To hypo or not?

[dangle]

Should a healthy looking fish go through a hyposalinity treatment while in qt or should everything be kept at normal levels and just observed for disease while it's in there?

I just got a new powder brown/white-cheek tang. It's in the QT tank, it's very healthy looking, no sign of any disease and is already eating everything I give it. But since it is a tang and more prone to ich, I was wondering if I should lower the salinity anyways for 4 weeks just in case. Is it a good thing to do, the hypo treatment, or unnecessary at this point?

Thank you.

 

[leebca]

IMHO ALL tangs should be treated for BOTH Marine Ich and Marine Velvet. That means giving them at least a two-week treatment in a copper medication.

 

[dangle]

Thanks for the reply. I thought copper wasn't recommended for treatment, especially for tangs for some reason ( I wish the search function would work at least some of the time ).

So I already have Cupramine and a test kit that I used about a year ago, hopefully it's still good, and I can get started on the treatment right away.

One other question. Does this mean after a two week copper treatment and say another week to carbon the copper out, I can put the tang into the main tank, assuming all goes well? Or should I wait the normal 4 to 6 weeks in the QT.

Thanks again.

 

[leebca]

A very astute question. Before I answer it I should recommend you get a new copper test kit AND make sure you only use a Seachem Copper Test Kit to test the copper when you use Seachem Cupramine medication.

Controlling the copper level is essential to success. You can't count on you being an expert and doing everything perfectly right all the time. (Neither can I count on myself for this)!

After the copper treatment you keep the fish in QT another 4 weeks minimum to verify that your treatment was a success AND to be sure the fish didn't have some disease that copper doesn't treat.

During copper treatment, pay close attention to water quality. Don't let the water give you any ammonia readings at all, and also below 0.5 nitrites.

Copper is the best medication that will handle BOTH Marine Ich and Marine Velvet which a wild-caught tang is likely to have. If you knew for sure the fish only had Marine Ich, then you would prefer to do a hyposalinity treatment. But wild-caught tangs are the only fish I do a copper treatment for both diseases as a matter of standard procedure, during their quarantine.

Good luck! :rollface:

 

[kevin2000]

My 02

I would never recommend using copper as a std part of QTing .. hard on the fish (even Cupramine) and difficult to administer. Unless you know your fish has amylo/marine velvet I believe you are going to be better off using hyposalinity which will be effective against ich which is significantly more likely than amylo.

If you do go the copper route .. I would avoid using the Seachem copper test kits .. plenty of posts indicating that Seachem has had a number of problems with those kits .. better off using one of the newer Salifert test kits or perhaps a Red Sea test kit.