Introducing Newly Purchased Fish To A Tank

I have started acclamating my fish to temperature only then pouring the bag out over a net to catch the fish, then putting them straight into the tank.i do this for two reasons.
1. Ammonia that builds up inside the bag only becomes toxic when the bag is opened, so it's best to get the fish straight out. If you are taking a fish from a hard water tank to software tank you may need to be more careful, but I know my LFS has rouhtly the same water parameters.
2. Since I've started doing it this way I've noticed how much less stressful it is for the fish and how much quicker they get settled into the tank. I think he because there is not need for them to be chased around before being caught in the net.

What do others do?

All fishkeepers seem to add their fish in slightly different ways so I thought it would be interesting to see how we all did things.

Your doing it exactly how I used to and I think this is the most common way. It's reassuring that the ammonia didn't go up by much when you put your Seneye in the bag.

When i say chasing the fish, I'm referring to when I have the fish acclimated in the bag floating in the tank and I need to get them into the tank. To avoid putting any store water into my tank I put a net into the bag and 'fish' them out (pun alert!!). I imagine your doing the same? "Chasing" is probably not quite the right word...

I was talking to a store assistant the other day who was saying how he thought putting a nef into the bag was a bad idea for the stress levels of the fish.  Small space in bag, multiple fish that don't want to be separated, large scary net etc etc. He had caught too many fish than what id asked for and poured the whole lot back in the tank and started again rather than just catching one and putting it back - hence this conversation.

This is why I thought I'd do it the "pouring the temperature only acclimated fish out of the bag and into a net over a bucket" way, to see if the fish behaved any differently. Whilst I've only done it once (so no conclusions to be drawn yet!)  the fish did seem to be calmer in the net and seemed to start behaving normally in the tank sooner...

Are any others using this method or do you have your own schools (fish pun!) of thought on this?
 
   (I'll move this chat into another thread if it gets off topic too much @Helen)

Ive always seen people comment that there's a risk when adding store water to your tank, that you bring a potential infection of some kind with it. That said... it has also just occured to me that stores often have highly medicated water , plus surely an infection is most likely to be carried on the fish itself... so maybe this isn't such a risk as people think??

I've never been brave enough to buy fish through the post. Because I get all my fish from the same place, which is relatively near by, it's only a couple litres in 200l and I figure that the fish are the most likely carriers of problems, I just add the tank water.

Mr Helen and I were discussing the risks of adding new fish to the tank, yesterday. (I also don't use a quarantine tank!  )

My philosophy is that by minimising stress to the fish, I'm giving them the best chance.

Interesting to hear what others think of my approach.

I do quarantine fish, but then it is also common for me to purchase fish from several shops for the same tank, as I did for the river tank.
I do have space (well, not really, but also don't have anyone to tall me to take a quarantine tank off the dining table), and I have spare tanks.

It was me that had import spot, and very nasty it was too.

When I restocked after that I got virtually all the new fish from the same shop at the same time so there was no need to quarantine. I've only added since then - a couple more stiphodons from the same shop, a trio of honey gouramis from the same shop, and a replacement male honey gourami from Maidenhead Aquaticsbut took the risk for these fish and didn't quarantine them. The only real risk was the MA gourami as the others came from the same shop as the first batch.

@Helen, I have made the split but I seem to have lost the last post in the other thread 

I think it is now sorted. There appears to be just this one thread.

Maybe we should co-ordinate splits etc before doing them 

I used to add water to the bag, every 10 mins for an hour. But after reading about it taking at least 2 weeks for fish to acclimatise I haven't done that with the last few fish. I just leave the bag floating in the tank while i sort out the other shopping we've done, then net the fish out of the bag.

I know the average 3" goldfish produces 0.02ppm ammonia per day so I don't worry about ammonia with smaller fish.

That's really interesting, I had always thought 2 or 3ppm ammonia when cycling a tank seemed like a lot. That would be enough for 20 3" goldfish, so 150cm of fish... so presumably if you have a 60litre tank you would only need to do 1ppm?... or have i gone wrong somewhere with this?

I also don't turn off the lighting when adding fish like I know others do. I just keep the normal schedule going and maybe turn the lights down a bit for a couple of hours.  That said, I'm running a siesta period so they normally get added in the middle of that.