Hyposalinity help please

Monkeyfish

Monkeyfish

Active member
I recently added a piece of rock to my tank that had a hitchhiker - a female blue throat trigger about 2.5 inches long. Now most of my fish have minor ich outbreaks. I'd like to take care of this before transferring them to their new home (setting up a 180 FOWLR).

I know that hypo is supposed to be done in a separate tank, however, due to the size of my fish this isn't practical for me. I have a FOWLR with no corals or inverts. Would doing hypo in the display tank ruin the bio-filtration capacity of the live rock and sand?

I have an Aquaclear 110 with a cultured filter sponge and chemipure running on the tank along with a protein skimmer that I'd keep running for additional aeration/oxygenation of the water. Also have Amquel to help deal with ammonia/nitrite and would do water changes every 3-4 days or so.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated as I'd like to get the hypo started as soon as possible. Thanks.
 
If anyone is to perform hypo in a display tank, then your current setup is perfect since you have no corals and inverts.
Hypo will supress your bacteria bed but will not destroy it. You will loose most of the critters that reside in your rocks and your coralline algae will die off but all that is temporary until you finish your treatment.
Hypo is effective for parasitic infestation not bacterial infections.
You can bring your salinity down 2 ppt per 12 hours but you should only bring it back up 2 ppt per 24 hours.
When performing hypo, watch your PH since this will tend to drop and adjust accordingly with buffers.
Turn your skimmer off since the low salinity will effectively render your skimmer useless.
If your blasting the tank with high intensity lighting, you can tone this down since it will only help fuel an algae bloom.
 
Rock will not survive hype as you would have to go down to 1.009 - 1.010 your best bet is a empty QT tank or no hypo at all
 
I think i would try to move the rock to the new tank and run hypo in the old tank until the problem is resolved. i would think you could go a few weeks without live rock in the tank. I would probably do a decent amount of water changes though without the live rock, and i would think the skimmer wil not perform as well in hypo.
 
The skimmer won't perform under hypo, but it will help aerate the water.

Critters in the live rock and algae will be killed off, but will the nitrifying bacteria?

I haven't been able to find any concrete infor regarding this issue. I could store the rock in a bin (the 180 isn't ready yet), but keeping the water clean via water changes in a 75 is a real pain. I was hoping that the rock would survive/suffice.

Anyone else?
 
The few times I ran hypo were in 20G tanks, just an aqua-clear filter and some PVC fittings. I did weekly WC just to keep the pH in check but that was it.
If you're going to try it in the display I'd get a few large sponge filters, let them sit in the sump for a few days, pull the rock (over a day or so) and then run hypo. You should be fine for a few weeks this way, there are plenty of FO systems that have no rock (just bio-balls) and run fine.
 
We do Hypo in tanks with live rock all the time in commercial offices. There is no way to remove everything in places like these.
We have had no problems with fish losses.
 
Hypo will not effect the nitrifying bacteria. However, you will get a die off from various inverts in the rock that you can't remove. That will cause problems, but they are manageable with water changes and amquel.
 
In the past I have use copper in a fish only tank, only to have another outbreak several week later.

A member from another forum suggested the following technique. It worked fine for me and continues to work. What he suggested was to keep salt normal amount. I used to keep my salt at 1.019. I raised it to his recommended 1.025. Then, the key was to slowly raise the temperature to 82-83 degrees for several weeks. Please note, that at that temperature, oxygen will be depleted, so it's important to have lot's of water flow. I have done this several times, and it worked great. However, I stress, make sure you have excellent water flow and check your other chemicals. They can be affected by the increased temperature.

What happens is the life cycle of the parasites increases and they end up dying off quickly. Your fish should then be able to shake the ich without a problem.

Some say this won't work. I have done it, and achieved nice results.

My point, is that why use medicine when you don't have to. Also, most coral have no problem with this temperature. In addition, there won't be die off of live rock, etc. Wins on all accounts.

I am not a scientist and can't give all of the explanations. However, this has worked for me very well.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11468419#post11468419 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by seldin
I am not a scientist and can't give all of the explanations.
Click to expand...

Larry,

I don't mean to burst your bubble or sound like I'm picking on you, but the only reason raising the temp seemed to work is coincidence. Raising the temp to the low to mid 80's simply speeds up the life cycle, including the reproductive end of that life cycle. I've seen many an ich infestation at those temperatures ;) The idea of raising the temp to treat ich comes from fresh water aquaria, however, fresh water ich is a completely different protozoan that is hampered by higher temperatures unlike the salt water ich protozoan.
 
Bill,

Not that I am knowledgeable, however, the guy that I got this from was very smart. I am not going to be able to dispute you, as I am new to reef tanks. However, I can say, this has worked for me, and the guy that recommended it.

What happens is that the parasites life cycle is speeded up and the fish won't be prolonged with the ich, so they end up able to fight it and get better. What happens is the ich parasite has difficulty reproducing at that high temperature.

It really works...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11468603#post11468603 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by seldin
What happens is the ich parasite has difficulty reproducing at that high temperature.
Click to expand...

With the freshwater version, yes. However, the saltwater version (Cryptocaryon irritans) is well documented to reproduce quite well at those temperatures. Again, no real help. This is based on both the scientific literature and personal experience. I'm not saying you didn't see something happen, just not via the mechanism your thinking did the trick.
 
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