Perplexed?

[Stuart60611]

Well, I just completed a 6 week hypo treatment to deal with ich. All fish are eating well and show no visible signs of disease. I am in the process of re-raising my salinity (slowly) and am now about 1.013-14. The concern that I am having is my trigger is continuing to flash aggressively against the overflow. He does not do it constantly, but he will go over the overflow and violently flash for a few minutes and then return to go about his business. Neither he nor any other fish show any spots or discoloration on their skin. The one thing that I have noticed is that the trigger seems to flash most often just after I add salt to the system. I do not believe it could be flukes b/c I have treated with two successive prazipro treatements.

My thoughts were maybe the trigger is just reacting to the changes in the water chemistry. It is obvious that his gills are irritated. Any thoughts?

 

[EddieJ]

You are not adding salt directly to the system correct?? You should be doing water changes with prepared saltwater that has "matured" for at least 12 hours if not longer. Adding salt directly to the water to raise salinity would definitely irritate fish. That way you phrased it sounds like you are adding the saltmix directly to the hospital tank.

 

[Stuart60611]

I am adding salt directly to the sump. Maybe that is the problem.

 

[Recty]

Yeah, that is a bad idea.

Salt mix directly touching inverts and fish can really irritate them. In the case of inverts like corals, it can almost immediately kill them. I've dropped a small piece of salt into my tank on accident that had collected over time on the glass top, it landed on a coral and it IMMEDIATELY shrunk up and that head of it died. And I mean dead dead, not just withered and recovered later, it flat out killed it.

Also salt mix takes a while to stabilize in pH, you want it to mix for a while before you put it right into the tank.