saltwater baths?

[*Polka dots roc*]

Hi everyone,

I have a question about saltwater baths. Does anyone ever do a sw bath on their discus when they first receive them to kill any parasites? I know with saltwater fish we do a 3 minute freshwater bath just to make sure nothing is being spread into the qt with them. So if you do this for discus how long and what amount/type of salt. And if this is bad for them why?

Thanks guys
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts
Nicole

[Graham]

Hi Nicole while lots of people do saltwater dips or freshwater dips it is probably the most stressfull thing that you can do to a fish...marine or fresh. It's what are you going to explode/implode first, the fish or the parasite....it is not something that I would recommend.


Since the entire mucus layer gets stripped off the fish, it will have no primary defense if it goes back into a tank that has existing parasites.

Now if you are going to do it then use any salt....pickling, water softener, table salt, but not marine as it has pH buffers in it. 30 teaspoons per gallon is pure salt water...maintain temp and pH and any sign of distress like rolling over get the fish out......

[ShinShin]

Graham,

While I am the one who probabally states that salt is the most misunderstood and misused chemical used here on the forum the most, I find your response a little puzzeling. It may be my own ignorance on how salt works.

I do believe salt should only be used as a dip or a short term bath at most. I have never read where salt acts as an oxidizer and burns the slime coat off any fish like PP would. Osmotic pressure is how salt kills parasites on fish, saltwater or freshwater fish.

Keeping a discus in pure seawater would of course kill it eventually, but a short term bath certainly will not hurt it, nor burn off the slime layer. If anything, conventional thinking suggests that salt acts as an irritant, causing the discus to produce more slime.

Do you have anything backing up your statement that we could read?

Mat

[Ed13]

Mat, osmotic pressure that kills parasites and such is what is so bad about freshwater baths for marines and vice versa for freshwater fish, at least when used in absolute terms like full sea level salinity or complete fresh water. Organs can take it, so it turns into a race of which can last longer the parasite or the host. Keeping the salinity from crossing the threshold is the key.
At least this is what I understood between the exchange of the original poster(full salinity bath) and Graham.
Hope G clears what he meant though, as I'm sure he(and you too:)) knows way more about it than I do.

[Graham]

''...Since the entire mucus layer gets stripped off the fish, it will have no primary defense if it goes back into a tank that has existing parasites....''

That wasn't written very well was it:o:o Mat a number of years ago this was brought up in a wet lab at a koi show...how much salt was too much salt and it's affects on the fish. The Vets explained it as satarting out as a good thing ending up as a bad thing.

It was explained kind of like this

Low levels of salt in freshwater start out helping the fish with osmoregulation, Lets say 0.03 to 0.1%; This is basically ambient salinity levels in most areas.

Then it, the chloride ion in particular, can help a fish with Nitrite protection, preventing Brown Blood Disease between 0.1% to 0.2%;

Then 0.3% to 0.5% it's capable of killing parasites as a long term bath. At this level it's an irritant. The mucus cells are forced to produce more mucus hopefully sloughing off parasites in the process.....Besides the ones that are imploding or exploding.

As the salt level is increased to full salinity 3.0% it stops being an irritant and becomes an astrigent. The mucus cells get exhusted and slow down allowing the salt to strip off the mucus and any parasites with it.

There is no oxidization like PP as salt is not an oxidizer

Graham

[ShinShin]

Ed,

I understand how osmotic pressure works, and that is why salt is an excellant dip, and should not be used for any prolonged period of time.

Graham,

To me, your own expaination validates using salt as a dip, IMO. It also explains to the salt abusers why not to use salt in their tanks. I know salt is not an oxidizer, hence my confusion. "strips" was just a poor coice of words. ;)

Thanks fir your responses, guys.

Mat

[*Polka dots roc*]

Mat what happened to this being my post lol :p
Thanks everyone!




Thanks fir your responses, guys.

Mat

[CARY_GLdiscus]

Good Topic!

But IME fresh water dips and low salinity baths work great on De Bugging! Salt water fish!
Angels,Tang's,wrasses, Etc..

As For Discus I do not use Salt at all for Dips! I agree that its very stressfull to Them.
However short term baths at low levels seem to work fine after any high nitrate Spike or after a Heavy use of any oxidizer. JME

Hth
Takecare
Cary Gld!

[*Polka dots roc*]

Thank you Cary. An answer i could understand:) lol

[ShinShin]

Sorry, Dots. It's still your thread if you need it to be. I wasn't hyjacking it, simply responding to those that addressed me. ;)

Cary,

I don't see the difference in subjecting FWF to a salt bath or SWF to a freshwater bath. It's the same process occurring via osmotic pressure. You remember the Maria Cruz triple dip, right? It was derived from a conversation I had with an ichthyologist from Seattle who was employed by a large tropical fish import business. He also had a hatchery of his own. He routinely dipped his discus and angels (his particular area of expertise) as well as other larger and valuable cichlids. Though the dip didn't 100% eradicate all external parasites, promtly placing them in a freshly disinfected tank with a formalin/malachite green solution, usually did. His belief was that after dipping in a salt bath, any surviving pathogens would be severely creanated from the osmotic pressure, and upon rehydrating in fresh water, if that freshwater contained another chemical, whether it be F/MG or an antibiotic, it would have a stronger effect. Over the years, I subjected fish to a salt bath and no salt bath regime and found a salt bath treatment worked better. Eventually, the triple dip evolved but, as you know, is time consuming if you have many fish to treat, but tough to beat on a single fish or two. Over time, I worked out the 3 bucket "Maria Cruz triple dip" method for treating a whole tank with no buckets.

Mat

[*Polka dots roc*]

NP im alittle slow and all these high tech answers confuse me :p not your fault lol

[CARY_GLdiscus]

No Matt!

I remember Very well And I do agree 100% with the method and how it works and agree it would work best if you did not have alot of fish to dip!

On a second note I do not bring in any outside fish into my hatchery anymore so the only meds I keep now are prazi for tapeworm + Hyde for after spawning. THATS IT!

hth
Cary Gld!

[katt-ja]

sorry, this question is off topic but can i use just regular epsom salts in my aquarium? I just wanted to make sure before i went on dumping it in. haha

[ShinShin]

Epsom salts are used strictly used for bloated discus. It is magnesium sulfate. What we are talking about here is sodium chloride, rock salt, pickling salt, table salt, etc.

Mat