So now youve purchased some tropical fish. Youve made sure you have selected healthy fish and you have done your homework to make sure the fish that you have will go together.

Your fish should have been packed in a plastic bag with oxygen and then put into a dark bag or polystyrene box to keep the heat in.

You should try and buy fish no longer than a couple of hours away. Fish can last over 24 hours if packed right but the longer you keep them in transit the more stress they go through. You should try and keep stress to a minimum to make sure the fish remain healthy.

Once you get them home you should float the bags in the water and then open the bags up. This will help equalize the temperature between the water in the tank and the water in the bag. You should also keep adding little bits of tank water to the bag. Add just a little and then leave for five minutes before adding more. This will help acclimatize the fish to the water chemistry of the tank and even the ph and water hardness out.

After doing this for about 20 to 30 minutes you should then gently release the fish to the tank and let them swim out of the bag on there own. Then you should leave them with the aquarium light on overnight. This will reduce stress because the fish can see where they are swimming and there surroundings and they will also see that there are no predators around.

You should not feed them for around 24 hours to let them settle in and then over the next few days only feed sparingly. It will take them a couple of days to get used to the tank and feeding.

It is a good technique to add the smallest and weakest fish to the tank first. This will prevent bullying in the aquarium between the fish. Please follow these keeps to keep the stress of your new tropical fish to a minimum. This will help the fish settle in faster and in the end cause you less stress.