An "ichy" question

[Torno]

When a fish is in hyposalinity, how long does it take until it's cured of ich? Reason is, I had a fish in a 30 gallon tank with ich, so I transfered to a 10 gallon hyposalinity (1.010-1.011) hospital tank and am waiting for it to clear up. Now I know it'll take the 30 gallon 5-6 weeks for the ich to die off, but what if I wanted to put this fish in a 55 gallon ich free tank? How long until the ich will be off the hypo-ed specimen?

 

[kevin2000]

My 02.

The target salinity for effective hypo treatment has dropped over the yrs .. I suspect the current target is around 12-14% .. which is closer to 1.009 depending on your water temperature. Some would argue that using a refractometer is an essential part of using hypo since achieving the target salinity is important.

With that said ... the time horizon for effective hypo treatment is often debated ... hypo works by interupting the ich cyle by preventing the ich from hatching ... as such, in theory a couple weeks of hypo should work ... in practice most experienced aquarist would argue that 4+ weeks is a better target.

Since hypo doesn't have a negative impact on the fish and you need to keep your ST without fish for 5-6 weeks I don't see any upside on converting a QT from hypo to normal salinity any quicker than necessary.

Hope this helps.

 

[Torno]

I see, well thank you!