Sk8r]

The drawbacks I see:
1. accidental spill of store water into tank
2. too small for most fish
3. acclimation isn't needed or even desirable for locally bought fish: better to pre-adjust your qt to store salinity and just put them on in immediately as bag is opened. You can do the same for shipped fish if you phone the shipper and ask their salinity so you can have the qt pre-set to 0 difference.

[Barro777]

Sk8r, I noticed you advocate strongly for pre-adjusting qt to store salinity and putting them on in immediately as bag is opened. Which makes transferring the fish into the QT simpler. But then, you are not going to have the advantage of using DT water for those frequent water changes in the QT because of different salinity. And will end up having to acclimate anyway before transferring from QT to DT. Or am I missing something?

[djatl]

I believe you slowly bring the QT salinity up to match the DT during the quarantine period with appropriate water changes. If they match at the end, you can make the second transition as quick as the first.

[bellis31]

I have one of these and I love it... I've used it 3 times now for transferring fish from QT to DT (not to acclimate) and I used it to acclimate my shrimp and Conch... I even used it to catch my fish in the QT, made life easy.

I always set my QT to whatever the LFS water is, makes acclimation easy (temp only) Then raise it when I feel the fish are eating well enough.

[kevinrf]

I just got mine in the mail yesterday. I'm still a little confused on how to set it up. Inside the box is the lower meter & high meter. Are you suppose to be able to put the tube all the way through on all 4 holes? 1 hole on each side is blocked half way through

[00Warpig00]

Been setting up my own acclimation system based on sk8ers advice on acclimation. It is so much faster and easier to get the fish into QT quickly if you set yourself up to match your QT sg to the bag that arrives at your QT tank no matter how it arrives.

Nick