First Freshwater Dip

[kpete4]

Last night I did my first Freshwater Dip. Was kind of worried about it just cuz I haven't done it before.

The fish scared me to death when it started floating a little funny at first (is this normal) but it calmed down and looks like it's doing well today

[kpete4]

The fish looks a lot better today!

[wes]

careful, a freshwater dip does NOT cure your fish of ich. good helper, but not a silver bullet.

[kpete4]

Yeah, I know. The fish wasn't eating for a good week. Extremely stressed it out. Got it eating really well right now, I think if it survives the next week of ich I think it will be strong enough to make it.

I'm just trying to prolong it at this point to strengthen the immune system

I decided to do the dip instead of attempting an all out hyposalinity

[wes]

Yeah, I know. The fish wasn't eating for a good week. Extremely stressed it out. Got it eating really well right now, I think if it survives the next week of ich I think it will be strong enough to make it.

I'm just trying to prolong it at this point to strengthen the immune system

I decided to do the dip instead of attempting an all out hyposalinity

doing a dip and dropping the fish back in does very little.

[gruntmon]

we had the same issue with a bunch of our fish, lost a few but most pulled through, we did garlic, selcon, water changes and added a UV sterilizer.

[kpete4]

What do you do after the dip than?

[NandKBlock]

The only sure-fire way to rid a tank of ich is to let it run without any fish for 6-8weeks. Without fish to host them, the ich parasites will die and 6-8 weeks allowes enough time for all the ich to go through a complete life cycle and die without a host.

I recently had an outbreak after not quarantining a fish and decided to do things right and move all the fish to a QT/Hospital tank where I am treating them with Coppersafe while the main tank runs fallow for 8 weeks. It sucks, but if you do things right it shouldn't be a problem again. Anything else that ever goes in my tank will be QTd and treated appropriately beforehand. No more ich in my tank!