Lowering salinity due to ICH break out

[Mikeb76]

Hello all,

I wanted to get some opinions on lowering my Salinity. I had a ICH out break about 6wks ago and I did the Kick-ICH and Rally treatment for the recommended time. My tank seems clean. Two weeks later I see my chromis had a sore by his back fin. Since it wasnt white spots I figured he may have gotten to close to the rock and nipped his tail. Yesterday I noticed that my tang started to have a coue of white spots and now my flame angle has them all over. I figure I still have ich in the tank. :headwallblue: I talked to my LFS and he suggested for me to lower my Salinity for 8-9wks and slowly raise it back up.

My worries are 1. Right now Im not able to setup a quarinte tank due to space. 2. I have a clean up crew and corals. With me lowering the salinaty whats the lowest I can go to kill the ICH but not my corals or snails. 3. If i have to fo the treatment above again Im afraid i will lose my corals the first my the first time I did it they werent to happy.

All my parameters are on point.
Salinity : 1.025
Temp: 80
pH: 8.1
No2: 0
No3:0
Ammonia: 0
Phostates: 0
Alk :10
Cal:450
Mag:1325

Livestock
Fish:
Green chromis: 2 small
Clowns : 2 small
Firefish: 2 small
Yellow tang:1 sm -med
Flame Angel:1 sm
Diamond back gobby: 1

Corals:
Mushroom 1 med
Candy cane 1 small
Kryptonnite candycane 1 small
Xenia -4 sm
GSP-4 sm
Green tip annenomie : 1 small

Cleanup Crew:
Snails: 12 small
Turbo snail: 1 sm

Thanks in advance
Mike

 

[lagatbezan]

Unfortunately In order For that to be effective you will need to drop the salinity to 1.009 which will kill all your inverts.

 

[ali1]

1. Despite space issues, quarantine will probably be your best bet given your scenario
2. Effective hyposalinity treatment begins at 1.009, in which case will kill all coral and most inverts.
3. Hypo is tricky for first timers. I would go copper in a seperate tank with fish. Leave main tank fallow for 10 weeks and reintroduce fish after observation.

 

[ratherbeflyen]

I do hypo salinity (1.009) quarantine for 4 weeks on all new fish I add to my tank. I have seen 1/4" long worm looking parasites come out of the eyeballs of new fish that I treated that way. Like others have said, you can't do it with coral or inverts in the same tank.

 

[WLachnit]

Unfortunately , you're not going to be able to get rid of ich unless you separate your fish from all of your inverts.


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[nereefpat]

With me lowering the salinaty whats the lowest I can go to kill the ICH but not my corals or snails.

Not possible, unfortunately.

Those corals are all easily replaceable though

 

[Coralfuture]

Is there anyone around who maybe can help you out as in someone in possibly a local reef club?
Maybe they can watch your corals/inverts or the fish.....

You could set up a short term QT tank likely even with limited space. Plastic Rubbermaid bin of your choice add water/heater/bit of flow and DT Light and some sort of pump. Then ta da you have a QT for corals and DT can treated or vice versa w/e just trying to open options. This is probably the cheapest and smallest option that bin tho with the corals and inverts doesn't need food if you use your DT water and the crabs and inverts wont need much if anything either. While your treating the DT the ich in the QT system will die off from starvation. The anemone is really the only issue and he can be localized in the bin with a plastic strainer. Make sure to keep salinity good tho with a super small QT like what I just described.

 

[Mikeb76]

Thank you all for the input. I will go ahead and make a QT tank for all the fish. I was able to borrow a 30g bio cube from a friend this will be perfect and not take up a lot of room. I don't plan to use any copper in the QT. I plan on doing the Hypo salinity starting @1.009 and work my way up to 1.025. With that said I do have a few more questions.

1. Would I need to get a small skimmer for the cube since I will have 9 fish in the cube? If so any suggestions on the best one to use?

2. To help speed the cycle of the cube I was planning on doing a 20gal water change on the display tank to fill up the cube and the rest of the water will be regular RO/DI to get me @ 1.009 would this be the correct way to accomplish this?

