Fish Having Trouble Eating After Hyposalinity

[dru]

Hey all. I recently treated my 4" dogface puffer and 3 1/2" harlequin tusk in hyposalinity as both were experiencing ich in my 16 gallon quarantine tank. I had already had the puffer in there two weeks prior to adding the tusk and the puffer developed ich symptoms again a week later as I had gradually moved the salinity from 1.009 back up to 1.016, which I thought would still be sufficient to kill ich. After this, I gradually moved the salinity back to 1.009 over the course of a day. After being in there a week and two days after the puffer started showing symptoms again, I moved the tusk back to my 150 gallon aquarium, as it no longer seemed to have ich and although I know a week isnt long enough, it seemed very stressed so I decided to move it as I feared it main die if not. Over the course of 12 hours, I gradually acclimated the tusk, which I had in a bucket with a bubbler and a heater, to 1.025 salinity and put it in my main system. Two days after I did this, aka today, the puffer, who is no longer showing ich symptoms, seems to be having trouble eating. It will miss frequently when going for a piece of food and has been swimming against the glass and sometimes moving backwards quickly suddenly. Around thirty minutes ago, I did a water change that raised the puffer's tank's salinity up to 1.016, as I was worried about it and figured that maybe this was being caused by it being in hyposalinity for too long. However, after this, I went to feed my main tank and noticed that the tusk was similarly having difficulty eating. This is caused me to doubt that this was caused by prolonged hyposalinity exposure, as the tusk had only been in there about a week, and now I don't understand why they are acting like this. Based off of this information, what do you all think could be causing this and, if possible, how can I solve this problem?

 

[lagatbezan]

The issues could be due to increasing the salinity in such fast rate. It should usually be done gradually within 5-7 days minimum. You can drop the salinity in about 24 hours but raising it needs to be much longer and slower.
Also a week is not sufficient to eradicate ich. There are also other parasites like velvet and flukes that needs to be treated for while in qt As well.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Were you closely monitoring the ammonia during hypo? Those are two really large fish for a 16 gallon QT. If you were testing, do you trust the results?

As stated, you need to bring fish out of hypo over days, not hours, but since you did this to the fish at different times, I don't think it is related.

Tuskfish are delicate (unless you got an Australian one). Puffers are of course, tougher. I wonder if you should give the puffer a 5 minute FW dip and look for flukes?

Jay

 

[dru]

Were you closely monitoring the ammonia during hypo? Those are two really large fish for a 16 gallon QT. If you were testing, do you trust the results?

As stated, you need to bring fish out of hypo over days, not hours, but since you did this to the fish at different times, I don't think it is related.

Tuskfish are delicate (unless you got an Australian one). Puffers are of course, tougher. I wonder if you should give the puffer a 5 minute FW dip and look for flukes?

Jay

The water was pretty cloudy, but I was doing a 1/3 water change every day, so I don't think ammonia was the issue. Have you heard of anyone having similar issues after raising the salinity too quick?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Ammonia can build up much faster than people realize; with an impaired biofilter, a 1 ppm rise in 24 hours is not unheard of. A 1/3 water change could leave you at greater than 1/2 a ppm, a potentially lethal amount. The cloudy water is a smoking gun for that.
I reread your post- the tuskfish went from 1.009 to 1.025 in 12 hours, that is too fast. I typically raise SG nor more than 0.003 units per day, so 4 days for this move. Anything faster, and the fish dehydrate, possibly fatally. One symptom of this is the fish suddenly looks thinner than it did...
Jay

 

[dru]

Ammonia can build up much faster than people realize; with an impaired biofilter, a 1 ppm rise in 24 hours is not unheard of. A 1/3 water change could leave you at greater than 1/2 a ppm, a potentially lethal amount. The cloudy water is a smoking gun for that.
I reread your post- the tuskfish went from 1.009 to 1.025 in 12 hours, that is too fast. I typically raise SG nor more than 0.003 units per day, so 4 days for this move. Anything faster, and the fish dehydrate, possibly fatally. One symptom of this is the fish suddenly looks thinner than it did...
Jay

I can see that I've made a mistake in raising the salinity too quick. Could this or high ammonia levels cause this strange behavior though?

 

[Albertan22]

Yes it could. I’m sorry to say that coming out of hyposalinity that fast is likely to result in death, and fish do weird things before death.

I’m curious, were you monitoring pH in hypo? It can be hard to keep it from dropping too low at 1.009 sg and could have been the source of the stress you were observing. When I use hypo I almost always have to buffer pH regularly to keep it in an acceptable range.

 

[dru]

Yes it could. I’m sorry to say that coming out of hyposalinity that fast is likely to result in death, and fish do weird things before death.

I’m curious, were you monitoring pH in hypo? It can be hard to keep it from dropping too low at 1.009 sg and could have been the source of the stress you were observing. When I use hypo I almost always have to buffer pH regularly to keep it in an acceptable range.

I was using buffer to monitor the pH. Also, as an update, my tusk seems fine now and the puffer is still acting a bit weird but much less so than last night.