Hypsolanity... Necessary?

[Capt. Nemo]

Hi everyone,

I just recently purchased an Australian Harelquin Tusk which has been in quarantine since last Saturday. The fish "appears" to be in excellent healt,( great color, eating very well and very active). Should I still do hyposalinity as a precautionary measure in case the fish does have ich though there are no visilble signs of this parasite at the moment. Is hypo the standard practice for quarantine of all new fish even for those which "appear" to be in excellent health? Will I be doing more harm than good? What are the chances that I could inadverently kill by fish by reducing the salinity below 1.09 ? That's my greatest concern since I have no experience with this procedure.

Thanks
Gary

 

[Andrew]

...check your other thread.

 

[bertoni]

That's a good question. Some people seem to run hyposalinity on all new fish. Others only do that if signs of disease are present. I haven't had the guts to run hypo on a fish, but I haven't seen a case of ich. I might be tempted to try copper, but that's hard on the fish, too.

 

[Capt. Nemo]

What would happen to the fish if the salinity was lower than 1.09? Say my refractometer were off even by the slightest? For example say that my refractometer read 1.09 but the actual salinity was 1.08 or so? I will be calibrating my refractometer with the Pinpoint calibration fluid to ensure accurate salinity readings as much as possible. Thanks again.

 

[bertoni]

I doubt that 1.008 would be fatal, but the stress is likely to increase rapidly as the salinity drops. I'd look into a calibration fluid near 1.008 SG.

 

[ahullsb]

I'm in my fourth week of running hypo with no real problems. I have even fluctuated once or twice from 1.008 to 1.010. But I caught it quickly. Running hypo isn't that fun but trying to chase your fish around your rockwork once you see they DO have ich is much worse! You get to find out just how functional those little caves and archways are that you built for them. Now that I'm letting my tank run fallow for 6 weeks I'm going to do this to hardier fish before I throw them in my display again.