how long do freshwater dip for, if at all?

[satx-94integraLS]

its pretty much pointless...

im sure youre going on personal experience here, but *alot* of people disagree with you.

im sure, however, that alot of people disagree with FW dipping period, however, they are not leading authorities on reefs and salt in general.

paletta even said he dips.

thats good enough for me

[Reef69]

I guess if you do it right after you get a fish , its ok, since it has an immune system (maybe)..But everybody does it when the fish has ick all the way down its ***, THAT IS POINTLESS.

To me its pointless anyways..healthy fish or not..its pure torture.

[Ping]

A FW bath can be done in any suitable container to cause osmotic shock. Use 80% FW / 20% aquarium water to help reduce stress. Raise the pH to that of the aquarium by the addtition on sodium bicarbonate. Approx 1 teaspoonfull per gallon, monitor your pH readings closely.

This is assuming this is the treatment of a fish suffering a Parasitism and is being taken from a main display for treatment or during the transfer from a quarantine to the main. Remember before transfer from quarantine, the pH and specific gravity of both tanks need to be adjusted to close paramiters.

IMO a FW dip would be contraindicated whenever a fish has been in a transport bag. I will not bore you with all the details, however, the pH in the bag will have dropped dramatically. This is due excrement and urine in the water. This is why we slow drip acclimate our pets.

Finally; gently ease the animal into the water. Observe resperations. If resp becomes erratic return to aquarium. Fish lying on their sides is normal, observe closely. Never leave the animal unattended and no longer than 10 minutes. Most fishes begin to show signs of discomfort after only three to five minutes.

[pickle311]

I dip my corals but not fish

[bigdscobra]

I dip tangs for 5min in regular tap water with Stress Coat its a fish and tap water conditioner, removes chlorine replaces slime coat. and hsa aloe vera for the fish etc....

You use tap water cause the PH is closer to RODI that is mixed with salt.

I highly recomend this with almost any fish that is going into my tanks.

[NaCl_H2O]

Richard from CB may chime in here, but I will try to summarize the speech he gave on this subject during the MAAST meeting at CB awhile back.

He does a freshwater dip of EVERY fish they receive. It kills off tons of parasites, flukes & others (I don't remember specifics). A healthy fish isn't harmed by the dip but it clears out the parasites so that they don't raise to plague proportions and harm the fish later. A FW dip is a preventative measure (a flu shot), not a cure (Penicillin).

Sick fish are not cured by freshwater dips. Some infestations (ick) can be helped with Hypo-salinity, or just getting your fish healthier (eating) to fight off the parasite. If they are too far gone, they will likely die regardless of your efforts. Many parasites are confused as "Ick" because they "appear" as white spots. A microscope and experience is required to tell the difference.

Probably lots more that Richard said .. but that's about when I fell asleep :lol Just kidding Richard!

[satx-94integraLS]

yah, stress coat comes in a mostly yellow tube, i use that as well. ive dipped corals, but have had mixed results.

with fish, ive had a 100% success rate and no parasites have entered any tank ive established so far.

worst was a bout of ich with a yellow tang many many moons ago

[Richard]

Freshwater dips are a very effective treatment for some parasites. They are certainly not a "newbie myth". The myth is that FW dips are a good treatment for ick. Ick (cryptocaryon) is a microscopic parasite that embeds too deeply in the skin to be significantly affected by FW dips. However it may initially appear as though the fw dips has removed ick because the white spots that you see are really just the fishes response to the microscopic parasite. A fw dip may wash off those whites dots of mucus but the parasite is usually still there, alive and well. Doing a FW dip on a fish with cryptocaryon and then placing it back into an infected tank can actually make the problem worse because now you have washed off the fishes protective slime coat thereby making it more vulnerable to further infection.

There are tons of parasites that show up with wild fish not just ick. Here's a link to a pic of a very common fluke and one that I find in my FW dip buckets on a very regular basis. He's a nasty critter with a pair of hooks on one end to attach to the fish with and a pair of sucker mouths on the other end. He's also usually not visible on the fish also although it may appear as white spots (ick) on larger scaled fish.
http://www.fishdisease.net/fd/diseas...php?img_id=584
Oh, and the females produce about 40 eggs per day every day. So keeping this critter out of your tank isn't a bad idea.

The original question was how long to do a FW dip. It takes 4-5 minutes to knock off flukes and parasitic copepods/isopods so you want to do it at least that long. I usually do them for 5 - 15 minutes, longer if I forget that I have a fish in my dippin bucket (don't do that ;) ).

I pretty much dip everything although I will usually skip them on very small fish (as in baby fish), and some of the parasite resistant fish such as gobies and mandarins. I also often skip them on lionfish also. They do fine but sometimes they'll jump right out at you (SCARY). Depends on how brave I'm feeling that day. Catching a lionfish in mid air is tricky.

Alot of people will wait until their fish are covered in ick, barely staying alive, and then do a fw dip out of desperation. That's a real good way to kill a fish. It's important to do them while the fish os still strong and can tolerate the dip well. And again, they are not a recommended treatment for cryptocaryon (ick).

The freshwater needs to be temperature and ph adjusted and fish seem to do alot better if you provide aeration/circulation via an airstone. For most hobbyist the ph of the bag water should not decrease much if at all on the short trip home but if for some reason the ph were very low then you would want to acclimate first. FWIW, most fish I recieve have been in then bag 24 hours with little to no decrease in the ph. Of course some suppliers are better at packing fish than others.

HTH

Steve - I didn't think anyone was actually listening .