Help with Hypo... at least 7 things I don't know :(

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fsn77

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Feb 22, 2006
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Well, wouldn't you know it... A lot of people say we'll all face marine ich at point, and my time has come.

After the loss of our female angel a few months ago to unknown reasons (she lost her appetite and stopped eating, but showed no visible signs of any ailment and we couldn't sucessfully get her eating again), we decided to acquire another female for our male angel. It turns out that he was not so pleased with her (who knew harem society breeders were so picky), and after a 24 hour period of them being together, I had to remove her because he had become too aggressive towards her, corralling her into the corners of the tank without allowing her to move away and chewing on her fins.

I put her into QT and she continued to eat very well for almost a week. Yesterday, she was uninterested in food and upon further inspection, she has become infected with marine ich. Thus far, I've yet to see any signs of it in the fish remaining in the display tank (keeping my fingers crossed). I began hyposalinity treatment last night, and have a few questions that I've been unable to find good answers to just searching on my own:

1) Is a 20% reduction in specific gravity each day an appropriate rate for initiating hyposalinity?
2) How long should hyposalinity be maintained? I've read 4 weeks and 6 weeks -- which is it?
3) There's no established filter on the QT, just some live rock... Should I still attempt to feed on a normal schedule (once daily) during the hyposalinity? Is a reduced schedule better while I get a small canister filter up and running to better establish a biofilter?
4) Is it a good idea to dose the QT tank with antibiotics as a preventitive measure against secondary bacterial infections?
5) There's a skimmer on the QT -- at what specific gravity will it become useless?
6) There's a few pieces of live rock in the QT -- should they be removed? If so, do I need to dry out or fw soak it to kill off any ich that might be associated with it? It's was dry base rock 6 months ago and was in the sump of the display tank, so I wouldn't be losing any nice coralline or killing off live rock that's been established for years and years.
7) At what rate should the specific gravity be raised back to normal -- 20% like it was brought down?

Thanks in advance!
 

sharkmatt

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Dec 17, 2004
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1. This depends how you're working out the percentage. I wouldn't drop quicker than 0.002sg per day.
2. I'd go for 6 weeks if the fish seem to be happy in hypo. You may have to cut it short if they're stressed. Minimum 4 weeks but the longer the better.
3. A few things to consider here:
a. You're better having a bare bottomed tank with no liverock for treatment/qt. The rock is just somewhere else for the tomonts (resting stage of the ich lifecycle) to attach and hide. If you need cover it's much better to use some pvc pipe. The liverock is also unlikely to survive the drop in specific gravity so won't be of much use filtration wise anyway.
b.Whilst treating I'd reduce the feeding regime anyway. When stressed/ill the fish is less likely to eat and therefore any food added will probably just add to the bio load. I'd feed every 2-3 days with a high quality food soaked in selcon or some other immune booster.
c. You need to get the cannister filter on there at the start if possible. If you add it after starting the hypo, any bacteria present in the cannister will die due to the sudden drop in sg. If you add it at the start they should adapt and recover relatively efficiently as you drop the sg day by day.
4. I don't think it's ever a good idea to dose medicines in a prophylactic manner, it can just cause the fish further undue stress and make the situation worse instead of better. It's similar to not giving humans anti biotics for every small cold they have. If you do the anti biotics are far less effective when eventually really needed. Wait for any secondary infections to manifest and treat appropriately. Your best defense against this is exemplary water conditions and chemistry.
5. It should still work at sg 1.009 which is generally what is reccomended for hypo to be effective, but it will be less efficient as the bubbles do not form as easily in less saline water. It will be of use but don't rely on it.
6. You would need to dry it thouroghly to be sure of killing any ich tomonts but I would remove it anyway due the reasons stated in answer 2.
7. I'd stick with no more than sg0.001 per day on the way back up. Fish are more sensitive to quick salinity increases than decreases.

