On the bumpy way home, while avoiding trucks on those two lane highways, it became obvious that two distressing things were happening. One the female molly had dropped. Secondly, the water was, drop by drop, bouncing out. Naturally each hand held the wire to a box while grasping the handlebar.

The adrenaline boost of seeing a potential week's or two's newspaper route earnings bounce out of a cardboard carrying box, or harm coming to those wonderful pairs, propelled us home, mostly uphill, with increased vigor. When we got home, there was one fry still in the box with the moist mollies! There was no water. They were promptly dumped into the aquarium, where they and their descendents thrived for generations. The swordtails still had a half-inch of water and were acclimated a little more sedately.

With the advent of the plastic fish bags, carrying and shipping became much easier and safer for the fish. The 1.5-mil thick polyethylene bags breathed oxygen and carbon dioxide better than the stronger 2, 3 or even 4-mil thicknesses. Those are very different from the impermeable bread and freezer bags. And please never, ever use zip lock bags with fish!

We knew that one should avoid moving fish between dramatically different temperatures. We didn't know about other water perimeters, but we did know about Ich. So the conventional wisdom was to float the bag for 20 minutes, open the bag and dump everything into the aquarium.

It didn't occur to us that panicked petshop fish would have vomited and defecated like crazy. Nor did we think about any disease organisms or dollops of medications in that water. Now we know to dump that water into the bucket, which gets dumped into the toilet. You do know why it is better to drain that into the bucket rather than the toilet? ;)

We know now that there are a number of ways to shock fish. A visit to Shedd Aquarium's Member's Night, about 1983, got us into conversation with Shedd's Ralph Bodamer. Ralph noted that there must be cases of temperature shock. Had never seen it (those of us who have chilled fish and witnessed Ich have). He certainly was aware of chemical shocks though and considered them a far greater threat to the fish.

In time many of us came to realize that hardness, TDS and in some cases, pH could make a difference for our fishes. In most cases, a drip system such as used by marine aquarists or the gradual adding of the water from the new tank into a holding container eased one's fish into the new water. There will probably other things to worry about, as the hobby becomes even more sophisticated. There is an adjustment process however, which can be used and one will not need an advanced degree in biochemistry to successfully acclimate out new charges to their quarantine tank.

The drill usually goes something like this:

Take the bag, untie it or cut it open.

Pour the fish in a quart jar, gallon jug or bucket, depending upon the size of the fish.

Dump that water into an "out" bucket.

If you can set the jar in a less illuminated area, so much the better.

Have and use a tight fitting cover.

Decant or drain a little of the water in that jar or jug so that the fish is just covered.

Add almost as much tank water. Cover and leave it alone for 20-30 minutes.

Watch a half-hour TV show (like you've got time!)

Decant a little more water. Again add almost as much tank water again.

Cover and let it sit another 20 minutes. (I try to use this time for overdue water changes.)

Do the drain and add one more time.

Then dump all of the holding water in the bucket and add your fish to the tank or quarantine tank. I generally pour through my fingers, a net will do. Fingers and net should get thoroughly rinsed in a sink.

If possible, use a fine meshed net with fry.

Moving really tiny and young fry, might be the exception. It may be necessary to move really young fry into something small like a bowl, covered plastic show box or small tank. In those cases it may be better not to expose the small fry to air. All of that water can be dumped a week or two later, when the fry have grown some and are moved to larger quarters.

Some "bugs" may still come in via the fish's skin or gut, but any disease inoculation from the shop will be much less. Anything else in that water, which might be unwanted, is also disposed of and flushed.

In really extreme cases, from ancient, long established aquaria or with really touchy fish, one could extend the process even to a day. Usually that isn't needed though.

Thanks to the work and writing of people like J.J. Scheel, we have learned that it is better to take the fish up, a little bit, in hardness (DH) and TDS and even pH, rather than down in those categories. Even matches of course are best. Scheel, in the field and at home, also noted that a fish could be adjusted to a change of about 1-degree in pH in a day. (6 to 7, 8 to 7, 7.5 to 6.5)

If the new fish are being moved from an area with hard water or water with a high TDS to an area with significantly softer water, with lower TDS, it is even possible to add a measured dose of Rift Lake Cichlid Salts, or maybe sodium chloride, in the quarantine tank ahead of time. Water changes can be done with your regular water. Conditions will change over the days and weeks.

There are a couple of situations, which completely contradict the suggestions above.

One is where aquarists use saltwater baths on freshwater fishes or freshwater baths are used on marine fishes to get rid external parasites. In both cases, they are taken from water with a certain chemistry and returned to that same kind of water when they show stress in the bath container. The idea is that the abrupt change in osmotic pressure will harm the parasites before the vertebrates.

The other situation, when a 32 feet per second introduction to the quarantine tank is necessary, is when the carrying water is so foul, that just getting the fish out of it is a real priority. And in that case, adding freshwater to waste laden water may actually make the stuff more dangerous to the fish.

Much of life is playing the odds. Do all fish need that careful acclimation? No. But I would always want to improve the odds for those I care about, even for the critters. :) And I don't want mystery deaths a couple of weeks down the road from blown gills or lowered immunities.