Acclimation

[asylumdown]

I chose 'my own method', which consists of removing fish/coral/invert from the bag it came in, then placing it in whatever tank it's going in to next. If it's a fish from one of two stores in town that I know have whacked out salinity, I might check the salinity and think "hmmm, that's pretty high/low", then proceed to dump the fish in to the vessel with the correct salinity, but most times I don't check so I don't feel the need to clench for the first 5 minutes the fish is in the QT tank.

If it's a coral, I take it out of the bag it came in, pry/cut/smash it off whatever base or rock it came on, use surgical tools to scrape away any portion that's dead or has algae growing on it, drop it in a bucket of my tank water, then proceed to submerge it in caustic, toxic chemicals that kills anything with a pulse and a few things that don't.

If it's a hard shelled invert like a snail (but only if it has a trap door than closes completely), I will sometimes take them to the sink, irritate them until they close right up, then aggressively brush them off under running tap water using an old tooth brush, holding my thumb tightly over the opening so that freshwater never actually touches the trap door. If it's got an algae growing on it that is not currently in my tank, I will follow that up with a brushing with dilute bleach. I follow the same procedure for exposed LPS skeletons that I can't break off without harming the coral, though with much, much greater care to not get fresh water or bleach on any actual tissue. Once rinsed, in to the tank they go.

I've never lost a fish, invert, or a coral doing it this way, so I'm probably going to keep doing it. Some might argue it's not really an acclimation procedure however.