A couple more things I'd like to add:

1. If you haven't got one, get a refractometer. Hypo-salinity only works effectively if the salinity is maintained exactly at the required sg (1.009) for the required time (4 weeks min). IMHO a refractometer is the only way of assuring this accuracy.
2. If the female angel was in your dt before showing symptoms of the ich, it's likely your dt is infested. Ich may well have been present in your dt already and the stress caused to the female from introduction and subsequent bullying by the male reduced her immunity enough to allow the ich to take hold. Ich can be asymptomatic, meaning it can be present in the fish without symptoms showing. The fish build up a certain amount of resilience to the effects of the parasite living in them so they don't show symptoms but are still infected. This may be happening with your other fish and is why you see no symptoms on them.

HTH and good luck, Matt.
 

Amphiprion

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Feb 14, 2007
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Well, wouldn't you know it... A lot of people say we'll all face marine ich at point, and my time has come.

After the loss of our female angel a few months ago to unknown reasons (she lost her appetite and stopped eating, but showed no visible signs of any ailment and we couldn't sucessfully get her eating again), we decided to acquire another female for our male angel. It turns out that he was not so pleased with her (who knew harem society breeders were so picky), and after a 24 hour period of them being together, I had to remove her because he had become too aggressive towards her, corralling her into the corners of the tank without allowing her to move away and chewing on her fins.

I put her into QT and she continued to eat very well for almost a week. Yesterday, she was uninterested in food and upon further inspection, she has become infected with marine ich. Thus far, I've yet to see any signs of it in the fish remaining in the display tank (keeping my fingers crossed). I began hyposalinity treatment last night, and have a few questions that I've been unable to find good answers to just searching on my own:

1) Is a 20% reduction in specific gravity each day an appropriate rate for initiating hyposalinity? Shoot for around 2 changes per day, with 5ppt reduction per change.
2) How long should hyposalinity be maintained? I've read 4 weeks and 6 weeks -- which is it? Actually, 6 weeks are recommended. This is due to the potential presence of more resistant Cryptocaryon subspecies.
3) There's no established filter on the QT, just some live rock... Should I still attempt to feed on a normal schedule (once daily) during the hyposalinity? Is a reduced schedule better while I get a small canister filter up and running to better establish a biofilter? Anything that can maintain water quality as much as possible should be employed. If that means delaying some feedings until you can establish the filter, then so be it. Be sure to have plenty of 1.009 SG water ready to go for water changes.
4) Is it a good idea to dose the QT tank with antibiotics as a preventitive measure against secondary bacterial infections? You can dose antibiotics if need be. I just don't like to mix it with copper, but hyposalinity is fine. Just remember it can allow some antibiotics to be more effective.
5) There's a skimmer on the QT -- at what specific gravity will it become useless? Not entirely sure--too many factors. The organic load, etc. will also determine this. If anything, it will be good gas exchange, unless you add antibiotics, in which case I would remove it.
6) There's a few pieces of live rock in the QT -- should they be removed? If so, do I need to dry out or fw soak it to kill off any ich that might be associated with it? It's was dry base rock 6 months ago and was in the sump of the display tank, so I wouldn't be losing any nice coralline or killing off live rock that's been established for years and years. You can leave it if you don't mind killing stuff on it. Otherwise, just let it dry out. Most bacteria won't be killed, however.
7) At what rate should the specific gravity be raised back to normal -- 20% like it was brought down? It should be raised more slowly than it was dropped. Around .002 per day is what I would do.

Thanks in advance!
All advice in red. Be sure to keep an eye out for fluctuations in pH and alkalinity, both of which tend to drop more easily in the diluted solution.
 
Last edited:

fsn77

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Feb 22, 2006
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Thank you both for your very informative help! It's much appreciated.

I'll be sure to keep a close eye on pH and KH through this process.


A couple more things I'd like to add:

1. If you haven't got one, get a refractometer. Hypo-salinity only works effectively if the salinity is maintained exactly at the required sg (1.009) for the required time (4 weeks min). IMHO a refractometer is the only way of assuring this accuracy.
2. If the female angel was in your dt before showing symptoms of the ich, it's likely your dt is infested. Ich may well have been present in your dt already and the stress caused to the female from introduction and subsequent bullying by the male reduced her immunity enough to allow the ich to take hold. Ich can be asymptomatic, meaning it can be present in the fish without symptoms showing. The fish build up a certain amount of resilience to the effects of the parasite living in them so they don't show symptoms but are still infected. This may be happening with your other fish and is why you see no symptoms on them.

