Dipping fish and corals

[Pansy-Paws]

Originally Posted by Myka

PraziPro, I also believe needs to be used as a medication not a dip to be entirely effective, however, I don't believe that it is good practice to medicate every fish before it enters your system as medicating the fish may inhibit the fishes' future immune system, damage kidneys/liver, or who knows? I medicate a fish ONLY when I know there is an issue, and ONLY when a freshwater dip hasn't worked to what I feel is an effective enough result. I believe that dips are too short to cause damage to a fish provided the concentration isn't too high. For fish, I think the same aspects of relativity apply as I mentioned for corals above.

I agree that a 10-15 minute dip in standard drug concentration will not be entirely effective. Instead, I prefer a bath process rather than the long-term immersion recommended on the drug labels, as I've read that the effectiveness and concentration of the drug decreases during the usual treatment periods (due to exposure to light and salt water).

My standard QT process with PraziPro is a concentrated bath for 1.5 to 3 hours. I usually start with a concentration of 20 mg/litre (8 times the long-term dose), and target 1.5 hours. If the fish is not tolerating this concentration, I'll bail on the bath and instead go for 10 mg/litre for 3 hours the next day. I've found that perhaps 1 in 4 fish do not tolerate the higher concentration.

I usually do the bath in a 2 gallon container with an airstone. Given the length of the process, I hang the container inside the QT so that the temperature does not drop. When the bath is finished, I simply pour the 2 gallons and the fish back into the QT. My QT is a 70 gallon tank, and the residual concentration of PraziPro is quickly removed by carbon.

The only regular drug that I do with a long term immersion is chloroquine (for ich and marine velvet), and it doesn't affect the biological cycle.