Question on length for hypo.

[jsvand5]

I have and achillies, powder blue, morish idol, and blue tang all going through hypo in a 55gal tank. The achillies showed a few spots for the first couple days but is now clear. None of the others showed any symptoms at all. It’s been 7 days. All fish are destroying NLS and TDO pellets 5 times a day. Tank started as a sterile qt. Refractometer is calibrated to 1.009.

I see a lot of info saying 4 weeks minimum for hypo but I don’t really understand why. If hypo is supposed to work by killing the parasites as they fall off the fish, and from what I read trophont remains on the fish for 3-9 days, why would a 4 week Qt at 1.009 be required? I was considering trying 2 weeks before transferring all fish to a new tank and then begin raising the salinity.

 

[Brad Miller]

OMG...that's a small tank for all those guys;Happy

 

[jsvand5]

OMG...that's a small tank for all those guys;Happy

Yep. They’ll be heading to a 210 soon enough. No fighting at all at this point.

 

[Smo]

Most have given up on hypo-salinity as a sole QT process as hypo resistant Ick has become more prominent and there are so many other parasites in the supply chain now to be more concerned about. However, here is the process.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/hyposalinity.247596/

 

[Reefahholic]

x2 with what Smo just said...

I haven't used hypo in years. I can tell you that TTM has been bulletproof for me.

Raise your salinity to 1.020 and start TTM.

Transfer on days 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 (done). You can add some medication with this method as I've been doing for years now. Check for drug compatibility for the M. Idol I'm not sure about him.

If you can, get them eating Metro or API GC.

 

[jsvand5]

I think many people fail with hypo because there refractometer is not correct. 1.009 is closer to pure fresh water than it is to full 1.026 so I believe calibrating with RO water to be more accurate. I have never had it fail me when kept at 1.009 calibrated to RO water. I have always done a month. Fish are dropped straight from 1.026 to 1.009 with no acclimation. Only acclimation back to 1.026 is required.

I am mostly curious how long is truly needed if going to a to a sterile tank directly at 1.009. In theory 10 days should be sufficient if the info that the trophont remains on the fish for between 3-9 days is correct.

 

[jsvand5]

x2 with what Smo just said...

I haven't used hypo in years. I can tell you that TTM has been bulletproof for me.

Raise your salinity to 1.020 and start TTM.

Transfer on days 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 (done). You can add some medication with this method as I've been doing for years now. Check for drug compatibility for the M. Idol I'm not sure about him.

If you can, get them eating Metro or API GC.

I do TTM on smaller fish or fish that are not too mobile, but on large tangs I feel like it becomes pretty impractical. Doing 4 changes even if using a 40 breeder for qt is a lot of effort and $$. Currently my tank is holding a 5” achillies, 4” powder blue, 4” morish, and a 3” blue tang. I want to add all the tangs and the morish to the display at the same time to hopefully avoid aggression. I may still try to sneak in a small convict tang in at some point though. Just wasn’t able to find a healthy one to go in with this batch.

 

[Huskymaniac]

Hypo kills crypto at the stage when it attacks the fish. It does little to nothing while on the fish or when it drops off. That is why you have to keep.it for 30 days. Lately I have seen crypto that has lifecycles more than 30 days and 6 weeks of Hypo seems to be working better for me than 4 weeks of copper.

 

[jsvand5]

Hypo kills crypto at the stage when it attacks the fish. It does little to nothing while on the fish or when it drops off. That is why you have to keep.it for 30 days. Lately I have seen crypto that has lifecycles more than 30 days and 6 weeks of Hypo seems to be working better for me than 4 weeks of copper.

Interesting, I had always heard that hypo kills in the dropping off phase prior to it settling as well as the phase when it’s looking for a host.

 

[rkpetersen]

Hypo kills crypto at the stage when it attacks the fish. It does little to nothing while on the fish or when it drops off.

I used to think this too, with that being a good explanation for the longer recommended qt. Analogous to copper. But apparently that's not always correct. The protomont and even the encysted tomont stage of some crypto strains can be killed by hyposalinity. But probably not studied enough to know if this is typical or just an unusual result. Some strains may be more resistant until the theront stage, in which case the 30 days recommendation makes sense. Check out this article. In that article, note that at least one strain of crypto has been discovered that can live and re-infect fish at salinity as low as 5 ppt (sg 1.004!)

 

[jsvand5]

I haven’t had a chance to read the article yet but was the low salinity tolerant strain found on reef fish? I have read in the past that some of the hypo resilient stains were from brackish water which would make sense to me.

 

[rkpetersen]

I haven’t had a chance to read the article yet but was the low salinity tolerant strain found on reef fish? I have read in the past that some of the hypo resilient stains were from brackish water which would make sense to me.

It was a study from Taiwan and the effected fish was the sea bream. Very common saltwater fish.