Hypo in a 240g FOWLR

NeuroticAquatics · Feb 18, 2016

I recently added a Passer Angel to my 240g and now I have Ich. I can not possibly QT all of the inhabitants. They are too big and too many. I'm not sure if this fish brought it in or if it has just not surfaced before but was lurking. I'm going to see how bad it gets and am hoping that it just kinda "goes away". I know it really doesn't, but I'm hoping to go more along the "management route". If need be, I am considering hyposalinity. I know the basics, but what beyond keeping it at 1.008 should I look out for?

The current inhabitants are a Purple Tang, Blonde Naso, Desjardinni Tang, Harlequin Tusk, Lamark Angel, Rusty Angel, Green Bird Wrasse, Long Nose Hawk, the new Passer Angel and a Magnificent Foxface.

The Purple had a few small spots for two days, those are totally gone. The Magnificent has had several more spots for the last two. It is eating and acting normal otherwise. The Passer never showed signs and came from a LFS owner's home tank that he says has never had disease.

Humblefish · Feb 18, 2016

A few tips:

Use a perfectly calibrated refractometer at all times while doing hypo.
The SG must always remain @ 1.009 during the 30 day treatment period. If it inches up even slightly, the 30 day clock restarts. For this reason, many people use an auto top off system while performing hyposalinity.
You will probably have issues keeping your pH up while doing hypo. I good DIY buffer is "baked" baking soda. Spread baking soda onto a clean baking sheet, and bake at 300F for 1 hour. This process drives off water and carbon dioxide from the baking soda, and the result is an effective pH buffer. You will need to experiment (start with a very small amount) to determine how much is needed to raise your pH to the desired level.

Humblefish · Feb 18, 2016

BTW, here is a pretty good article on hypo: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_4/V4I4/hyposalinity/OST.htm

NeuroticAquatics · Feb 19, 2016

I've read those before, but it is always good reading again. Thank you for all the info!

I came home from work today and the Mag Foxface looks much better. You can see where some of the spots were, but there were maybe two left. No other fish are showing signs, so we shall see how they all look in the morning. I don't want to pull the trigger on doing hypo if they can all fight it off and stay healthy moving forward.

The bummer now is that I have a male blue jaw trigger in QT and am worried about adding it now.

NeuroticAquatics · Feb 23, 2016

I've been waiting it out to see if this just settles. All fish are eating and acting fine so far, but it seems to just be bouncing from fish to fish now. The Foxface that originally showed signs looked better for a couple days but had it again this morning and much more[emoji16]. I think I'm going to start pulling the saltwater and adding RODI tonight. I need to pull a couple rocks that have Zoas and montis first.

Will hypo kill chaeto?

Humblefish · Feb 23, 2016

NeuroticAquatics said:
Will hypo kill chaeto?

I've read conflicting things on that. Some say hypo killed all their macroalgae, some claim it adapted.

If you are basically fine with just managing ich, I think your tank would be an excellent candidate for this: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diatom-filter-for-treating-external-parasites.212429/

Somewhere, there's a post about putting DE in a canister filter.

melypr1985 · Feb 23, 2016

^^^ beat me to it. lol I was going to say that I didn't think it would hurt the cheato, but if your removing the corals then it would be easy enough to just put the cheato with them until the hypo is over.

NeuroticAquatics · Feb 23, 2016

melypr1985 said:
^^^ beat me to it. lol I was going to say that I didn't think it would hurt the cheato, but if your removing the corals then it would be easy enough to just put the cheato with them until the hypo is over.

Thanks. That is true. I will probably cut it in half and see what happens to what remains.

NeuroticAquatics · Feb 23, 2016

Humblefish said:
I've read conflicting things on that. Some say hypo killed all their macroalgae, some claim it adapted.

If you are basically fine with just managing ich, I think your tank would be an excellent candidate for this: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diatom-filter-for-treating-external-parasites.212429/

Somewhere, there's a post about putting DE in a canister filter.

So for a 240g FOWLR, what would work? I know nothing about these systems, so not sure what is good versus bad.

I'm going back and forth. I think hypo is the best long term solution, but it worries me having a tank filled with a lot of $150+ fish.

cb684 · Feb 23, 2016

Do you have a clean-up crew? Inverts will likely die with hyposalinity.

Humblefish · Feb 23, 2016

NeuroticAquatics said:
So for a 240g FOWLR, what would work? I know nothing about these systems, so not sure what is good versus bad.

I'm going back and forth. I think hypo is the best long term solution, but it worries me having a tank filled with a lot of $150+ fish.

Hypo is more likely to eradicate the problem once and for all, unless you are unlucky enough to have a hypo resistant strain of ich in your tank.

