Hyposalinty, what went wrong?

[125mph]

Hi guys, So as you know I brought home a tomini tang from a LFS and didn't QT it.. I noticed he had ich two days afterwards and removed him.. it was too late and two of the fish started showing white dots on their fines.

Every fish was still very healthy, eating like a pig, and other than a few white dots on the fines, you wouldn't know anything was wrong.

I thought probably they would survive the outbreak but the tank would be doomed with ich, so I went ahead and pulled all the fish out and put them in a QT tank.

I went with the hyposalinity treatment and dropped the salt slowly from 1.025 to 1.020 within the first 12 hours. At that point, three fish died. I went ahead and dropped the salnity to 1.15 over the next 12 hours. Now the three remaining fish appear to be on death row as well.

There is no way ich killed these fish. They were vigourous, eating well, and swimming well just hours earlier. I thought the stress of moving the potters angel killed him but now the clowns and hawk are dying too.

I checked parameters and ammona/nirite still 0. PH is 7.5 so maybe thats a lil low... All I can think of is the hyposalinty caused the fish to die. Did I do it too fast? Some sites say drop to 1.09 in 24 hours and some say do it in 36 hours. I was planning the 36 hour route.

The only equipment I have in the 15 gallon tank is a heater and a rio800 for water movement. I have a fake log and a few PVC pipes. I just brought home a aquaclear HOB filter but I probably dont need it anymore, the remaining are on their last breath.. Maybe I should try to raise the salinity and maybe the remaining fish can still revive?

Any ideas?

 

[sandwi54]

it's not the hyposalinity that killed the fish. Fish can take a drastic drop of salinity. i have often drop from 1.025 to 1.009 in the past and not a single fish showed distress.

what most likely killed them is the sudden change of pH. I assumed you used pure RODI water to drop the salinity. Did you match the pH of the new water with the QT water? If your final pH is 7.5, you have effectively replaced a lot of pH=8.2 water with pH=7.0 water. Fish can't adjust themselves from 8.2 to 7.5 in a matter of hours, or even days.

When you do water change over 15%, you must try to match the pH as closely as possible.

 

[125mph]

it's not the hyposalinity that killed the fish. Fish can take a drastic drop of salinity. i have often drop from 1.025 to 1.009 in the past and not a single fish showed distress.

what most likely killed them is the sudden change of pH. I assumed you used pure RODI water to drop the salinity. Did you match the pH of the new water with the QT water? If your final pH is 7.5, you have effectively replaced a lot of pH=8.2 water with pH=7.0 water. Fish can't adjust themselves from 8.2 to 7.5 in a matter of hours, or even days.

When you do water change over 15%, you must try to match the pH as closely as possible.

How do you get higher PH RO water? All I did was use the tanks water initially, then took out some water, and put in RO water. Repeated that process throughout the day. What can I add to increase PH cause my understanding is when the salt goes down the Ph goes down too.

 

[125mph]

Damn i wish the guides and stickies would mention something about the RO water would drastically reduce PH and thereby causing all the fish to die...

But do you really think a decrease in PH would do that to everything?

 

[sandwi54]

you can either buy commercial pH adjustment kits at pretty much any pet store or LFS.

whenever you do a water change, especially a large one, it's important to match temperature, salinity, and pH to the best you can. these are really the only three variables that fish would like to stay constant. if you have trouble adjust pH, you can just add the new water in slowly, like how you acclimate a fish.

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

Sorry about all your fish.The change in ph is what killed the fish,that was another reason why I used my dt during my hypo treatment.My crushed coral and sandbed kept my ph stable.The lowest my dropped was from 8.4 to 8.1 over a 48 hour period. Hope the others pull through.

 

[125mph]

That makes sense. Thank you all for your help. I was going to check PH along with all the other parameters daily but I didn't know the PH would drop so fast during the dilution of salinity to 1.009.

My DT PH is always so stable I guess PH isn't even in my thought process. Sad the fish had to pay a price

 

[MrTuskfish]

I see no problem just using a buffer, even baking soda, to raise PH in a QT.

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

Being that small of a qt tank the ph would drop pretty quick.If you raise the salinity back up do so slowly.It took me a week to get my salinity down to 1.008.

 

[MrTuskfish]

Being that small of a qt tank the ph would drop pretty quick..

