Hypo in DT to treat ich?

[Spar]

After 3 separate water changes of 25g a pop we are down from 1.026 to 1.017. Kind of common sense (though I didn't think of it earlier), is that as you keep going the water is more diluted so it's harder to continue dropping the salinity.

Tonight we're going to try upping from 25g to 50g at once to make some more progress. At least the fish seem to be enjoying it - all the butterflies are up swimming around in the freshwater as it's pouring in ... cuties

ha, yep that is what i was kind of alluding to indirectly. but no problem with increasing the %'s now as you will end up with the same decrease in SG #-wise.

just make sure you are keeping an eye out on KH. don't let it drop too low.

 

[Spar]

Correct, 1:1 ratio I have the vertex puratek and love it. Was brand newish when I got into the hobby. It also self purges every startup and then after 2 hours of running - so I don't need to worry about my membrane.

http://www.vertexaquaristik.com/Pro...100RODI/tabid/202/language/en-US/Default.aspx

Anyway, I do live in Arizona so there are some water implications there but usually I get much longer life out of my DI filters. I buy the color changing and pulled it out and it was all yellow already. So I don't know if it was just a bad batch or what.

i have a similar pump on mine - i do enjoy the 1:1 ratio. my water bill is high enough as-is with having to fuel a 450g

 

[Lion-o]

Agreed. We may delay the next couple changes as I'm going to be gone this weekend for a mini vacation. Wouldn't want ammonia to spike or anything for the fish sitter! I also have not ever dosed with baking soda, but we do have some on hand just in case.

I did have a question about seachem prime though. The directions on the bottle are for mixing into water outside the tank (like to prep new water), but doesn't mention anything about mixing directly into your tank. The product we got is labeled as marine though. Do we just follow the same instructions if we run into an ammonia issue? (Obviously paired with water changes).

thanks,
danny

 

[Spar]

i generally fill a plastic cup up 1/2-3/4 full, and mix in the prime; then dump into a high flow area.

i have also, plenty of times, just dosed the cap fulls directly into the tank.

i have never had any negative results with doing this.

 

[Lion-o]

Wellp, after about 200g of water going through the unit I burnt through a spectra pure MB DI filter (30$ LFS). So now I'm just waiting for my next batch of DI resin to show up on Friday from BRS. I bought the big bag so I should have plenty, but since I leave for vacation Friday I'm going to pick it back up Monday.

I'm wondering for massive amounts of water like this if it would be more efficient for me to upgrade to a RODI unit with double DI chambers. Oh well, hopefully I'll never have to go through this activity again

 

[Spar]

i have a double chamber DI. really just depends on how hard your water is and if your prior chambers leave behind a lot of solids. do you know what your TDS is pre-DI?

 

[Lion-o]

I do not, but I could pop the DI filter out and run it for a bit to see where it's at.

 

[Spar]

I use one of those dual-inline TDS units that tells me the pre and post DI. They are pretty cheap if you actually care to know on a regular basis. I rarely use it though.

 

[Lion-o]

FYI - ran a quick test as I mentioned of the DI filter out of the mix just to see what the TDS would read coming out of the RO. My TDS meter just blinked 50 which I assume means that the TDS was too high to be read (something over 50). Is that higher than expected off a brand new membrane?

I can't remember what our drinking water RO unit produces but I feel like it's something over 100 when we end up replacing that.

 

[Spar]

If that is accurate then yes it is too high. Mine is around 5 coming out of the membrane. The DI gets the rest for me.

 

[Lion-o]

Last water change we did was another 50g - got us to 1.014. Doing a 75g water change now, hopefully get us a bit lower.

While doing this just noticed something new - a blister-esque looking thing on one of the butterflies. Is that normal from immune system being weaker from the ich? Or maybe something else? Would it be a good idea to catch that fish and do a antibiotic dip if we can? He's one of the less shy fish, easier to grab.

 

[Lion-o]

75g change magically got us to right above 1.0095 ish. Continuing to measure as water is still fully mixing but I think we might finally be there! I definitely underestimated the volume of water required to initially reach this amount, but no regrets.

 

[Lion-o]

How well does this SeaChem Prime stuff work? We started testing positive for small amounts of ammonia so I ran to the store and bought 1000mL and a fresh ammonia badge for the display (already had one in the sump in addition to our dropper test kit). New badge is showing in the greenish "alarm" .05 range.

We did a 50g water change (salt water) last night and remain in the 1.009 range, but that clearly wasnt enough to kick off our ammonia. Could be a multitude of things, but now we don't have any algae to help the skimmer combat fish waste, etc.

thanks,
danny

 

[Spar]

Prime seems to work well for me. I have never heard of it not working for others.

Wouldn't hurt to add a bottle of Bio-Spira or other similar bacteria-in-a-bottle at this point just to give some further kick-start. I'm not 100% that normal saltwater bacteria will survive in 1.009 though. May need to google or post that question.

 

[Lion-o]

Hmmm, that would be my concern with a product like that - what if i dosed and then it just immediately died, adding to the ammonia :\

 

[Spar]

it isn't dieing bacteria that causes ammonia, it is decaying waste that does. just needs the bacteria to convert the ammonia as it develops.

that said, i can't imagine it having an adverse effect. Nonetheless, do some research on it as I haven't touched the stuff in 4 years. I just keep up with water changes and use Prime in my QT's.

 

[Lion-o]

Bit of a status update:

We did another 75g change last night. Salinity still hovering between 1.008 & 1.009 for about 5 days now.

One butterfly looks pretty beat up. Lots of "dents in his armor"
Our goatfish actually looks quite improved, she had a lot of pimple like irritations from the ich that seem to subsiding.
The other butterfly looks quite good except I'm pretty sure still has some ich (or new ich??). It looked like he had a handful of salt sprinkles this morning, not nearly as much as before though.

So now I'm a bit confused, just watching... waiting... Is it possible we had more than one strain of ich? Or that the ich adapted to the hypo and is coming back? I hope not...

Also I think ammonia went down slightly from the change (technically it should have dropped about 20%). I also threw another 15 capfuls of prime in the tank this morning. Last night I found bio spira & seachem's equivalent, bought both and treated both my 300g and my 40g reef with some of the stuff. Figured it couldn't hurt and maybe i'd get some new bacteria I didn't already have from the variety.