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Helping Your New Fish Adjust

Helping your new fish adjust to its new home requires a little extra care on your part. You need to give the fish a friendly environment and pay attention to his needs.

Look before you leap

The first step in helping your new fish adjust to its new home is making sure your fish will be able adjust to its new home. Your new fish needs to be a realistic companion for the other fish in the tank. For example, you would not want to put a beta fish or other fighter fish in a tank with other fish. Fighting fish will harm and kill your other fish. Some fish don’t get along with other fish, tend to spread bacteria to one another or have different environmental needs. So, before you buy your fish, do some research and make sure your new fish will have a chance to be happy in its new home.

Prepare your environment

Tossing your fish into a hostile environment is not helping your new fish adjust to its home. A new fish wants to live with fish he’ll get along with, but he also wants to live in an environment that agrees with him.

So, before you bring your new fish home, clean your tank, get the pH levels and the temperature adjusted and feed the other fish in the tank. Introducing your fish to hungry tank mates is not helping your new fish adjust. It’s tossing him into a tank full of crabby, cranky, aggressive fish!

New fish tend to be shy. They like having many different places in the tank where they can hide. Placing lots of hiding spots, such as plants, decorations and statues in the tank, is a big part of helping your new fish adjust. This will make your fish feel safer and less exposed.

Prepare the fish

Helping your new fish adjust means making your new fish feel comfortable. The best way to make your new fish comfortable is by letting him get used to the water he’s about to be dumped into. Replace about a quarter of the water in the bag you took your fish home in with water from the tank. Then close the bag and place it in the tank. Let your fish hang out like this for about an hour. This will allow your fish to get used to the tank water. It will also allow the other fish to take a peak at their new roommate. Helping your new fish adjust will make your fish more relaxed and ease his new transition.

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