3. Should I put any substrate on the bottom of the tank or leave bare? I'm not using any copper for treatment.

4. When I started my display tank I had about 100lbs of rock, after the cycle process my damsel’s started being very aggressive to my new fish (my mistake to cycle the tank with damsel’s ) I had to remove some of the rock to catch them. I ended up not putting it back in the display tank. I have the rock in buckets in the garage. With it going thru the cycle once and me using the water from the display tank would it be ok for me to add the rock to the cube or would I need to do the full cycle again? I would like to add the rock so the fish have a place to hide

 

[nereefpat]

With that said I do have a few more questions.

1. Would I need to get a small skimmer for the cube since I will have 9 fish in the cube? If so any suggestions on the best one to use?

Skimmer won't skim at hyposalinity

2. To help speed the cycle of the cube I was planning on doing a 20gal water change on the display tank to fill up the cube and the rest of the water will be regular RO/DI to get me @ 1.009 would this be the correct way to accomplish this?

The "old" water might help some, but not much. The bacteria are on the surfaces in the tank.

3. Should I put any substrate on the bottom of the tank or leave bare? I'm not using any copper for treatment.

In this case, I think it's up to you. Usually qts don't have substrate.

4. When I started my display tank I had about 100lbs of rock, after the cycle process my damsel's started being very aggressive to my new fish (my mistake to cycle the tank with damsel's ) I had to remove some of the rock to catch them. I ended up not putting it back in the display tank. I have the rock in buckets in the garage. With it going thru the cycle once and me using the water from the display tank would it be ok for me to add the rock to the cube or would I need to do the full cycle again? I would like to add the rock so the fish have a place to hide

Going with an uncycled qt will have some challenges. I would monitor ammonia very frequently. Have Prime on hand, and also keep lots of new water ready to do water changes. It might be worth bringing some rock from the display. See what everyone else thinks of this.

 

[Dmorty217]

Going with an uncycled qt will have some challenges. I would monitor ammonia very frequently. Have Prime on hand, and also keep lots of new water ready to do water changes. It might be worth bringing some rock from the display. See what everyone else thinks of this.

+1 There is a product called Startsmart that will cycle the tank immediately. I have used it several times and just recently did when I setup my 625g again and my 40g breeder I use for QT. Follow the directions on the bottle. Also if you go the hypo route I would use Chloroquine Phosphate in conjunction with it for the best result.

https://www.tlc-products.com/startsmart-complete/new-tank-set-up/

frag20 gives you 20% off

 

[lagatbezan]

you can also use insatnt ocean bio-spira which has live Nitrifying Bacteria in it and usually available in petco. I would suggest getting a hang on back filter (can get one for less then $20) and putting a filter media in it and then pouring the nitrifying bacteria on the media directly.
In order for hypo to be effective you will need a correctly calibrated refractometer as well as to make sure that it stays at the the 1.009 level constantly for a min of 30 days. if it goes any higher the clock will reset and you will have to restart the countdown.

 

[tjm9331]

I know it can be a pain in the butt with 9 fish but I think TTM would give you a much better success rate than hypo especially if you've never done hypo before.

With the size fish you have you could almost get away with just using 4 home depot buckets and a couple of air stones for TTM. Plus that only takes 12 days rather than 30 days in hypo. during those 12 days you can get a rubber maid container setup as a QT and leave the DT fallow for 72 days

just my .02

Trust me I know it can be a bit scary when you get an ICH outbreak and figuring out which course of action is the best, I'm going through the same thing right now

 

[hkgar]

You have Ick in your DT. You need to remove the fish to treat them. There are only 3 methods for curing Ick, Lot's of snake oil remedies that only hide the symptons, like the one you used. Do a little research on the 3 methods, start in the reef desease sub forum.

With ick in the tank it will need to co fallow (fishless) 72 days.

I removed all corals and inverts for and treated my display with Hypo. It takes a lot of water changes to lower and than raise the salinity.

 

[Dmorty217]

You have Ick in your DT. You need to remove the fish to treat them. There are only 3 methods for curing Ick, Lot's of snake oil remedies that only hide the symptons, like the one you used. Do a little research on the 3 methods, start in the reef desease sub forum.

With ick in the tank it will need to co fallow (fishless) 72 days.

I removed all corals and inverts for and treated my display with Hypo. It takes a lot of water changes to lower and than raise the salinity.

+2 at least 72 days... there are many accounts of Ich in fallow reef tanks lasting longer than 72 days