HTH and good luck, Matt.

1. I do use a refractometer to measure specific gravity, after discovering the downfalls of a hydrometer early on when I picked up this hobby. I will say that I also find a refractometer to be much easier to use than a hydrometer.

2. In the case that our display tank is potentially infested but asymptomatic, what can I do? If I ran the tank fallow for 2 - 3 months, would that work to clear the tank? If so and I moved the fish to another tank (there's only 3 other fish in the tank -- a pair of clowns and the male angel), I take it that hyposalinity for them would be the only way to insure I don't bring the ich back into our display tank?

In the same light, if I were to remove the fish and run the tank fallow, do I risk the reintroduction of ich to the tank with each coral or invert addition I make after running the tank fallow? I drip acclimate all additions to our tanks and none of the water the critters come in goes into our tank, but can the ich be attached to the shells of snails / hermits or come in on a frag plug / piece of LR with corals? If so, is a 6 week quarantine of corals and inverts the only way to make sure ich is not reintroduced (minus the hyposalinity treatment, of course)?

Thanks again!
 

sharkmatt

AC Members
Dec 17, 2004
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Thank you both for your very informative help! It's much appreciated.

I'll be sure to keep a close eye on pH and KH through this process.





1. I do use a refractometer to measure specific gravity, after discovering the downfalls of a hydrometer early on when I picked up this hobby. I will say that I also find a refractometer to be much easier to use than a hydrometer.

2. In the case that our display tank is potentially infested but asymptomatic, what can I do? If I ran the tank fallow for 2 - 3 months, would that work to clear the tank? If so and I moved the fish to another tank (there's only 3 other fish in the tank -- a pair of clowns and the male angel), I take it that hyposalinity for them would be the only way to insure I don't bring the ich back into our display tank?

In the same light, if I were to remove the fish and run the tank fallow, do I risk the reintroduction of ich to the tank with each coral or invert addition I make after running the tank fallow? I drip acclimate all additions to our tanks and none of the water the critters come in goes into our tank, but can the ich be attached to the shells of snails / hermits or come in on a frag plug / piece of LR with corals? If so, is a 6 week quarantine of corals and inverts the only way to make sure ich is not reintroduced (minus the hyposalinity treatment, of course)?

Thanks again!
Glad I could help, Ich is such a £$%*&! Happy to see you use a refractometer and I agree they're so much easier/cleaner/quicker to use than a hydrometer. They're not much more expensive either. As to your other question, it's a 50/50 situation really. You could run your tank fallow, 6 weeks is generally enough, but you're right in thinking that any new coral, snail , rock etc could re-introduce the ich. Ich has a 3 stage life cycle; the first is called a trophont, this is the stage that lives in the fish; the second stage is when the trophont drops off the fish as a protrophont and falls to the substrate where it forms a resting/developmental cyst called a tomont which lasts for 3-30 days depending on conditions. The Ich then reproduces inside the cyst forming numerous individuals called theronts; the third stage is when the theronts break out of the cyst and become free swimming, at which point they have approx 24-48 hours to find a fish host before they die. During the second encysted stage, the tomont can and does attach to anything wet, so anything that is wet can harbour Ich! That's why it's so difficult to eradicate completely. A 6 week non-hypo qt of all non fish items, in a quarantine tank without fish, before addition to the dt should ensure all tomonts have hatched and the theronts have died before intro into the dt. If you wanted to fallow the dt, the 3 other fish would need to be treated with hypo yes. It's a no-win situation really. Do you stress the remaining fish by hypo-ing them or do you leave them in the dt and hope that it's not infested! Personally, unless the fish seem in any distress I wouldnt bother fallowing the tank. As you've seen, it's not impossible but very difficult to maintain an ich free system but it shouldn't be a problem as long as the fish are healthy. As a point of interest, the third free swimming stage (theront) is the only stage susceptible to treatment of any kind. A lot of people think ich has disappeared when the spots disappear from the fish, only to find it re-appears 3-30 days later when the tomonts hatch and re-infest the fish. This may happen with you, so carefully monitor the other three fish for the next month or so. Any visible symptoms and I'd qt them and treat them with hypo a.s.a.p. Sorry that was so long but you need to understand the life cycle to understand how they are transported/eradicated.

