I am confused. I read never to introduce your fish with out drip acclimating them. then i read to help with parasites use ro water buffer to 8ph add formalin and dip fish into solution for up to 5 minutes depending on how fish takes it. whats the use of a drip acclimation if you are just going to do this to the fish anyway?
freshwater dips
- Thread starter andy51632
- Start date
andy,
I'm not sure where you read to always drip acclimate your fish - that certainly isn't true. There are specific cases when you need to do that, but it has to be done carefully, and for the proper amount of time. Too many people don't aerate the water, or take too long, harming the fish. You need to monitor pH, temperature and specific gravity of the tank and the acclimation vessel during the process, otherwise - you're just guessing at the rate. I only drip acclimate when I have fish that have been shipped for 36 hours plus, and need to be moved to low pH, zero ammonia water first, or when the specific gravity is substantially higher in the tank (but then I prefer to lower the S.G. of the quarantine tank to match that of the shipping bag).
Freshwater dips have no benefit for disease control - the only use for them is as a diagnostic tool to check for flukes. After a five minute dip, you check the dip water with a hand lens of low power microscope to look for flukes. I've never used freshwater and formalin at the same time, but five minute formalin dips are useless - the shortest time there is a published reference for is 166ppm formalin for 45 minutes.
Jay
I'm not sure where you read to always drip acclimate your fish - that certainly isn't true. There are specific cases when you need to do that, but it has to be done carefully, and for the proper amount of time. Too many people don't aerate the water, or take too long, harming the fish. You need to monitor pH, temperature and specific gravity of the tank and the acclimation vessel during the process, otherwise - you're just guessing at the rate. I only drip acclimate when I have fish that have been shipped for 36 hours plus, and need to be moved to low pH, zero ammonia water first, or when the specific gravity is substantially higher in the tank (but then I prefer to lower the S.G. of the quarantine tank to match that of the shipping bag).
Freshwater dips have no benefit for disease control - the only use for them is as a diagnostic tool to check for flukes. After a five minute dip, you check the dip water with a hand lens of low power microscope to look for flukes. I've never used freshwater and formalin at the same time, but five minute formalin dips are useless - the shortest time there is a published reference for is 166ppm formalin for 45 minutes.
Jay
I always drip acclimate my fish, but I also keep in mind that it's necessary to oxygenate the water with an aerator. The freshwater dip doesn't cure ich. It only provides the fish with a brief relief, but the ich will still come back. It just buys the fish more time to possibly strengthen its immune system and fight the disease off. When practicing such extreme hyposalinity it's important to monitor the fish and make sure it doesn't get stressed. FW dips are a last resort for me.
LargeAngels
Premium Member
Actually FW dips don't work on ich. Ich is too far imbedded into the fish's body.
Jay knows so take his advice.
Jay knows so take his advice.
maroun.c
New member
acclimation can sometimes do more harm than good.
If a fish arrives breathing heavy or not able to even swim I would take it directly out of the bag and into a salinity matching QTank.
Ammonia can exist at high levels in the water in the bag and once you introduce fresh air to it it becomes instantly toxic (not really sure of the chemical mechanism but was told so many times and it worked each time I received a fish in distress)
If a fish arrives breathing heavy or not able to even swim I would take it directly out of the bag and into a salinity matching QTank.
Ammonia can exist at high levels in the water in the bag and once you introduce fresh air to it it becomes instantly toxic (not really sure of the chemical mechanism but was told so many times and it worked each time I received a fish in distress)
1geo
1geo
Quarantine any new arrives for up to 4 weeks. If you get one case of Ich or Brook you will become a believer. Ich and Brooklynella are very difficult to tell apart unless you do a tissue sample and know what to look for under a microscope. The only product I know of that will cure both is 37% Formalin. Copper will not cure Brook. With Formalin you give baths. Fill a gallon container with the hospital tank water and put in an air stone. Put 1cc of 37% Formalin in the container. Now put several of you fish in the container and keep them there for up to 60 minutes. 45 minutes is OK but the longer the better. Treat the hospital tank with Revive, this will kill the swimmers in the tank but it will not kill eggs or the parasites on the fish. Give them a Formalin bath every other day for 10 days (a total of 5 baths). Formalin evaporates in water; after 2 hours is no longer usable so you need a new mix for each bath. Using the hospital tank water you will have the right PH and temperature. This will cure the fish but not the tank they came out of. That has to remain fallow for 8 weeks. With part of the life cycle of Ich is its eggs which can remain dormant in the substrata for up to 8 weeks. Once they hatch they become swimmers and need to find a host within hours or die. With Brook, it multiplies by cell division and the new cell is a swimmer looking for a host. These swimmers can persist up to 4 weeks before they die. Do not use any equipment from the infected tank on your hospital tank. It could have eggs or swimmers on the equipment. Clowns are notorious for Brook so be especially careful adding wild clowns. Its been estimated that 80 percent of wild clowns have Brook. In the open ocean its not a problem but in the limited and closed environment of an aquarium its lethal.
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