hyposalinity - how long for fish to appear better?

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HkySk8r187

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Oct 18, 2004
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Some of my fish have ich so I moved my inverts to another tank and am using hyposalinity to treat the ich. I have had my SG at 1.011 for about a week now and the fish dont look any better. I'm just wondering how long it should take to see a difference. Should they look better sooner than a week or does it take longer? I'm thinking maybe the SG should be even lower? I read an article on a science forum once that says to lower it to 1.009 which seems really low.

I'm also not sure of what my tolorences are for my fish. I have one clown, and one pygme angel in the tank right now.
 
what kind of clown and is it tank raised? The angel might not tolerate such low salinity. They are kinda picky about stuff like that.Your coral might not survive it either. Personally I use marine ich treatment to get rid of it. I've never tried hyposalinity but I just switched my fish to a bigger tank and had a problem of ths salinity at 1.016 because I didnt have enough salt mix. The tomato clown(tank raised) survived but I only had it at that salinity for a day or two then I raised it back up when I bought some more mix. So they are going to survive just dont over do it. And go see about some treatment you put in water. I know there are some that dont harm corals etc. because we just had a discussion about this in another thread.
 
My coral isn't in the tank...just some LR, LS, and the 2 fish. I have no idea if they are tank raised or not. They seem to be acting normal though and eat regularly so they appear to be doing OK.

I was trying to stay away from chemicals since they have side effects and can stay in the tank for quite some time after you arne't using them. I'm also trying to kill all ich that exists, not just get it off the fish.
 
set all fish and LR LS etc. in buckets and clean tank out with bleach rinse rinse rinse continue and let the tank sit for a couple days then rinse again again etc. then finally set it up. Bleach will kill the ih. Thats how I do it if the medicine doesnt work. But u have to rinse it out REALLY WELL!
 
QT is essential. You should have your corals be in the main tank and your fish in another, treat the fish, and let the main tank go fallow for six weeks... then add the uninfected fish again!
 
That chlorine bleach idea will never work. Once u add the animals again and the rocks and stuff u will reinfect the tank
 
well I was saying to add them back in AFTER hes has treated them as well. I was just saying clean the tank so when the fish are cured they wont get reinfected.
 
Well the ich is likely on the live rock anyway rather than the glass so it strikes me as a waste of time.

Are you still getting spots? I had my SG down to 1.008, 1.009 when I used hypo and it was fine but beware your pH doesn't start to slip too far down - get a pH buffer product.

I'd get my live rock out as whil filter bacteria are barely affected by changes in salinity, a lot of your hitchhikers will be dead by now. You wantto minimise this, plus minimise ammonai build up from the die off.

I took my salinity down from sea water to 1.009 over 2 days- fish handle reductions in salinity much better than rises. Beware, you will inevitably get a fantastic slime algae attack!People have taken angels down to 9 ppm salinity before which is akin to 1.007 I think
 
Alot of this sounds barbaric. Bleaching a tank? That would be a big NO NO. Not to mention alot of unncessary work.

If you have an ich problem - do the following.

DO NOT DO HYPOSALINITY! You are doing nothing more than creating more stress for the fish and decreasing it's health. This in turn will continue the ich cycle as ich spreads to fish that are unhealthy and have a poor immune system. DO NOT DO HYPOSALINITY!

Now that you have the salinity low, you need to get it back up. Raise it slowly over the course of a few hours - 8 would be good or more. The sooner, the better. Start feeding a healthy diet. Use garlic extract by KENT in their food. Also add some selcon (vitamins). Feed this daily.

Go buy some MELAFIX - a big blue plastic bottle with the DR. Fish on it. Can't miss it. It's in most pet stores. Start dosing that. Do what the directions say and then a little extra. Continue this for a week or so. This will help clear up ich and boost the fishes immune system.

If things are not getting better or are getting worse, get a UV sterilizer. This should clear out the "spores" and help get things back to normal. Continue with healthy feeding and melafix. Once things look good, remove the sterilizer and continue with a healthy diet.

Check your water parems and get your salinity BACK UP ASAP! All you have done is escelated the problem.

Good luck.
 
melafix does not treat ich but it does prevent secondary bacterial infections... she really just needs to get a qt tank and treat it with coppersafe, because vitamins alone will possibly not cure the ich.
 
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