how do you introduce a kuhli loach to a fish tank?

[Um Umm]

I bought 3 kuhli loaches for my 10 gallon tank with sand substrate. when i was acclimating them, 2 of them fell out of the bag i huridly rushed to pick them up! how do i deal with this? will they be okay? and i want to know how to acclimate them? dop i acclimat ethem like normal fish or what? plz help! im so scared for them right now

 

[Katsa]

Did they fall on the floor?

If they fell in the tank, I guess if it's easy to catch them safely then scoop them out and just acclimate with the other khuli. If it's not easy to catch them, better to just leave them in there than stress them more with catching and going back into their water, etc etc.

Yes, acclimate the same as 'normal' fish.

If they fell on the floor, do they seem squished at all?
Or are they writhing?
If they aren't acting oddly or hurt then just acclimate like normal and keep an eye on them for a few days.

Lots of fish end up on the floor at one time or another, a lot of them live just fine - as soon as their put back in the water.

 

[Linda Abigail]

try closin d container whil acclimation.. nuthn els.. its nuthn serious dat u need 2 worry abot..

 

[Down With Fishbowls!]

Just to clarify, did they fall out of the bag into the tank or onto the floor? If they fell into the tank it'll probably be least stressful if you just leave them in there and acclimatize the other fish on its own, rather than chasing them down, putting them back in the old water, then dumping them back in again.

My preferred method for acclimatizing fish is to use the drip method. Put the fish in a jar half-full of water (or less, just leave them a couple inches) and take a length of air tubing, either use a flow regulator (little valve with a knob, costs maybe a dollar) or just tie a knot in the hose to keep the flow at only a couple drips per second. You may have to tie several knots to get it down to the rate you want it at. Let the jar fill up, then drain the water down to the level you started at and repeat. Get rid of the water you drained out, you don't want to cross-contaminate your tank. Do this about 2 or 3 times, after a while all the water you started with will have been drained out and your fish will have become very gradually acclimatized to your water's parameters. I used this method when introducing 7 sparkling gouramis into my tank, the entire process took about 6 hours (I was being extremely paranoid about shocking them since the store tank had a PH in the low sixes and mine was in the high eights) but I didn't lose a single fish.