Just think of it as a lifestyle.

Some creatures will tolerate larger changes of certain parameters than others.
You had better know which and how much if your going to do a large change or run the risk of killing things.
Marie...do you drip? and why?
Essentially acclimating is a series of small water changes so as not to shock the creatures.

Only when I have a cold and everyone can get there minds out of the gutter :razz:

Not saying everyone should do as I do (in fact you probably shouldn't) but the only animals I ever acclimate are shrimp and thats because I didn't once and the poor things were dead within a week. Everything else fish, urchin, crabs and corals all get dumped in as soon as the temps reach equilibrium and I have never lost anything.For snails, I tried R. Shimeks method of taking them out of the bag letting them dry for 20 min and then placing them in such a way that they find there own way down to the water...it worked wonderfully :mrgreen:

And for every one who ships corals I've been trying an experiment dry shipping monti digitatas. I wrapped the montis in a J-cloth soaked in tank water, placed in a bag and filled with air. I sent it to Anthony by overnight and they made it to his place alive.

Next i'm going to try a piece of my stag but I think I'll wait until the weather warms up

Starfish are very slow acclimaters too ive heard. Infact i was told to be very careful as to where my Linkia was when i dumped in fresh makeup water. BTW i have heard that zoas are sometimes shipped in wet newspaper.

Last year during Charles Delbeek's talk at Big Als he mentioned that they regularly ship corals with 6 pack rings (or some sort of plastic type wrap that looked like 6 pack rings). They dip the rings in water a couple of times to get them wet, then wrap them around the corals and pack them up. He said it worked like a charm and saved huge money on shipping a ton of water :biggrin: