Freshwater Dipping Your Marine Fish?

[omega59]

I read some topics about FreshWater dipping Marine fish if they have illness like Ich or something. What exactly is this how does it work and what do you do. as far as i read you take dechlorinated water or boiled water, get it the same temp as marine tank, take the fish into a net and dip it in the FW for about 1minute then return it back to the main tank. but how often do you do this?? is it actually recommended?

 

[rabbut]

If they are ill, it can be effective against a fair few diseases/infections

My method is to float about 500ml of Fresh RO in the tank for about 1/2 an hour to equalise temperature and then transfer the water to a jug. After this, you catch the fish (That's the hard bit, especially if they have twigged that a FW dip is heading their way and you have decor of any description in there ) and plop it in. Watch for signs of it under more than usualy ammounts of stress associated with this treatment. If any signs of very high stress levels are seen, return the fish to the tank, or wait 3 minuites before returning to the main tank. A 1 minuite dip would be useless for most things

It would be a good idea to get someone that's done this treatment before to help the first time, so they can say what is "normal" fish behavior during this treatment

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Colin_T]

You get a container of fresh dechlorinated water with the same PH, temperature and general hardness as the marine tank. Catch the sick fish and put it in the fresh water for a period of time. Then return the fish to its tank. This has to be done several times a day for anywhere up to a couple of weeks.
It is an old and not very useful method of treating diseases like whitespot, and causes the fish a lot of stress.
What problem does your fish have?

 

[omega59]

one of my clowns has developed a small bump near it's mouth it is the size of a pin-head and stick out like a ball, not sure what it is. could be ich or something, dunno.

 

[rabbut]

Can you post a pic?

 

[omega59]

sorry, my camera will not take a good enough pic to diagnose. I read a few sites and spoke to nosoup and now i am thinking if it is Ich, Brook, or Lumphocystis i'm not sure.

 

[Colin_T]

Ich or whitespot will show up as tiny little white dots all over the body, and is usually seen on the fins first.

Brooklynella appears as a grey or cream coloured film over part of the body and the fish will breathe heavily, often gasping at the surface.

Lymphocystis appears as quite large white lumps on the body & fins. It normall appears on the edges of the fins first and the lumps can be wierd shapes and are not round. These lumps are about 2mm in size, (ich or whitespot are much smaller).

A small white lump on the edge of the mouth (lips) is often a bruise or swelling caused by the fish swimming into something (usually the glass). Monitor the fish over the next few days and if it doesn't spread then it is only a bruise. However, if it spreads and the mouth and face starts to go white then treat the fish for Columnaris.

 

[omega59]

okay it doesn't sound like Ich or Brook then or Lymph LOL. You are right I will monitor it see if it goes away or spreads. Since he does seem to scoot around the tank and poke the other clown lots more than the other it may just be a bump or scab of sorts. Thanks i'll post an update later.

 

[omega59]

both of my fish have started to develope the bump near the mouth. I used my hydrometer (one with swing arm) and it says my salt is fine, did a water change yesterday too and used dechlorinator. I'm not 100% sure if it is me or not but the mouth area looks pale in colour. Does Mardel Maracyn 1 work with both FW & SW fish because I have some leftover from the FW tank.

 

[Colin_T]

sorry, no idea if Maracyn works in salt water. It should because most medications work in fresh and salt water. But many medications will affect invertebrates (shrimp, crabs, etc) so it would be best to treat the fish in a seperate tank if possible.

Any chance of a pic of the fish?

 

[omega59]

i will try my best to take a pic but i doubt my camera will do it properly. I don't have anything special in my tank but the two clowns and 1 turbo snail. no corals or anything like that (LR of course hehe). I will post shortly some pics I hope i can get a clear shot!

 

[Colin_T]

Just take lots of pics and use a flash. Also clean the front glass so the fish don't get weird spots from water drips

 

[omega59]

it's not that, the closer i get the more blurry it becomes, and if i go further back then you can't see anything LOL. this camera has a flash, but whenever i take it, the image becomes all white from the light flash going against the tank glass

I will post you a video, they are doing some odd stuff, maybe also in this vid you can see the tiny bump there. Pic's are coming still.

 

[Colin_T]

if you have the camera at an angle to the tank, you won't get the white flash in the picture.
does the camera have a macro setting/ button on it? Macro is used for close up work.

 

[omega59]

yes it does have Micro, but still not good it's actually worse. any ideas why that clown is swimming like that.