hypo problem/question

[jallard]

I have slowly been bringing my water salinity down on\ver the past 2 daqys to treat a powder blue tang and 2 clowns. First I noticed that the PB in the morning has somwhat dark patches and her skin clears up later in the after noon. Could it be possible that the ich is still attaching and dropping in the morning that is why I see it? As for the clowns....it appears like there is ich kinda hanging on to the slime coat.

make sense....im at a loss and help is appreciated.

 

[zens]

some fish exhibit this behavior naturally. anyway. if you think they fish
has ich it's usually best to drop the salinity all at once. when you bring it back up is when you should take it real slow.

 

[tkeracer619]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9038956#post9038956 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zens
some fish exhibit this behavior naturally. anyway. if you think they fish
has ich it's usually best to drop the salinity all at once. when you bring it back up is when you should take it real slow.

DO NOT drop the salinity from full strength to 1.009 at once!!! This is not the proper way to introduce fish into hpyosalinity.

This should be done over a few days.


jallard - Some tangs will patch up color wise when they are not happy/stressed/new environment. Keep your salinity at 1.009 and you will be ok. Make sure to keep PH and ALK in check when dropping the salinity.

 

[BTTRFLYGRL]

Salinity can be dropped to 1.009 in 48 hours..I usually do it in 72

 

[steve-s]

It can actually be done in hours without an issue. As long as temp and pH do not get altered in the process, the fish will easily withstand the salinity drop without harm if otherwise healthy.

Best advice is to use heated/buffered RO or treated tap water. As long as temp & pH match the QT, the fish will not be bothered. Only sharp increases in salinity will harm the fish.

The dark patches the fish is seen to have is either a stress reaction (3 fish in one small? tank) or acidosis from falling pH levels. If pH is too low, correct it slowly. Do not alter pH more than 0.2/day or you will make matters worse.

 

[jacmyoung]

My whole tank is in early stage of hypo, from what your saying if I want to add a new fish now it is possible to acclimate it in a few hours into my tank at 1.009? I can go as much as 12 hours if I have to but not overnight.

 

[steve-s]

As long as pH and temp match and the salinity being transfered to is lower, most definitely.

Fish can handle large drops in salinity as long as pH and temp are factored in. 99.999% of the time the drop in pH that comes with reduced salinity is unaccounted for and where the problems come from. Buffer the FW being used to the same pH and the problem is solved.

 

[steve-s]

One additional point though, do not add fish to a QT with one already in residence undergoing hypo. The new fish may have an unknown problem that could conflict with hypo and you'd be in a real jam. You would also reset the Qt clock so to speak.

 

[jacmyoung]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9155873#post9155873 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by steve-s
One additional point though, do not add fish to a QT with one already in residence undergoing hypo. The new fish may have an unknown problem that could conflict with hypo and you'd be in a real jam. You would also reset the Qt clock so to speak.

In my case since all my fish are undergoing hypo in my entire tank setup (FOWLR) not in a QT, there will be little ph and temp issues acclimating (I use drip) a new fish into the tank, however your point of new fish bringing unknown problem is a good one.

Since I had the whole tank doing hypo, to avoid massive inverts die off on my live rock, I let the salinity drop over two and half weeks time, right at the last water change from 1.011 to 1.009, I still had a mini nitrite spike to 0.5ppm, but fish did fine and the spike quickly went away. Both temp and pH were well buffered during that time.

If this hypo is successful, I will not add any more fish, rather start adding coral after bringing salinity back.

 

[steve-s]

Be sure you do not raise the salinity until at least 4 weeks have passed since all fish are no longer symptomatic. Do not simply allow a 4 week period at the current salinity, chances are good the treatment will not be successful if so. Since you are performing this in the display, you need to be especially careful. Target 14 ppt on a refractometer for best results and check at least 2-3x daily.

Once you do raise the salinity, go slowly allowing it to evap upwards while topping off with water of the same salinity. You can also do slightly higher salinity water changes but be sure not to exceed 0.001 SG daily. Once normal salinity is reached (35 ppt?), observe the fish another 2 weeks minimum to be sure treatment was indeed successful.

On the coral additions, please be sure you have a small QT ready for them. Now would be the ideal time to get that started. It would be a shame to go to all this hard work just to re infect the display tank. Remember, anything wet can transfer pathogens/parasites and must be quarantined, not just fish and not just fish parasites are the problem.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.php

 

[jacmyoung]

But how do I know a coral is not bringing in ich? Does that mean they have to be QTed for at least 4 weeks? Guess the answers are in that link then, thank you Steve.

 

[steve-s]

The link will also explains the various things you will encounter. When Qt'ing new items, 4 weeks would be the minimum. I prefer 6 for non fish and 8 for fish.

You don't know what parasite might be there nor at which stage a parasite might be in it's life cycle. The best approach is to give it a safe margin for error based on the most common parasites encountered.