The diatom filter I am less certain about (for eradication); although in theory, it looks to be an excellent management tool. I'll probably regret doing this, but @robert can advise you best if you wanna try the DE.

NeuroticAquatics · Feb 23, 2016

cb684 said:
Do you have a clean-up crew? Inverts will likely die with hyposalinity.

No crabs or snails. I do have a huge blue bristle star. How do those do with hypo?

Humblefish · Feb 23, 2016

NeuroticAquatics said:
No crabs or snails. I do have a huge blue bristle star. How do those do with hypo?

I don't think any invert can handle hypo conditions.

NeuroticAquatics · Mar 2, 2016

Well, I'm going for hypo. I woke up yesterday and more fish have Ich and it has gone from a few spots to full blown, body covered.

My RO unit does not work fast enough, so I may have to make a trip to the water dispensing machines to speed up the process. I swapped out about 40 gallons last night.

So far, I've lost the Lamark Angel that actually was eating and acting fine. That one surprised me. My Harlequin Tusk and Passer Angel are not looking good and I am worried about them. My Magnificent Foxface and Green Bird wrasse are covered, but acting fairly normal and eating well. The Purple and Naso Tangs are not showing signs and the Sailfin has a few spots.

sc50964 · Mar 2, 2016

NeuroticAquatics said:
Well, I'm going for hypo. I woke up yesterday and more fish have Ich and it has gone from a few spots to full blown, body covered.

My RO unit does not work fast enough, so I may have to make a trip to the water dispensing machines to speed up the process. I swapped out about 40 gallons last night.

So far, I've lost the Lamark Angel that actually was eating and acting fine. That one surprised me. My Harlequin Tusk and Passer Angel are not looking good and I am worried about them. My Magnificent Foxface and Green Bird wrasse are covered, but acting fairly normal and eating well. The Purple and Naso Tangs are not showing signs and the Sailfin has a few spots.

Have you tried cupramine? I've had good exp using it.

NeuroticAquatics · Mar 2, 2016

It's a fully stocked 240g. I'm not sure I want to expose all the rock to copper.

Humblefish · Mar 2, 2016

Odd that the tangs are not showing spots, as they are usually the most susceptible due to their thin mucous coat. Post some pics of the worst looking fish, if you can. I get paranoid about velvet when I read "full blown, body covered".

NeuroticAquatics · Mar 2, 2016

It is odd. The Purple was actually the first to show signs of Ich, but it was only about a dozen spots and those disappeared after a couple days. I will look closer at the Naso as the grey body could be making the spots more difficult to see. The Desjardini looked okay too, but that's another body that easily hides stuff.

There are spots that I am certain are Ich. The "covered bodies" does have a MV look to it, but every case I've seen in the past kills super quick (within 48 hrs). My thoughts against MV are that I've had most of these fish for months or close to two years. This all started when I added the Passer Angel about three weeks ago. This Passer came from a LFS owners reef tank and he has had it for 5+ years. Never any symptoms. They did have it in their store's Frag tank for a few days, but the other fish in there are apparently fine. I'm thinking this Angel may have become the "Alpha" and stressed the other fish out. It was not aggressive, but also did not back down to the Tangs that typically rule the tank.

Sorry if this rambles...I'm at work typing on my phone and bring distracted every few minutes...

I will try to get pics when I get home later.

sc50964 · Mar 2, 2016

NeuroticAquatics said:
It's a fully stocked 240g. I'm not sure I want to expose all the rock to copper.

I once had the same fear about dosing cupramine into my fully stock 180g, and I waited and depended on other methods to resolve the ich and velvet issues. I ended up losing all my angels, tangs, and wrasses. I've since started using cupramine in the 180g FOWLR. Yes it does get into the rocks and sand, but it is not lethal at the recommended dosage and doesn't kill the biofilter, and fish got to fight off ich. Unless you have a large enough QT for all your fish, I don't see there is a better alternative. Changing the salinity all the way down to 1.008 needs to be done gradually. Otherwise it's just as stressful and perhaps counterproductive in improving their health.

Humblefish · Mar 2, 2016

FWIW; you technically can dose copper in a FOWLR but it is not without its pitfalls. First, there's the obvious that you will probably never be able to put any corals/inverts in the tank again until you give all the rock a muriatic acid bath to get all the copper out. I know some who've had success spending months running Cuprisorb or a poly filter to pull all the copper out of the water, but how do you know when the rock is done leaching copper?

Second problem you will encounter is an unstable copper level as the rock absorbs and then leaches the copper back out. This can continue for some time until the Cu level stabilizes. Daily testing is required if you plan on dosing copper with rock/substrate present.