Dropping Salinity for Ich

[yachtdr22]

Howdy...
I have finally filled the 75g HT and had a few questions...

1) The infected fish are acting ok. I was wondering if i should give the tank a day or two with the old filter pad from the DT to help seed before adding? or just get them in?

2) I am dropping the salinity over 48 hrs from 1.025 to 1.009. I am wondering how to compute the gal pr hr of Fresh to Salt ratio for a smooth transition.

3) I plan on carbon, but can i use ammocarb?

thanks
Drew

 

[Mariebaby21]

What I have done to drop the salinity is measure with refrac. Then do a 10 gallon change with RO/DI and remeasure about an hour later. This will show you how low each 10 gallons will bring you. fish handle the drop in salinity much better than they handle the increase which would need to be done over a course of a week at the least. I personally did 10 gallons a day until 1.009 was reached.
I'm not sure what everyone else would recommend.

 

[sandwi54]

1) you can drop the fish in now if you have a seeded filter pad from the DT. Just keep an eye on ammonia especially in the first week, and do large water changes if any is detected.

2) Think of salinity as a percentage of salt in the water. When you want to drop 1.025 to 1.009, you're really going from 25 to 9. So, if you want to go straight from 25 to 9, you'll replace (25-9) / 25 = 64% of the 75g HT water with freshwater, or 64% * 75 = 48g. Obviously, you should do that slower. What I usually do is this.

1. Drop from 1.025 to 1.0125 by replacing 50% of the total HT water.
2. Drop from 1.0125 to 1.00875 by replaceing 30% of the total HT water.

This would take only 2 water changes and can be completed in 2 days easily. One thing you have to watch out for, however, is that whenever you do large water changes like this, you have to "acclimate" the fish, meaning you want to add the temperature-matched replacement freshwater slowly, over the course of 1 hour or so. This would reduce the shock to the fish.

After the 2nd water change, if you are higher than 1.008, then do small water change to bring it down to 1.008. If you're below 1.008, immediately add a little bit of salt back to get it back to 1.008.

 

[yachtdr22]

The hard part is going to be getting ALL of the fishies out and into the HT before i start the drop!

Basically I am looking at about a 5 gallon replacement over 6 hours until i get really close?

 

[sandwi54]

The easiest way to catch fish is to remove all of the rocks, if your DT is FOWLR. If it's reef, draining the water will help catching the fish.

I don't understand what you meant by "5 gallon replacement over 6 hours." could you clarify that?

 

[Mariebaby21]

I think he means 5 gallons replaced per hour until the salinity is at 1.008

 

[yachtdr22]

Hi Sand... Jules is right.. I was figuring on replacing 5 gal of Fresh for 5 gal of salt every 6 hrs till Bingo....

This is a reef with LOTS o rock... and i have a few VERY shy fish... i guess the feeding will stop except for the food in the trap... which didnt show up yesterday as promised so the fish wont be added until tomorrow shortly after Mr. FedX arrives!

I was contemplating the bait & hook w/ no barb idea... but have a hard time swallowing that.. (pun intended).
I am going to reread the section on catching the uncatchable fish..

*** BIG Q *****
What do we think the max water parameters for a direct tank swap?

Salinity (+ / -)
Temp
pH
???

or acclimate all?


thanks again!!

Drew