reef cleaners
- Thread starter deboy69
- Start date
I remember reading about this a little while ago. Follow their instructions. Drip acclimating in this particular case is much worse than throwing them in and dealing with the salinity / PH differences. The reason for this is Ammonia is less toxic at low PH levels and more toxic at high PH levels. The water in the bag has a significant amount of waste in it breaking down into ammonia, but also slowly lowing the PH of the water in the bag as the CO2 levels rise. So as the PH lowers it makes the ammonia that is also building less toxic. If you were to drip acclimate at this point it would raise the PH of the water and increase the toxicity of the ammonia, probably resulting in some death. Another thing to keep in mind is a lot of these creatures are lagoon / tidal creatures that deal with quick and significant changes in salinity and PH on a regular basis in the wild.
On the other hand, whenever I have ordered fish or anything that is delivered by mail "live", I add a couple of drops of Prime (or whatever ammonia binder) to a bucket or pitcher, and then dump the contents of the shipped bag into the container. Or in the case of very large bags, like when I got my Majestic Angel from Divers Den, I just added some drops of Prime directly to the bag the instant it was opened. It at least binds the ammonia to prevent sudden poisoning. fwiw
Along for the ride here. I haven't ordered from reef cleaners before, but reef 2 reef normally says to acclimate and the first two shipments i received from them even included a length of hose to do that. I recently heard about prime, but i thought it was something that you put into a new tank set up to start the cycle. Thanks for all the info.