freshwater dip...??

[phunkie99]

One of my clown fish has had a white spot on it's bottom fin for about a week and a half. The fish does not act sick and is eating as normal. I gave it a freshwater dip (per LFS guy) about 4 days ago, but spot is still there and now I have noticed another smaller spot on top (dorsal I believe) fin. I hope I did the dip right.

Matched temp and alk, inserted fish, monitored it for about 5 mins, and then returned to tank. I think I will dip again. If I am doing something wrong or should try something else please any info would be apreciated.

2 Clowns only fish
Coral look good.

Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Alk 2.4
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
SG 1.026
Temp 78-82

dont have pic PC sux

Thanks

 

[LisaD]

not all parasites are dislodged by FW dips. sounds like you did the dip correctly.

 

[stevensun]

From what I acknoledged, you should match temp & PH, instead of alk

 

[pescadero]

dips are not considered definitive treatment. they are only a de-bulking technique to quickly reduce the total parasite load on the fish so that treatment is easier.

5 minutes is a very short freshwater dip. the target time for a FW dip is 12-15 minutes, but the dip is terminated early if the fish display any signs of trouble. some species tolerate the dips better than others.

for example, I have a couple of new ocellaris clowns that i dipped two days ago. They both got 15 minute freshwater dips and the freshwater didn't bother them. They looked like they could have stayed in there forever. its commonly known that ocellaris clowns will laugh at FW dips, as if you could just leave them in it. mine were certainly laughing at me when i took them out of the dip and put them into quarantine.

now that you've done the dip, you also need to treat the fish for the disease, which sounds like it could be either ich or velvet. i would put them in hyposalinic quarantine at 1.010 in a hospital tank for 6 weeks. quarantine is generally recommended for fish that aren't displaying overt signs of disease. for fish that have active infections, the textbook method of treatment is isolation in a hospital tank and treatment with CuSO4. if you're going to treat with CuSO4 then hyposalinity is optional but helpful.