Fresh water Dip?

RIJohn

Reefing newb
I have been reading on here that people will do a fresh water dip to remove unwanted hitch hikers and thing of that sort.

I was wondering if some one could explain the procedure.

Do you take the item and do a quick dip in the fresh water? Then pull it out?

Do you heat the water first to near tank temps?

Will this be an effective way off ridding my self of pested Mantis Shrimp?
 
It definitely would work for most mantis shrimp. Use fresh RODI water and heat it up to your tank's temp. With corals and rocks, a dip for about 30 seconds or less will dislodge most of the baddies and won't hurt any of the good guys. If the rock is covered in things like asterina stars or flatworms, you can shake the rock and they'll drop off.
 
Ok then so begins the dipping of my live rock. I have several mantis in the tank I want out.

Will he jump out or will he die in the rock?

Also your algea came in two days ago, did you delta dash it here?? Already pulling nitrates down, was reading 10-20ppm yesterday and today with no water change I am reading 5-10ppm. Thanks so much.
 
He will probably scurry out. If you want to keep him (you can usually trade them in at your LFS for some cash), just scoop him up in a net and move him to his own container.

I'm glad your chaeto arrived! I told you it was magic. You didn't fully believe me did you? Chaeto is an easy way to get nitrates down and keep them down at zero.
 
If your dipping the rocks to catch a mantis,you need to really pay attention to where your fingers are at on the rocks.
If your finger is covering a hole he's trying to escape from,he's gonna lay you wide open.And trust me,there is a reason they are called thumb splitters.
 
Well did a fresh water dip on all my rocks, got out about dozen more gorillas out of the rocks. However the cave that harbors the mantis shrimp did not expel him. I dipped in let sit for about a minute and he did not budge.

So I talked to my local fish store and they mentioned a chemical to kill all inverts. The problem I have with this is that I have feather dusters, barnacles and good crabs.

So I rather not kill all them for the mantis issue. I have a bait trap set up next to his home right now and have tons of snails but no mantis yet. I am willing to try anything but rather not kill all life in my tank and start up another cycle.

Currently I am reading no amonia or nitrites. And thanks to Biffs magical chaeto, nitrates are low.
 
it is porbably call copper and if you sue that it will be a long time before you can use that rock again in you main tank since it will leach copper our of it and that will kill any good inverts and or coral that you decide to put into the tank for quit a few months down the road
 
How big is the rock? Do you have another smaller tank you can put it into?

The rock is huge, the largest one I have in my tank.

it is porbably call copper and if you sue that it will be a long time before you can use that rock again in you main tank since it will leach copper our of it and that will kill any good inverts and or coral that you decide to put into the tank for quit a few months down the road

Yeah I guess I will try Yotes approach a try to slowly get him out of his cave, then snatch him up.
 
Just don't get in a hurry.Mantis are super smart animals and will learn from every failed attempt.

I will keep that in mind, I would say he would starve but thing to Biffs Cheato I have pods everywhere, so thats out of the question.

I figured if I keep feeding him drawing him further and further from his cave I should be able to snag him, if not I will close up his hole or something.
 
Let him get comfortable being fed.Then slowly work his food into your net so that he's actually got to go in the net to get the prize.
Then catching him is as simple as yanking the net out of the tank.
 
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