Freshwater Dips

[kboogie]

@Jay Hemdal any desire to do a similar write-up for medicated dips like what is commercially sold as Safety Stop? I know these dips are not as effective as a true quarantine process but in the spirit of "doing something" is better than "doing nothing", I figured your expertise would be valuable. People knowing there is an option between full quarantine and immediately adding a new fish to the DT would reduce the unnecessary loss of livestock simply because people don't have the space or patience for a quarantine setup and don't know there is something more they can do.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

@Jay Hemdal any desire to do a similar write-up for medicated dips like what is commercially sold as Safety Stop? I know these dips are not as effective as a true quarantine process but in the spirit of "doing something" is better than "doing nothing", I figured your expertise would be valuable. People knowing there is an option between full quarantine and immediately adding a new fish to the DT would reduce the unnecessary loss of livestock simply because people don't have the space or patience for a quarantine setup and don't know there is something more they can do.

Actually, the Fish Medics and I recently discussed publishing a “short quarantine” process, for people who aren’t willing/able to run our full protocol. At this point, the consensus of the group was to not do that - the efficacy is just so much poorer, we didn’t feel it wise to give folks an “easy out” option that looked like we felt it was sufficient. I’ll keep the idea open though…..
Thanks,
Jay

 

[Mjl714]

I don't know the pH of tap water in Ireland, but here in the US, most tap water has a pH above 7.5, so if fine to use as-is (better than RODI water). You need to match temperatures and most people dechlorinate (but I often don't). Then, hold the fish in the FW for 5 minutes with aeration (not that the fish needs it, just to keep the fish moving a bit so you can better assess its condition).

FW dips really have minimal effect on ich trophonts though - they are mostly useful for dislodging flukes.

Jay

I’m surprised to hear in your use of tap water you “often don’t” dechlorinate the tap water, am I reading this correctly?

 

[ReefGeezer]

I do fresh water dips going in or out of quarantine, or when quarantined fish I purchased via the interweb are acclimated to the DT. It has been a part of my acclimation process forever. I've always adjusted pH to 8.0-ish. I thought the adjustment was required regardless of the water source. You learn something new every day. Thanks Jay.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I’m surprised to hear in your use of tap water you “often don’t” dechlorinate the tap water, am I reading this correctly?

Correct - it really isn’t all that important. Chlorine is slow to cause death, the FW itself will kill the fish long before the chlorine would.

Dechlorinators are not all that innocuous if overdosed like people sometimes do with small volumes of water.

Dechlorination is fine if dosed correctly, but it isn’t necessary.

Jay

 

[Tobias9413]

I currently have a hippo tang in QT. When I first got him in I did a Fw dip and I saw a single fluke fall off. Did copper treatment first and then set him in a new 10g tank dosed with prazi pro according to the package. Has been going 2 weeks now with full water changes and redosing prazi every 3 days. Is it safe to dip in FW now that it’s been 2 weeks of being in prazi? I want to make sure there are no flukes before transferring to DT.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I currently have a hippo tang in QT. When I first got him in I did a Fw dip and I saw a single fluke fall off. Did copper treatment first and then set him in a new 10g tank dosed with prazi pro according to the package. Has been going 2 weeks now with full water changes and redosing prazi every 3 days. Is it safe to dip in FW now that it’s been 2 weeks of being in prazi? I want to make sure there are no flukes before transferring to DT.

I generally wait 14 days after the last dip before checking for flukes. The reason why is that neither prazi or FW dips kill Neobendenia fluke eggs - the 14 days gives any missed eggs time to hatch out and grow on the fish - where you can then see them. The Neo eggs are sticky, and a new infection can start up from just one viable egg.

Jay

 

[ErikVR]

Thanks for this post!

I currently have a flame angel in quarantine that had an eye infection and has now developed ich. Which I'm guessing is a result of the infection he's been having for at least 3 weeks now.

What I'm missing in this guide is how often can/should I repeat it.
I did a dip last night and some nasty stuff came off him. He is looking better than yesterday but still has visible spots.
Should I dip him again tonight or is it better to let the copper treatment (that I also started last night) do its thing?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks for this post!

I currently have a flame angel in quarantine that had an eye infection and has now developed ich. Which I'm guessing is a result of the infection he's been having for at least 3 weeks now.

