Hyposalinity in a display tank

[hotdogoramer]

I was wondering if someone with more expertise could weigh in on my dilemma. I upgraded my tank recently and when I switched the livestock over my powder brown tang came down with ich. His behavior and feeding habits have not changed. I've had him for roughly 2 years now. Now some of my other fish are getting a couple of random spots on them. I would like to treat my whole system with hyposalinity. The tank is barebottom and has a small amount of live rock. I will pull half of the live rock and all of the coral out of the tank and quarantine them separately for a few months. The display system and the remaining rock and all of the fish will be treated with hyposalinity and feed high quality varying diet. To help the fish fight it off on their own. I don't have any inverts besides a few hermits which I'll transfer in with the coral.

 

[Mishri]

was the live rock really dead rock? or does it have pods and worms and all sorts of critters living in it? those things will die off if you have them in there.. watch for ammonia spike.. water change or ammonia binder might be needed. other than that sounds like your plan should work.

Just remember anytime you add anything wet you can re-infect the tank.. so always QT, corals, inverts, rocks, sand all need a 90 day QT w/o fish (as long as the rocks/sand aren't completely dry). Fish need a hypo or other treatment to be sure they don't bring it in...


and lastly, if you haven't added anything wet in the past 2 years then they likely were getting infected in their gills, but their immune system was fighting them from latching onto their scales... stress weakened them so they could be infected on their scales is my guess.

 

[lagatbezan]

what size tank and what are the other fish? I'm by no means an expert but my suggestion would be to look into the tank transfer method if it is possible for you.
Hypo in main display is doable but you would need to be on top of water evaporation replacement since a slight change in that level will reset the time clock for you. Also you will need to keep a close eye on your water parameters since you might get a spike from all the bacteria dying in the tank. a correctly calibrated refractometer is a must and an ATO and ammonia badge will greatly help your chances if you go that route.
I'm not sure but I think I read somewhere a while ago that you might have to keep an eye on PH as well at such low SG levels.

 

[hotdogoramer]

the tank is a red sea reefer 425xl.
the rock was base rock up until I setup this tank about 2 months ago. I do have a tunze ato running right now with kalk.
anything else I should keep on the lookout for?

 

[scooter31707]

I will assume your rock is live now, so IMO, going hypo will kill the rock and any inverts and as mentioned above you will probably kill your bacteria.

 

[ThRoewer]

I've done it successfully with my jawfish system.
You will have some die-off, but with dry base rock it should not be too bad, even if the system is up for 2 months.

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