Lfs puts marine fish with fresh water fish

[Kershaw]

so yesterday while looking at lfs. A employee with 30 years of experience. Took out a powder blue tang that was flashing and put it in a freshwater fish tank with fish in it. Left it in there for about two minutes and then put it back in saltwater tank. Really not sure what to think about this. I assume he did it to remove perisites.

 

[Ann_A]

Freshwater dips can be used on marine fish to remove parasites. It does depend on what parasite you're dealing with but as long as it's not under the skin or slime coat there's a good chance that a freshwater dip may help.

 

[Kershaw]

Yea but are you not supposed to match ph and temp. And don't fresh water tanks run at different ph levels. it just dose not seem right to use a fresh water tank with fish in it to do the dip.

 

[Ann_A]

You should definitely match temp and probably ph. I'm not sure on what ph freshwater tanks run at but it probably isn't the best idea to be dipping a marine fish in an established freshwater tank. I mainly meant to point out that freshwater dips aren't always harmful for marine fish.

 

[eatbreakfast]

I don't see any harm in it. Most freshwater fish are tropicals, so temp should be close. And even though the ph will likely be different, it won't be as drastic of a change as the saltwater fish already dealt with through shipping and back into a system.

 

[Kershaw]

Interesting this just seems odd to me. I have never fresh water dipped anything and I am ok with the idea. Just seemed odd that it was a tank with fish. This employee also told my friend that his ccb would not eat because he didn't fresh water dip it.i do not buy live stock from them do to past experience.

 

[srad750c]

It's OK to dip SW fish in FW bath,
as long as it is same pH and temp. Worked in LFS for many years, we dipped fish in 2 gals heavily aerated FW with 2 ml of Quick Cure or 37% formalin and 5 ml of Vitachem(for stress reduction) to remove external parasites. Only left them FW dip for 2 minute max.

 

[eatbreakfast]

For a dip, matching ph isn't a necessity. During shipping ph drops drastically and comes back up during acclimation. It's no more harsh on the fish than the changing salinity going from salt to fresh to salt in a few minutes. Some fish are more sensitive to a fw dip. I've dipped somefish up to six minutes without issue to the fish.