Hyposalinity Quarantine

AfricanReefBoy · Feb 28, 2020

I have some fish in quarantine and as soon as I added the powder blue tang (of course) I started to see ich. I decided to try hyposalinity (1.009 SG) instead of copper. Couple days after starting hypo I see cysts falling off and are all over the bottom...is this normal? Has anyone every experienced this?

nereefpat · Feb 28, 2020

I don't think that you can see ich in that stage with the naked eye. That's just debris of some sort.

Good luck with the hypo. Really nice group of fishes there.

Skynyrd Fish · Feb 28, 2020

James great looking fish. Good luck with hypo.

AfricanReefBoy · Feb 28, 2020

nereefpat said:
I don't think that you can see ich in that stage with the naked eye. That's just debris of some sort.

Good luck with the hypo. Really nice group of fishes there.

Thank you very much. I didn't think that you could see ich, I thought it might be the cysts that they form. But I think you are right, it is a coincidence that I noticed the debris after I dropped the salinity. I appreciate you taking the time to reply! Happy reefing!

AfricanReefBoy · Feb 28, 2020

Skynyrd Fish said:
James great looking fish. Good luck with hypo.

Thank you, that is much appreciated!

Miller535 · Feb 28, 2020

nereefpat said:
I don't think that you can see ich in that stage with the naked eye. That's just debris of some sort.

Good luck with the hypo. Really nice group of fishes there.

Agreed.

Does the powder blue tang look to be improving?

AfricanReefBoy · Feb 28, 2020

Miller535 said:
Agreed.

Does the powder blue tang look to be improving?

The powder blue does look to be improving, I have noticed less white spots and an increased appetite. I have been feeding like crazy to fatten them all up.

Miller535 · Feb 28, 2020

James Obegi said:
The powder blue does look to be improving, I have noticed less white spots and an increased appetite. I have been feeding like crazy to fatten them all up.

That's good. Glad to hear it.

Flame2hawk · Apr 25, 2020

Hopefully all good outcome with PB and other fish....

AfricanReefBoy · Apr 25, 2020

Flame2hawk said:
Hopefully all good outcome with PB and other fish....

They are doing good. I'm now raising the salinity slowly back to 1.025. Thank you

CindyKz · Apr 25, 2020

Good luck! Hoping they do well.

RobertTheNurse · May 10, 2020

James Obegi said:
They are doing good. I'm now raising the salinity slowly back to 1.025. Thank you

Hey James,

Can I ask you for a coles notes version for how you performed your hyposalinity? There is so many information yours seems recent, how did you do, and how are fishes??

Rob

AfricanReefBoy · May 10, 2020

RobertTheNurse said:
Hey James,

Can I ask you for a coles notes version for how you performed your hyposalinity? There is so many information yours seems recent, how did you do, and how are fishes??

Rob

Hey Rob,

When I noticed ich on the first fish I:

1. Over the course of 3 days dropped the salinity to 1.009.

2. My QT tank has a hang off the back filter and air pump driven filter (that is mostly for aerating the water.

3. They were kept at 1.009 for about 5 weeks. I didn't see any sign of ich on them.

4. Over the course of a week I slowly brought the salinity back up to 1.025.

My powder blue didn't make it through the last week when I was raising the salinity. From what I understand now, the method works but is stressful on the fish. From talking to more people I feel like the tank transfer method is more tedious to implement but works well and is less stressful on the fish.

I hope this information helps and proves useful.

Happy reefing!

aquariumclub · May 10, 2020

Thank you, that is much appreciated!

Uncle99 · May 10, 2020

In hypo water, the ick parasite can no longer control its water intake. It takes the water in, but cannot expel it at the same rate, thus, the parasite literally explodes, and is done, dead, not coming back.

in Hypo, we expect that the dots should start to disappear in 4-7 days, however, we should go 21 days after the last dot is gone to be sure.

of course, hypo only works on the ick parasite.

AfricanReefBoy · May 10, 2020

Uncle99 said:
In hypo water, the ick parasite can no longer control its water intake. It takes the water in, but cannot expel it at the same rate, thus, the parasite literally explodes, and is done, dead, not coming back.

in Hypo, we expect that the dots should start to disappear in 4-7 days, however, we should go 21 days after the last dot is gone to be sure.

of course, hypo only works on the ick parasite.

That's absolutely right! This doesn't work on something like velvet...

Thank you for that!

Powderclownanthias · May 30, 2020

James Obegi said:
Hey Rob,

When I noticed ich on the first fish I:

1. Over the course of 3 days dropped the salinity to 1.009.

2. My QT tank has a hang off the back filter and air pump driven filter (that is mostly for aerating the water.

3. They were kept at 1.009 for about 5 weeks. I didn't see any sign of ich on them.

4. Over the course of a week I slowly brought the salinity back up to 1.025.

My powder blue didn't make it through the last week when I was raising the salinity. From what I understand now, the method works but is stressful on the fish. From talking to more people I feel like the tank transfer method is more tedious to implement but works well and is less stressful on the fish.

I hope this information helps and proves useful.

Happy reefing!

Hey there , I'm on the Same boat right now and I just trying to save my powder, mimic and clown , so I understand your powder tang is gone after increase salinity, was he eating will in the process ? Do you recommend go long increasing salinity? Like 2 weeks or 3 ?
Thanks in advance.

AfricanReefBoy · May 30, 2020

Powderclownanthias said:
Hey there , I'm on the Same boat right now and I just trying to save my powder, mimic and clown , so I understand your powder tang is gone after increase salinity, was he eating will in the process ? Do you recommend go long increasing salinity? Like 2 weeks or 3 ?
Thanks in advance.

Hello,
The powder blue was eating the whole time throughout the process. I would definitely recommend a long time to bring up your salinity, 2 weeks at least I would have done now in hindsight.

Now that I understand the process a little bit more, I probably would have tried the tank transfer method. It's more tedious but usually produces the best results and is less stressful on the fish.

I hope that this information is useful.

Albertan22 · May 30, 2020

The longest I have ever done hyposalinity is 30 days. Followed by a week of raising the salinity. Many will stop at 21 days and then bring salinity back up. I don’t follow any rule of a minimum of days after the ich disappears. When they are in hypo their kidneys don’t function properly, they can only take that for so long. You can observe them for a couple weeks after they are back at normal salinity if you want to make sure you got it all.

AfricanReefBoy · May 30, 2020

Albertan22 said:
The longest I have ever done hyposalinity is 30 days. Followed by a week of raising the salinity. Many will stop at 21 days and then bring salinity back up. I don’t follow any rule of a minimum of days after the ich disappears. When they are in hypo their kidneys don’t function properly, they can only take that for so long. You can observe them for a couple weeks after they are back at normal salinity if you want to make sure you got it all.

That's a excellent point that I don't think I mentioned...observing them after you bring the salinity back up. Make sure the ich is gone.