What I'm missing in this guide is how often can/should I repeat it.
I did a dip last night and some nasty stuff came off him. He is looking better than yesterday but still has visible spots.
Should I dip him again tonight or is it better to let the copper treatment (that I also started last night) do its thing?

Tough to see, but are there white oval shaped things in the dip about 1 or 2 mm long? If so, those are Neobenedenia flukes. Dips will only knock those back, the eggs in the tank will hatch and reinfect the fish again.

If you think the flame angel has ich as well, you can take care of both issues at the same time with hyposalinity.

Hyposalinity

Hyposalinity Jay Hemdal 2021 This term refers to a long-term bath treatment for marine fishes in which the salt content of the water is lowered and held below the point that certain parasites can survive. The salt level reached, and the time of the treatment are the two variables...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[ErikVR]

Tough to see, but are there white oval shaped things in the dip about 1 or 2 mm long? If so, those are Neobenedenia flukes. Dips will only knock those back, the eggs in the tank will hatch and reinfect the fish again.

If you think the flame angel has ich as well, you can take care of both issues at the same time with hyposalinity.

Hyposalinity

Hyposalinity Jay Hemdal 2021 This term refers to a long-term bath treatment for marine fishes in which the salt content of the water is lowered and held below the point that certain parasites can survive. The salt level reached, and the time of the treatment are the two variables...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

Yes they are oval shaped and between 1 and 3 mm I would say.
Maybe I have been wrong about his eye infection? I read that neobenedenia can also infect the eyes.
There were white pieces coming off his infected eye in the dip as well so I guess that makes sense.

I'll try to get a decent picture but my proper camera battery is empty now.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yes there are oval shaped and between 1 and 3 mm I would say.
Maybe I have been wrong about his eye infection? I read that neobenedenia can also infect the eyes.
There were white pieces coming off his infected eye in the dip as well so I guess that makes sense.

I'll try to get a decent picture but my proper camera battery is empty now.

Neobenedenia lives on the fish's body and they do attach to the eyes, making them look cloudy. If you look closely during a dip, you can see the flukes start to dislodge and flap in the water.

Here is a write-up I did on them:

Neobenedenia melleni (eye flukes)
These are relatively large (up to 8 mm), egg-laying worms that live on the skin or eyes of marine fishes.

Symptoms
Neobenedenia infections peak slowly; there may be no symptoms for weeks after you acquire a fish. Eventually, as the flukes multiply and grow in size, they begin to cause symptoms of disease.

The first obvious symptom may be slightly cloudy eyes, caused by the transparent fluke feeding on the eye tissue and eliciting a tissue reaction. This gives this worm the common name of “eye fluke,” although it is unknown whether these worms actually prefer to feed on eye tissue, or whether that is just where they first become apparent.

As the infection becomes more serious, the fish will “flash,” their skin color will become dull, their fins may become tattered, and they just generally get a “scruffy” look to them. Rapid breathing due to stress, possible secondary infection, and then death follow if treatment is not begun.

Diagnosis
The best means of diagnosis is to give the fish a five-minute freshwater dip. Not only does this knock back the infection by killing the adult parasites, but even a casual look at the bottom of the dip container afterwards will help to positively identify this disease. The worms turn whitish and fall to the bottom. Many aquarists mistake these for scales that were dislodged from the fish. However, looking at these “scales” under a dissecting microscope, or even a hand lens, will soon show them for what they are—dead worms.

Sometimes a fish’s history can help diagnosis at least the potential for this disease. Angelfishes and butterflyfishes are especially prone to Neobenedenia infections, so any of these fish that have been housed at an import facility that doesn’t prophylactically treat for trematodes stand a very good chance of being infected.

Treatment
Many people suggest using a freshwater dip as a treatment for all incoming fish. The two drawbacks to this are 1) the dips are not 100% effective (and do not harm the fluke eggs) and 2) newly acquired fish often do not stand up well to the added stress of a freshwater dip when they first arrive.

Neobenedenia eggs can take 14 (or longer?) to hatch as motile larvae called oncomiracidium. Additionally, the eggs have sticky tendrils that attach them securely to all manner of objects in an aquarium. There is some merit to the idea of keeping a treatment tank free of substrate and siphoning the bottom regularly in order to remove some of these unhatched eggs. There have been reports that Lysmata cleaner shrimp feed on these eggs, rendering them non-viable. However, it is unlikely that in a normal aquarium, with many other food choices, that cleaner shrimp will markedly reduce their numbers.

