Eradicate External Parasites/Bacteria/Protazoans/Fungus

This was the method given to me by Cary Strong of Great Lakes Discus to get rid of external parasites, bacteria, and protazoans (gill flukes, etc.) in your tanks. I'll show how to do it with two tanks here.

1. Transfer all fish to one tank (tank may be overstocked).
2. Empty all water out of other tank.
3. Sanitize tank as follows:
- Spray inside of tank down w/ rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl alcohol)
- Boil driftwood and rubber for 20 minutes
- Soak sponges and put in microwave for 2 minutes
- Soak everything else (canister filters, plastic, air hoses, etc.) in a mix of clorox and water
4. Refill tank and run a fishless cycle on this tank. Be sure to do 90% waterchange before fish are introduced.
5. Once tank is cycle, run treatment on fish
- Set up four buckets, each at about 84 degrees and with an airstone
- The 1st bucket should have 2 tbs. per gallon of non-iodized salt. The fish should be in this bucket for 6 minutes.
- Remove fish and dip in 4th bucket with clean water
- The 2nd bucket should have methylene blue at 4 drops per gallon. The fish should be in this bucket for 15 min.
- Remove fish and dip in 4th bucket with clean water.
- The 3rd bucket should have 1 ml per gallon formaldehyde 37%. This dip will last for 15-20 min. This is very important. The fish will act normal for the first bit, then they will come up to the top of the water and gasp for air. DO NOT remove them yet, wait until they start to fall to the bottom or when the time runs out. THEY WILL LOOK LIKE THEY ARE GOING TO DIE, BUT THEY WON'T.
- Pull them out and dip them in the 4th bucket, and put them into the fresh tank. This tank should be at 84 degrees - no higher - and have 1-2 tbs. per 10 gallons of non-iodized salt. They will probably lay on the bottom on their sides for the first day or so. They won't die, don't worry. Don't feed for the first day or so, wait until they are swimming around.
6. Break down and sterilize the tank they came out of
7. Run a fishless cycle on this tank
8. After it's cycled and the 90% waterchange is done, you can move the fish you want back into the other tank.

This will eliminate the external bacteria/parasites/protazoans and clean your fish. This is the most assured and complete method to do so. I hope this helps anyone with problems. If anyone sees an error, please intervene, but this is the method give to me by Cary himself.

Brad

[Dennis_Hardenburge]

I thought the third bucket was a three minute potassium permanate dip.
Dennis

Cary told me to use 37% formaldehyde, so i guess either would work

[ronrca]

Thanks Brad for this info! One question though. When you tear down the first tank, sanitize everything and do a fishless cycle, Im under the impression that 4+ weeks later you first will be able to start the bucket dips therefore you may have overcrowding in the second tank for 4+ weeks. Or am I missing something?

[joanr]

Hi,

The treatment described above is for more or less total erradication of parasites. For when normal populations get out of control and nothing else helps. Adding a "seeded" filter to speed cycling up could bring back the bugs into a "clean" environment. I would say you'd have to wait the 4+ weeks. Like doing a vanilla install of an OS.

OTOH I think increased w/c's, more glass wipe downs, less food and some diatom filtering would bring populations down enough, except for breeder tanks, those should be bug free as possible. I had an outbreak of threadworm from a contaminated sponge filter I had bought "cycled". It took three or more weeks to get rid of the buggers but eventually the population died/starved off. Also I've found treatments with Life Bearer helpful. Watch it though, the stuff is strong.

Joan

hey,
Yeah, my tanks got totally taken over and I had no other choice. Yes there will be overcrowding for those 4+ weeks, but i did like 95% waterchanges everyday and watched the fish very carefully. HTH

Brad