Taking New Fish Home

If you are new to fish keeping, having spent time preparing your pond and aquarium you want to ensure your fish get to their new home is a peaceful manner. This is easy when you follow our simple guide to taking new fish home.

We will give you some tips when you buy your fish from us and put them in suitable packaging to minimise any stress. When you get home, float the transport bag in the pond or aquarium for 20 minutes. This makes the water temperature in the transport bag the same temperature as the water in your pond or aquarium.

Next, open the transport bag and roll down the sides so the bag still floats. Add approximately one cup of your aquarium water to the transport bag, then leave it to float for a further 10 minutes. This adjusts the chemistry of the water in the transport bag, so it is of a similar level to the water chemistry in your pond or aquarium. This helps reduce stress on your new fish.

By now your fish will have been floating in their bag for half an hour and you can now carefully empty the fish into your pond or aquarium. Most newly introduced fish will go and hide and are unlikely to feed for the first 12 hours. We advise keeping an eye on new fish for the first couple of days, just to make sure that they settled into their new home and are feeding correctly.

There are several products that you can use to acclimate your fish to their new water, ask our staff what they would recommend.

If you have any concerns with the fish you buy from us please call our aquatics team as soon as possible and they will offer some advice. They can be contacted on 01392 876281.