Salt Bath?

[Bilbo]

Is it possible or advisable to do a salt bath with apisto’s?

With discus the recipe is 200grams of salt in 10ltrs of water until the discus falls over or floats to the top (Usually 10 minutes or so). Then immediately remove to a fresh tank or new water.

This is supposed to be very good for removing skin infections or flukes etc.

Does anyone do salt baths with these little fish and if so do they roll over as well or is it just done for a set time?

Same question regarding PP.

 

[Bilbo]

No one know?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Bilbo, I've never tried it, but I wouldn't think that

With discus the recipe is 200grams of salt in 10ltrs of water until the discus falls over or floats to the top

can do any soft-water fish a lot of good.

I know people have used salt, formalin and acriflavin baths successfully for protozoan diseases and Praziquantel and salt baths for flukes. Levamisole also works for flukes.

cheers Darrel

 

[wethumbs]

I find KMnO4 to be more forgiving in eliminating external protozans. Formalin works really well too but the dosage has to be more precise or irreversible gill damage will occur resulting in slow and agonizing death to the fish.

Typically, you should start KMNO4 at 5% wt/vol for treatment. Based on my experience, a 30min bath will take care of the problem. However, I would usually extend the treatment to 60min with careful monitoring of the subject during the last 30mins. For a more effective treatment, perform a 50% water change before administrating the dosage.

It is best to get KMnO4 in crystal form as aqueous solution has limited shelf-life. You should get a precision scale capable of +/- 0.01g and volumetric pipettes for measuring liquid. A set of graduated cylinders would also come in handy.