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How Long To Let Fish Acclimate To New Tank

We cover the popular question of how long to let fish acclimate to new tanks? it seems to be a common confusion so we decided to cover the subject in detail to help you out.

How Long To Let Fish Acclimate To New Tank


How long to let fish acclimate to new tank is a hot button topic in the fish keeping world. Let’s get to the bottom of this issue and find out how long it takes for fish to acclimate to a new tank.

So, How Long Does It Take for fish to acclimate to a new tank?



Acclimating Your Fish – Step By Step

The best thing we can do for you here is to provide you with a step by step guide on acclimating your fish to its new home, so let’s do that right now.

  1. When you buy your new fish, get it home as soon as possible. Don’t dilly dally or go shopping in between. GO right from the pet store to your home. The water in a plastic bag is not ideal for long term living, it doesn’t have much oxygen, and fish don’t like being in plastic bags.

  2. Rinse the exterior of the bag off.

  3. Pour out the excess water in the bag, but leave enough to cover the dorsal fin totally.




  7. Once you have done this, you can introduce the fish into the aquarium without the bag.

Why Acclimate Your Fish?

There are several important things that come along with the acclimating process. Like we said, you can’t just dump the fish into the water. Up above, our main concern was the temperature, but there are other factors at play here as well.


  • Slowly adding water into the bag not only helps with temperature, but it also helps the new fish slowly get used to the water’s acidity level (pH), the hardness, and the amount of other compounds in the water. You should ideally have the tank at the proper parameters before inserting the fish.




Remember folks, never just dump a new fish directly into the tank. This can create a lot of stress for your new fish and for the old ones too. If you don’t go through a proper acclimatization process, you may actually end up killing your new pet, so please be careful, be patient, and definitely follow the steps we have outlined above.