Any successful treatment for these worms must be undertaken in stages. The first treatment kills off the adult worms (but this won’t kill the eggs), and the subsequent treatments kill off the juvenile worms after they have all hatched but before any of them have matured and begun to lay eggs of their own. Due to variables in timing, it is virtually impossible to accomplish this in only two treatments.

Whole-tank formalin baths at 166 ppm for one hour will eliminate the adult flukes from an aquarium but not the eggs. Because this type of treatment has no residual effect, the treatment may need to be repeated every two weeks for two or three more times. Experience in public aquarium exhibits has shown that this method rarely clears a tank completely of this pest.

A better alternative is a Praziquantel treatment at 4 ppm, followed by a 50% water change after 48 hours, then a second treatment 9 to 10 days later, followed by another 50% water change 48 hours later.

At the aquarium I was the curator at, we noticed that multiple Praziquantel treatments on the same system, over months to years, required higher and higher doses, combined with increased frequency of the treatments in order to maintain effectiveness. Eventually, the praziquantel was simply no longer effective. One supposition was that the target parasites were building an immunity to the drug. That seemed unlikely as genetic change in multi-cellular organisms typically takes longer to happen (as opposed to drug-resistant bacteria that can develop resistance in short order). We wondered then, what could render Praziquantel so ineffective on repeat doses?
Subsequent research indicates that bacterial degradation of the Praziquantel (Thomas et-al, 2016) is the process at work. Their study concluded that while Praziquantel is stable for over two weeks in sterile marine aquarium water, when dosed in working systems, it degrades below detectable limits in just nine days. A subsequent dose on the same system showed a reduction in Praziquantel in less than 48 hours. The presence or absence of fish in the system did not affect this rate of degradation. The natural bacterial population of the aquarium actually works to eliminate Praziquantel from the water.

Barrett L. Christie, a public aquarium curator, has researched a variety of treatment methods and has struck upon one that is highly effective. The treatment is relatively simple; in a quarantine system, the fish are exposed to hyposalinity (low salinity) for 30 days. Exactly how low of a salinity is the variable that needs to be controlled. Some species of fish do not tolerate lower salinities, yet if the salinity is not reduced enough, the parasite population is only reduced, not eradicated. Barrett has hit upon a workable value of 17 parts per thousand, a bit less than half the salinity of normal seawater (this equates to a specific gravity of around 1.013). Using a target of 16 ppt for 35 days is better, as it ensures that any errors in salinity measurement or timing won’t affect the treatment. Obviously, most invertebrates cannot be present during this sort of treatment. Sharks and some rays cannot tolerate it either. Assuming the fish are healthy in all other respects, you begin this treatment by lowering the salinity to the target value over 24 to 48 hours. During the low salinity treatment, water quality must be monitored closely, especially pH. Be aware that some other diseases, notably Uronema and Amyloodinium thrive at lower salinities. Luckily, another common scourge, marine ich, Cryptocaryon irritans, is also inhibited by low salinity. After 35 days, the salinity is gradually raised back to normal. It is imperative to perform this change back to normal seawater very slowly. While marine fish tolerate a drop in salinity very well, their kidneys have more difficulty adjusting as the salinity is raised. Never return fish to normal salinity faster than 72 hours, and don’t make large changes at one time.


Jay

 

[ErikVR]

Yep, that's where I read about the eyes getting infected.
Thanks. Will start hypo in the QT today.

 

[GiannisK]

I'd like to mention that it seems firefish should not be treated this way. I did it with mine and it immediately jumped out. I had a lid ready to immediately close the container but quite literally before I had even put the net down from putting him in, he had jumped out. If you do this with firefish, have a lid ready on one hand to put on *immediately* after the net is in with the other hand. Just my experience.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I'd like to mention that it seems firefish should not be treated this way. I did it with mine and it immediately jumped out. I had a lid ready to immediately close the container but quite literally before I had even put the net down from putting him in, he had jumped out. If you do this with firefish, have a lid ready on one hand to put on *immediately* after the net is in with the other hand. Just my experience.

Yes - some fish are really good at jumping out. The depth of the container can help with that to some degree.

Jay