why do my new octo's keep dying?

[Colin]

Hi robert, nice to see a good description of what to do

There are quite a few of us that always use the drip method to acclimatise our octos etc but as Greg said... Its not always as easy with octos as they do try their best to climb out LOL... not the first time i had one climb teh side of the bucket and flop on my hands...

I agree its the best way. Especially if they are coming overnight.

A couple of my cephs have crawled out of the bag within a few moments of starting acclimatisation and straight into the tank with no ill effects. Far from ideal though

 

[rcl]

Colin -

You bring up a very good point I neglected to mention. You should at least be nearby enough the acclimation site to HEAR if something funny is going on. I was drip acclimating a 4+ inch pleco once (who does NOT LIKE the light I now know) and I heard some strange rustling near the bucket.. so I went and checked it out, and he had climbed about 6 inches out of the water and was just about to get out of the bucket!!!! He was pretty determined, and it was lucky I was there. Surprisingly, the bimac I got didn't make the slightest move like he was going to escape. Clearly your mileage may vary

Robert

 

[Colin]

The species involved will make differences too...

The most 'exciting' to aclimatise would be briareus for me! But that is a species that is quite happy to climb out, vulgaris would do the same too.

What plec species have you got anyway? Off topic I know but they are one of my favourite groups of fish, I have adonis, royal whiptails, L001 and a gibbi

 

[rcl]

Colin --

Very cool! I was wondering if I would run into a fellow pleco lover here or not. Currently I have an LDA 008 (gold marble bristlenose), 3 L260's (Queen arabesque), one L075 (Peckoltia Sabaji), and an L177. I think they are really cool fish, and probably what got me most interested in keeping aquariums in the first place. I think my boldest probably is the gold marble bristlenose, with my most shy probably being the L075 -- although he is starting to come out more often. I think the adonis looks great btw, hadn't seen this one before!

Robert

 

[moron_aaron]

when u are doing the drip dont u need a air pump to keep the oxygen levels up?

 

[rcl]

Nope, I've never had any issues. I would think things would be stressful if you had a pump going in a little bag!

 

[Andy Lister]

To reduce the risk of them climbing out you could always put the lid on the bucket (if you use salt crystals that come in a 25l bucket they are ideal) and cut a small hole in the top only big enough for the air line to go through, very unlikely that they will get out of that, and also keeps them in the dark too which certainly helps... if they are dark then they are less likely to want to go anywhere!


Oh, if you have the water dripping into the water rather than have the end of the airline under the level of the bag water (if that makes sence) then it keeps the surface water moving and does exactly the same as the air stone would do (the air doesn't actually aerate the water, the movement on the surface does!)

~Andy