Freshwater dip?

[mmkeeper]

When using freshwater dip for ich, how long is too long? How often is too often?
How long should it take to clear up? Should the parasite start to fall off? Cleaner shrimp are being used to help. Quarantine tank is not an option at this time.

 

[steve-s]

Forgive the forthcoming sacasim...

When using freshwater dip for ich, how long is too long?

1 second or 10 min, won't make any difference.

How often is too often?

Once

How long should it take to clear up?

With a FW dip, forever.

Should the parasite start to fall off?

Externally, some. In the epithelium, none.

Cleaner shrimp are being used to help. Quarantine tank is not an option at this time.

The shrimp will not affect a cure. At best you are looking at an ongoing "stand off".

Cheers
Steve

 

[wayne in norway]

Conconi dipped ich infested fish for 17 hours (!), and the ich still survived below the fish's skins surface.

They don't work for ich, period

 

[Elmo18]

Yup.

Freshwater dips do not work for ICH.

Prolonged (6 weeks or longer) exposure to low salinity (~1.009 sg) in a QT tank is preferred method. It is my preferred method anyway.

Best,
Ilham

 

[liveforphysics]

However, putting a freshwater fish into salt water is an exellent and permanate cure for ich Found that out on accident.

 

[spongebob lover]

However, putting a freshwater fish into salt water is an exellent and permanate cure for ich Found that out on accident.

hey dood, could you explain that please.
wouldn't the fresh water fish die in a salt water enviroment? sorry it's just that i've never heard of this.

 

[kcharm]

Ich is not an issue with a dead fish.

 

[shallowreef]

What type of fish is it? I have a blue tang and sometimes if i just look at it wrong it would break out with ich. It is cureable but not with freshwater dips. Are you running a UV steralizer? If not it would be a good idea to pick one up. I was battling ich for a long time and then i was told to run a UV and i haven't had a case since. I also used copper but it can be deadly if used incorrectly and should only be used in a QT. Copper will kill inverts!! Also try raising temp in your tank and lowering salinity. This is not reccomended and i'm not sure if it will work but cut down your light time. I think that the lights may stress the fish out more than it needs to be. Now this is just my personal experience, it doesn't mean that it is going to cure your case of ich, but it should help.

 

[steve-s]

hey dood, could you explain that please.
wouldn't the fresh water fish die in a salt water enviroment? sorry it's just that i've never heard of this.

Actually I believe adding a small amount of marine salt to their water is the prefered method or prolonged bath. The SW dip should be relatively the same aspect as a FW dip on marine teleosts.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_FA006

Most of the myths surrounding marine ich (C. irritans) directly stem from the studies made of it's FW counterpart, Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. While they have many similarities in life cycle, they are completely different organisms.

Cheers
Steve

 

[steve-s]

Conconi dipped ich infested fish for 17 hours (!), and the ich still survived below the fish's skins surface.

They don't work for ich, period

That would be Colorni but correct non the less

Cheers
Steve

 

[liveforphysics]

Gabby- I had a cichlid get a very bad case of ich. He had jumped out of his tank and landed on the cold floor for who knows how long, I found him when I got home from work, and he was quite leathery and stiff. I always try putting my dried jerky fish back in the tank to see if the de-hydration is only topical, and perhaps the gills still had some moisture on them to enable them still be getting O2. Anyways, I threw this guy back in, he gave a couple twitches. I left him alone for a few hours and his buddies bit his tail clean off. He was laying on his side, but still breathing vigorously. I set this clear salsa bucket with small holes in it over him to protect him from the chomping of the other fish.

Anyways, he survived, but by about 2 days later, he had the worst looking case of ich i've ever seen. I didnt want it to spread to the other fish, so I netted the poor guy and threw him in the quarantine tank, forgetting that it was filled with natural sea water. He didnt look good at all in there. No swimming or splashing or playing in the current like cichlids love to do. Just slow breathing floating at the top. I figured it was because of the trama of being dried out, haveing your tail bitten clean off, and being covered head to toe in ich. So, my girlfriend gets home later that night and asks me why the cichlid is in the quarantine tank, and I tell her the story. Then she asks what I did with the sea water that was in the tank... hmm... Ohhh yeah, it is salt water in there...I had thought it had Cu+ water in it.

So, he had been in there for an easy 4-5 hrs, and he was still just floating motionless and breathing slowly. I pulled him out and put him back in his own tank under the bucket again. By morning, he didnt have a bit of ich on him, and he was biteing at the bucket, so I let him out. His buddies layed off him, his tail re-grew, and that fish never ever got ich again. Even when everyone else got ich from a winter power outage, he always stayed totally ich free.

I named him survior. He was killed many months later by my team of green spot puffers of doom.

 

[alison]

wow

wow. poor fish.
That's an amazing story. a bath like that also save two of my puffer fish once. The store sold them as "Freshwater Dwarf Puffers" but they got ill a couple days later, so I bathed them in high-salinity salt water for about an hour, the made sure thier tank had at least some salt content after I put them back. They are both doing well a year later.

 

[liveforphysics]

Yep, those little "freshwater" puffers definately like some salt in the water. Cichlids (and many freshwater fish) seem to do a lot better with a little salt in the water as well.

Another funny story about freshwater fish in saltwater...

The agressive FOLR tank that my dad had just loved goldfish. I know they arent suposed to be good for them, but we occasionally feed them goldfish anyways. So, we added 3 dozzen one time, and this little black/white/orange guy ran straight for the tonga branch rock and stayed there panting while he buddies were rapidly gulped and chomped by triggers and puffers. We were figureing he was going to die soon from the saltwater which we kept low around 1.016g/cm^3. Turns out, within an hour or so, he was breathing normally, and refused to leave the tonga branch. The fish were much too large to get into the small places in the rock. He was definiately the smartest goldfish I've ever dealt with, because he would refuse to stray more than a few inches out of the tonga branch, and we would make sure to target feed the tonga branch area, which must have really been freaky for him to have all the fish swarming around the area he was chomping at him and at the food chunks.

His good survial instincts got him less than a week though. He eventually got chomped we think, because he just dissapeared.

I personally think that with adquate time, most any fish can become saltwater. I know of a guy who made his tiny bala sharks salt, along with tetras and some other things I dont remember. His goal was to make a saltwater capable pleco to clean algae in his marine tanks. That never worked out for him, but I do think it would be possible.

Sorry about thread hyjacking.

 

[morgan]

garlic extrem by kent that got rid of my ich and u can add that to food or straight to the tank im sure some other will agree
think u could make a red tail shark saltwater? or axolotles? anyone changed one form walking fish to fire salamander?
anyway galic is very good imo

 

[shallowreef]

I never tried garlic but i also heard it was good for ridding ichand boosting a fishes immune system. I don't know how much of it is true but i have heard of garlic being used quite a bit.

 

[Rock-N-Ruin]

Garlikc and vitamins like kent's zoe or selcon is definately a must for any type of tang, or any delicate fish IMO