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Unread 03/28/2011, 07:18 PM   #9
fowldave
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 15
Hey guys, update on getting rid of this black ich.

I just finished bath number 2. I am bathing him in a freshwater formalin/malachite green solution at 77 degrees. 1.25 gallons of ro/di water and one drop of "Quick Cure" solution. I aerate heavily with an airstone during the process, matched temperatures exactly, and matched PH (baking soda works well here). During the dip I sweep the bottom of the QT by siphoning and clean out all pvc tubes.

The first bath lasted 8 minutes. During the entire time he was swimming around the container no problems at all and he showed absolutely no stress in the bath. However, after 48 hours of being back in his QT I noticed his lateral line is slightly more pronounced than before and his breathing has increased and the number of black spots have increased tremendously. Now this is when I did his second bath (a few minutes ago). He seemed perfectly fine during the bath, swimming around the container. This bath lasted 7 minutes. Reason I stopped it was because it was past the 5 minute mark (the goal for the bath) and he stopped swimming around the container, just swam in place, so i figured maybe he was feeling tired/stressed and stopped swimming, time to get him out no need to go any more to be safe.

Now he is back in his QT that isn't being medicated with anything. I'm slightly worried about the fact that I'm not medicating the tank and only doing the baths. Knowing the lifecycle of the parasite, what if the reason that I started seeing a tremendous increase in black dots on him over the last two days is because a tremendous amount of them are hatching at this stage and they are in the column. I feel he will continue to get assaulted with them over the next few days. I understand how this freshwater bath is going to kill the parasite off completely, but I worry that the state the tank/parasite is currently in can cause an extremely stressful situation for him, killing him before all the parasite is gone. Should I do some water changes between baths to eliminate some of the parasites in the column?

Also by doing the bath every 48 hours for 4-5 baths, do you really guarantee you kill off all the parasites? What I question is, what if one of the parasites winds up sticking in him right after a bath and releases itself off the fish to begin his next stage before I bath the fish 48 hours later? Since the QT isn't being medicated with anything to kill off the parasite this would allow the parasite to live another entire cycle at least. Or is it a fact that the parasite will at least stay on the fish for 48 hours and that is why you do a bath every other day?

My bad for all the questions, just want to learn more about the subject, so i understand it completely/what i'm doing and not just following blind orders.

Attached a pic of the setup for reference.


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