Hope that helps, Matt.
 

Amphiprion

Contain the Excitement...
Feb 14, 2007
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Mobile, Alabama
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Andrew
Thank you both for your very informative help! It's much appreciated.

I'll be sure to keep a close eye on pH and KH through this process.





1. I do use a refractometer to measure specific gravity, after discovering the downfalls of a hydrometer early on when I picked up this hobby. I will say that I also find a refractometer to be much easier to use than a hydrometer.

2. In the case that our display tank is potentially infested but asymptomatic, what can I do? If I ran the tank fallow for 2 - 3 months, would that work to clear the tank? If so and I moved the fish to another tank (there's only 3 other fish in the tank -- a pair of clowns and the male angel), I take it that hyposalinity for them would be the only way to insure I don't bring the ich back into our display tank?

In the same light, if I were to remove the fish and run the tank fallow, do I risk the reintroduction of ich to the tank with each coral or invert addition I make after running the tank fallow? I drip acclimate all additions to our tanks and none of the water the critters come in goes into our tank, but can the ich be attached to the shells of snails / hermits or come in on a frag plug / piece of LR with corals? If so, is a 6 week quarantine of corals and inverts the only way to make sure ich is not reintroduced (minus the hyposalinity treatment, of course)?

Thanks again!
If you want to ensure as thorough an eradication as possible, all of that is going to be necessary--quarantine and treatment of other fish, as well as a lengthy fallow period. Quarantine of all new additions for that length of time is also necessary. Personally, I am lazier in that regard. I quarantine fishes, but not anything else. But, because of that, that risk is always present.
 

fsn77

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Feb 22, 2006
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I wish I had good news to report this morning, but the truth is that I have the complete opposite. I woke up this morning to find the female angel dead. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong... Perhaps the first drop down of hyposalinity I made was too large too soon a couple of nights ago (lowered it from 1.024 to 1.020 over the course of a few hours based on the only suggestions I could find online at that time). She was looking a little stressed last night and we had family arrive from out of state yesterday, so I decided to skip a day thinking another drop in specific gravity would only stress her more. I added the canister filter yesterday after work to help with the filtration, and I hoped to wake up this morning to find her adjusting better. It really sucks to wake up and find the complete opposite.

Is it likely that initial drop from 1.024 to 1.020 was too large for her?
Or, could it be that her ich infection was worse than I thought and it caused her to spiral downhill that quickly?

I realize the answers to either or both of those questions is likely to be "probably" and difficult to say with absolute certainty, but I suppose I'm trying to figure out what I did wrong.
 

Amphiprion

Contain the Excitement...
Feb 14, 2007
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Andrew
That drop wasn't too much, nor was it exactly what killed her. If she was heavily stressed from the beginning, the added stress of moving, etc. etc. may have been too much. So in all, I suspect the latter of what you said, in conjunction with everything else. But that is merely dealing with chances. As to precisely what did kill her, that is too difficult to narrow down, as you said.

In any case, I am sorry for your loss. These things happen, but I feel that you did everything you could/should have done, so don't feel too badly about it.
 

fsn77

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Feb 22, 2006
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Thank you for the kind words. It always sucks to lose a fish. It's hard to not feel bad, though, knowing how infrequently those fish turn up locally and how much work it is to collect them. Hopefully, in the future, my efforts will have much better results.
 

sharkmatt

AC Members
Dec 17, 2004
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Sorry to hear that. I agree with amphiprion, it was probably a combination of factors that killed the fish, not any one thing.
 
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