A fresh water dip?

shoorty069

Member
A new Ocean fish only pet store opened up around the corner from me. So, curious ryan went and took a visit. I asked about my ich problem and what i should do. I really cant do anything now, there are no carriers of the ich now, and no carriers=no way to catch ich. Anyway, i asked him if it happened again, i should do a freshwater dip and the ich will die off. Has anyone tried this? Would you recommend it? Another store told me it was only to be used as a last resort...
<3ryry
 

shoorty069

Member
Another thing that i wanted to ask about, I found about a few hundred little animals floating in my water. Im not sure what they are. Theyre about 1mm in size and swim around all in one corner of my tank. Theyre in the sand and crushed coral, theyre on the glass. They are either a greyish or clearish color. from the looks of it, they look like little sandcrabs, but i didnt think they just swam around and about... Theyre way way way to small for any camera to focus in on them, so ill just try to explain them as well as i can. They almost look like they have a tail...that guides them where they swim. i have only seen them at night...any ideas?
<3ryry
 

promisetbg

Active Member
The tiny critters sound like amphipods or mysis shrimp.Amphipods tend to crawl and or spin about,mysis swim and their eyes glow in the dark if you shine a flashlight on them.Isopods{the most common} crawl up the glass and resemble roaches,copepods appear to our eyes as tiny dots that flit about.Copepods tend to congregate in swarms.
Do not ever fresh water dip a fish.It is extremely stressfull,and it will not cure an ich infestation in your tank.It may remove some of the parasites from the fish,depending on what stage it is in,but there are different stages to it's life cycle,and they can attack the fish as soon as you place it back in the tank.Often people will look at their fish a day later and think the ich is gone,but it will come back worse than before.
I recommend that you have a quarantine tank,and research hyposalinity and cryptocaryon irritans{ich}.If you have any other questions about hypo,let me know.
 

shoorty069

Member
I think they may be amphipods because they swim. Anyway, thanks for your help, i wont do the freshwater dip then. The only thing i can do other than get a hospital or QT tank is to use organic stuff to help strengthen the fish... I have live rock and inverts... Copper will kill them. And so will lowering the salt levels...
<3ryry
 
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