I have read a few posts on using garlic and fresh water dips
to help with sick fish. How do you do a fresh water dip?
and how many times should it be done? Also, what kind of garlic is prefered and again how do you feed it to your fish and how long? Thank you for all the usefull advice!! Me and my fish appreciate this board.

Well as for the freshwater dip I do about a 3-4 minute dip once a day until the infection is gone.. or it has subsided. I've heard people who do it for much longer but I wouldn't know about that. There are variations on this but this is what works for me, leave the fish in too long and they will die. As for the garlic I try to mix a little in for my tangs whenever I can remember. This helps them to fight ick. I'd say every other feeding or maybe every feeding it won't hurt them. Just soak the food in a little kyloric garlic sp? and serve it up. I find that some scallops soaked in garlic are eaten very readily by my tangs.... HTH

Henry

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Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole and die.
-Mel Brooks

hi, if you dip your fish daily, wont you have to catch him daily too? this would not only stress the fish... you as well. my tank has a little ick, its been there for a month but never had the chance to really break out the whole tank. couple of spots here today gone tomorrow and some scrathching. i dont think i want to take out all my live rock to catch the fish. im still waiting for my garlic to arrive around december =(

I only dip when the ick is really bad and before I do that I remove them to a hospital tank so catching isn't really that hard. I wouldn't bother trying to catch something like damsels or other small fish since most of them are just way too fast but my tang and trigger are really docile and actually go into the net. I haven't had a break out of ick for a while so I haven't had to dip in a long time but I still think this is the best way. I guess I forgot to mention the q-tank, putting them back into the affectedd tank just wouldn't help that much.

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Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole and die.
-Mel Brooks

FW dips.
only if necessary.
make sure the temp and ph is close.
monitor fish when it begins to show signs of shock(motionless ,laying on its side) remove the fish immeditely.

some fish species can handle the dips better than others, BF tend to shock very quickly less than 30 sec.