"How to Add New Fish to Your Saltwater Aquarium - 5 Most Common Mistakes and What to Do About It"

"How to Add New Fish to Your Saltwater Aquarium - 5 Most Common Mistakes and What to Do About It"," It is so fun and exciting and is probably one of the most enjoyable aspects of the saltwater aquarium hobby.
 The good news, is that most of the time, these losses are avoidable.


Mistake #1 - Adding one fish at a time - When adding new fish to your saltwater aquarium, it is often problematic to add just one fish at a time.
 And if you are adding just one fish, then all that aggression is focused on one fish.
 Another problem with only adding one fish at a time, particularly to a new tank, is that there are not that many fish in the tank, so they take much longer to learn acclimate to their new diet of flakes, pellets, frozen foods, etc.
 When you only have a couple of fish in a new tank, they are often stressed out and anxious because they do not have the safety in numbers benefit of being in a school.
 Instead, add new fish in groups.
 Social feeding response improves the speed at which new fish get used to eating the foods you offer.
 Some people get home from the store with a new fish and in they go.
 Depending on where your new fish is coming from, the acclimation method used may vary slightly, but the same basics will always apply.
 And if you do need to use a net, then use one with the finest mesh possible, so that it minimizes abrasion and harm to the fish.
 But when it comes time to move the fish from the bag into the acclimation bucket or from the acclimation bucket into the tank, there really is no need for a net.


Mistake #4 - Putting bag water into your aquarium - Most new fish come in a plastic bag, which contains the water from the fish store or the online retailer or wholesaler, or from your friends tank.
 This copper, if added to your reef tank, would kill your invertebrates (corals, snails, hermit crabs, starfish, etc.


Mistake #5 - Taking too long to get your new fish conditioned to feeding - Too often a new fish will get added to a tank with existing fish, and the feeding routine is not adjusted to account for the new fish.
 The problem with this is that, between the time they are collected and the time they are put into your tank, newly added fish have been through a lot of stress.
 This is a problem, because without proper nutrition, the stress I mentioned can easily result in a disease outbreak.


Solution: Get your new fish eating as quickly as possible by offering them small amounts of food several times a day for the first two weeks.
 At first, offer whatever they will eat.
 The goal is to just get them eating.
 Once they are eating regularly, you can then add more food items with higher nutritional value.
 Make sure there is not any uneaten food on the bottom.


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