You're right. Buy sometimes , like when trying to quickly get fish into a QT, a quick fix is needed.

 

[125mph]

Yep I will definitely not make the same mistake the next time.. And hopefully, there won't be a next time with hyposalinity. I'm setting up a permanent quarantine with a chromis in it to keep it cycled.

How long should I wait until I can add fish back to my main DT? 12 weeks? 16 weeks?

Also, what should I do with my QT tank to clean it out and make sure theres no ich in it. Right now I have it filled with fresh tap water and along with all the equipment. I figure if I let it sit that way for a few weeks the ich will definitely die. Then rinse it dry real good. Or should I use bleach?

 

[Tin_Whistler]

10 weeks with no fish in the DT.

For your quarantine tank you don't need to keep anything in there, empty it and dry it out when not in use so nothing can "live" in there.

Having a cycled QT isn't necessary, removal of ammonia is taken care of through water changes. A cycled QT is going to need liverock/sand, and I'd highly suggest putting neither liverock or sand into a qt tank. They make dosing harder as they absorb and leech any medication you put into it.

 

[sandwi54]

Yep I will definitely not make the same mistake the next time.. And hopefully, there won't be a next time with hyposalinity. I'm setting up a permanent quarantine with a chromis in it to keep it cycled.

How long should I wait until I can add fish back to my main DT? 12 weeks? 16 weeks?

Also, what should I do with my QT tank to clean it out and make sure theres no ich in it. Right now I have it filled with fresh tap water and along with all the equipment. I figure if I let it sit that way for a few weeks the ich will definitely die. Then rinse it dry real good. Or should I use bleach?

The hypo needs to be performed for 4 additional weeks after the last spot is seen on a fish. Then you raise the salinity (slowly) and observe for another four weeks. If you do not see any spot during the total of 8 weeks then you can put the fish back into the DT.

It is not necessary to start with a cycled QT but it does help. You'll just need to do large water change if ammonia or nitrite are detected. Again, when doing a large water change be careful with matching pH, salinity, and temperature.

 

[MrTuskfish]

IMO, a QT certainly should be cycled if possible. Why add the hassle of WCs when it isn't necessary? Here's a copy of something I've posted often. Its an easy way to instantly cycle your QT whenever you need to. Anything that make using a QT easier means it will be used more often, I assume.

"In regards to Qt cycling; I've done this for years. Get a HOB filter; I really like Aqua-Clear, they have a big sponge and last forever. Don't use the carbon or ceramic noodles that come with the filter. Also, have some extra sponges on hand, they're cheap. Keep a sponge in the flow somewhere in your DT. When you need a QT or HT, just use the sponge that has been in your main system in your QT filter---the QT will be instantly cycled. When done, toss the sponge and keep a new one ready in your main system.
BTW, Cupramine copper, used in a QT,will not destroy a bio-filter."

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

125mph, how are your fish doing.

 

[125mph]

125mph, how are your fish doing.

They all died within the first 24 hrs.. starting over..

 

[125mph]

I'm setting up a QT with a 17g Mr. Aqua, a hob filter and skimmer, a small powerhead, heater and a 96w T5s. Everything is going through that first. DT is fallow for the next 12 weeks.

 

[jcw]

I had similar issues going to hypo.

When I switched to mixing some new saltwater at 1.009 overnight and using that instead of straight ro/di, my fish seemed to tolerate it better.

 

[sandwi54]

I had similar issues going to hypo.

When I switched to mixing some new saltwater at 1.009 overnight and using that instead of straight ro/di, my fish seemed to tolerate it better.

Right. even at 1.009 the hyposaline water should still have pH in the correct range, just not buffered well. RODI water, on the other hand, is most likely at pH of 7.

 

[Vannpytt]

Most likely, the pH itself didn't do this, which is another point to mention. When pH changes, the toxic ammonia will rise/fall along with oxygen levels. pH is basically a quality stamp of a lot of other things, like Alkalinity, or KH.

So, this is a bit nitpicking, but the real reason may be that you increased the toxic ammonia while doing this, and total ammonia is hard to monitor, unless you go for the seachem instruments.

When this is said and done, the pH was the killer indirectly. Bakingsoda and ammonia alert is also a key ingredience in this equation to successfully drop the S.G.