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Showing results for tags 'dip'.
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Hi all. I've really been struggling recently. If you get angry reading this you probably should be. many mistakes were made that WILL NOT be repeated. FOR A DETAILED EXPLANATION READ THE WHOLE POST IF YOU HATE READING AND JUST WANT A SYNOPSIS JUST READ THE BOTTOM PARAGRAPH AND CONCLUSION I have been running two tanks, a 20 gallon and a 30 gallon bio cube. First mistake: I didnt quarantine a rabbitfish. Now the 30 gallon has ich and I cant undo it. For now, the infection is under control and my fish are not symptomatic, but I know my tank will have ich until I go FALLOW. I am tentatively content to rest that issue while I deal with a more pressing matter... my 20 gallon disaster. Second mistake: I bought a fish at Petco AND didnt quarantine. That got me MARINE VELVET. I only mention the ich in the 30 gallon because the one benefit it gave me was helping confirm my diagnosis in the 20 gallon tank. So here is the story. I had just arranged to buy a 75 gallon tank to replace my 20 gallon. I got so excited and went out and bought a tiny blue hippo from petco and put him straight in the 20 gallon. I thought it would be fine because the bigger tank transition was just a few days away (new tank came already cycled). But the tang didnt last two days after breaking out in tons of tiny white spots and eventually looking cloudy right before it died. Soon my coral beauty took ill with the same symptoms and i knew i needed to act fast. I did a lot of research and decided it was probably velvet. I ran to the only pet store still open (look at Petco profiting from their booby-trapped fish) and picked up a 20 gallon long, a bubbler, a heater, a power head, a tiny hang off filter, and cupramine and FINALLY set up a quarantine tank. I removed the filter material that came with the filter and added an empty sponge bag to hopefully grow some good bacteria. I used some of that instant cycle stuff to add a little of that good bacteria off the bat. Finally I added some pieces of PVC pipe for the fish to hide in. I did not buy a copper test kit (they didnt have one). I followed the instructions on the cupramine bottle and added the first dose. Then I caught the angelfish (who wasnt too far gone because he put up quite a fight) and added him to the hospital tank. The coral beauty quickly lost its spots over the next few days. I did not remove the rest of my fish because they weren't showing symptoms and I would have to destroy my rockwork and knock over all my corals and nems to even have a chance of catching all of them. Fast forward a week and all the fish in the 20 gallon still appear and behave as if they are completely healthy but the coral beauty has broken out in white dots again! I dosed the copper exactly as instructed on the days it told me to. I added a total of 40 drops over several days which is half what the bottle told me would reach a therapeutic dose. I had been told that the recommendations on the bottle were overkill but clearly, I needed the full dose so I added the other 40 drops to the quarantine tank. That didn't help, and two days later the coral beauty looked even worse. I figured maybe I was wrong to diagnose velvet and perhaps it was not a parasite but a fungus or a bacteria. I had some Ruby Reef "Rally" lying around and so I dosed the quarantine tank with that too. Sure enough, the spots went away again. I knew if it was indeed velvet and I had just botched the treatment then the velvet was still living in the 20 gallon. So when I finally upgraded to the 75 gallon tank I moved all the rock, sand, and inverts, but added all the fish from the 20 gallon to the quarantine tank. Then I started the timer for 6 weeks until the potential velvet starved in the fish free 75 gallon tank. Mistake 3: I bought more new fish. Undeterred from my past mistakes I picked up a new baby hippo tang from a reputable store as well as a dottyback and added them to the quarantine too. I figured as long as the quarantine tank had to be up and running I might as well take the opportunity to add the new fish I needed to quarantine anyways. Well the velvet came back and the dottyback and baby hippo #2 died in 2 days. Mistake 4?: More fish Well its been 2 weeks since the dottyback and 2nd hippo died. that makes 3 weeks of no fish if you add the days that the 20 gallon had no fish and the days since the 75 has been up and running. I have done 8 50% water changes on the quarantine tank in that time. I make sure to add back the copper I remove each time. The copper should now be at 1.5 times the recommended dose. Everything has been looking healthy so two days ago I went to the LFS and bought a small hippo tang. Today it has some tiny white spots. SYNOPSIS: I didnt quarantine my new fish and introduced marine velvet to my tank. I have seen ich before and this was much smaller and more numerous dots and killed very quickly. I set up a hospital tank and dosed 50% recommended of cupermine. A week later the velvet came back and more fish died so I dosed 100% the recommended dose. The velvet still came back and more fish died again so I upped to 150% dose. I had two weeks without symptoms and I added a new fish and two days later it has velvet. I have been doing proper water changes, I removed all carbon and other filters that arent mechanical, I have no skimmer or UV sterilizer. I am so sure its velvet based on how it looks, how the fish behave, and how quickly it kills. CONCLUSION: What am I doing wrong? Other than the unintended torturing of so many innocent fish. Every time I think I've killed the parasite with cupramine it comes back. I'm at 150% recommended dose for crying out loud. Nothing should be able to survive long enough in the swimming stage to infect a fish. Can anyone tell me what's going on? And why are half my fish totally immune while others die within 48 hours of introduction?
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Hi all. I know there’s lots of literature on how to dip your fish to get rid of parasites. But I want to know how often you can dip a fish and I haven’t been able to find any answers when scanning the forums and web at large. I have a fish that’s gotten to be covered in ich. Very visibly so with large dots. I know dipping won’t eliminate the problem with the parasite still living in my tank. But I dipped my fish this morning in fresh water for 5 mins and watched the majority of the ich fall off or seem to disappear after returning the fish to the tank. I don have a quarantine tank or I would be using it. And I don’t want to treat the whole tank with chemicals if I can avoid it. Currently the fish is behaving as if it were healthy with somewhat elevated breathing but still eating well and swimming normally. In any case. The dip didn’t knock all the white spots off the fish but I was encouraged by the results. Assuming this infection is going to continue to persist to some degree after dipping the fish I am hoping that repeated dips might slowly allow the infection to lessen and the fish to have a chance to fight it off. (Yes it will live on in my tank but it could starve off in time if all the fish are healthy enough to avoid infection no?) bottom line. I do plan to dip this fish again as needed to prevent it from ever reaching a point of no return but I’d like to be as aggressive as I’m able. How often can I dip my fish? Twice a day? Every couple days? Every couple weeks? Etc.
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Hi! Due to a nasty hair algae and bubble algae problems I've been battling for over 2 years I decided to take the plunge and start all over again with new cycled rocks. I've been cycling these new dry rocks on a bucket for 2 moths. Anyway, during the transition time, I'm planning on transfering all my corals to a quarantine tank and peroxide diping them on a 3:1 saltwater to peroxide 6% solution in order to avoid the algae contamination to the new system. The question is: Is it safe to peroxide dip a crocea clam on a diluted solution? How much diluted is safe? There is some algae on the rubble its attached and on clam shell. I'm afraid that only spot treating the shell will not avoid contamination. Thank you!
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Hi all, I'm looking to start fragging my corals but I want to do it as cheaply as possible... that brings us to question number one!: do I need a separate system? Its going to be a relatively small operation but my main tank is only a 13.5 nano. Secondly, do I NEED to do certain special dips after fragging? I know most people use them but I wanted more opinions before shelling out the big bucks for the commercial dips. And finally, thanks for your opinions! I totally forgot what I was going to say! -Joe
