Thinking about Hyposalinity in my new 400 Gallon display

[Ashish Patel]

Hi Jay, Curious does Hyposalinity kill Aiptasia and other LR pest?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi Jay, Curious does Hyposalinity kill Aiptasia and other LR pest?

I'm not positive, but I think Aiptasia will survive hypo. I know that they THRIVE at low salinity like 1.018 or so.

Other pests? Not sure either - maybe mantis shrimp would die off. Sponges will die. Some algae also can't make the transition.

Jay

 

[Ashish Patel]

I got my salinity down to 1.011 and tried my hardest to get it down to 48 hours but could not make enough water. One more adjustment and tweaking I will be at that mark and will put a ATO on my sump.



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[Ashish Patel]

The fish are doing pretty good - I like this method so far given its ease of use and its definately removing nutrients that have leeched out of my rocks for the past 3 months. I do regret I decided to keep 4 Acanthurus tangs, i feel these type of tangs belong in a 1000 gallon+ tank.

 

[Ashish Patel]

First day of hypo at 1.009.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

First day of hypo at 1.009.

Now is the tricky part - you don't want to drop to 1.008, and if you go above 1.010, the process won't work as well. Kind of like walking on the edge of a razor. The fish all look o.k. though?

Jay

 

[Ashish Patel]

Now is the tricky part - you don't want to drop to 1.008, and if you go above 1.010, the process won't work as well. Kind of like walking on the edge of a razor. The fish all look o.k. though?

Jay

Thanks. Fish look good. However few things I noticed I wouldn't want to repeat.
Your right about the 48hr part. After 48 hr I made an adjustment and turned of closed loop and uv for 20 mins. All fish where normal besides powder blue. Was swimming frantically for a good amount to of time. Also temp dropped everything I made adjustment. Not by more 2 degrees but I feel the ich parasite may have gone into survival mode given the way the powder was acting

 

[Ashish Patel]

Video of day 1

 

[Ashish Patel]

Video is little deceiving, 5 fish where Def effected by the ich. Management maybe possible in a tank w/o achilles and powder but I find I'm left with little room for error in my husbandry. I don't want nutrition of fish to be a life or death situation or if my uv doesn't work or aggressive (which is constant)

I may never add another fish to this system again and do my best to Qt everything

 

[Max93]

Run your skimmer wet, didn’t read this on your posts but I think it’s very important to run it wet to help combat ammonia spikes during hypo. I experienced a spike during my hypo treatment in my display tank, but upon reviewing my notes I’m pretty sure it was due to the only fish I lost from ich. Never found a body. Take a look at my post there’s a good chunk of information and a full detailed experience.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Run your skimmer wet, didn’t read this on your posts but I think it’s very important to run it wet to help combat ammonia spikes during hypo. I experienced a spike during my hypo treatment in my display tank, but upon reviewing my notes I’m pretty sure it was due to the only fish I lost from ich. Never found a body. Take a look at my post there’s a good chunk of information and a full detailed experience.

Good to know bc I am already running pretty wet. Fish seem good but slightly not as active

 

[Ashish Patel]

Could I use my ammonia alert that I used on my fish qt on my display, if I sanitize with vinegar?

 

[Max93]

Could I use my ammonia alert that I used on my fish qt on my display, if I sanitize with vinegar?

I would say get a new ammonia alert given that you’re working in a display. Don’t mix tools from QT to Display.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Hypo salinity reduced my skimmer performance significantly. I dont have many filter socks handy but may need to run them and build a tray for my sponge media to remove detrius. My fish are eating normally but i can tell they seem more relaxed then I am used to see. No more wasted movement besides eating.

 

[Justin_Reef]

I have done hypo twice in my current display tank. I removed inverts, macroalgae and corals. I scrubbed my rocks to minimize die off of algae and sponges and I siphoned my shallow sand bed well. Both times I dropped the salinity over 4 days and dosed Microbacter 7 (not sure if it made much difference but I never had any detectable ammonia. I did hypo for 4 weeks each time. The first time I did hypo I don't think I held the tank steady enough at 1.009 because ich came back a month after salinity was back at 1.025. So I started over and was much more careful about salinity. Again, no ammonia. It's been a year since I did hypo and no signs of ich at all.

The only annoying part was keeping my corals and inverts in a QT tank for 3 months but it was worth it.

 

[Justin_Reef]

Something else that I learned -- without good nutrient export in hypo, hair algae grew out of control and that hypo hair algae had no problem surviving in sea water lol...

 

[Ashish Patel]

I got decent skimmer performance in 12 hr

 

[Ashish Patel]

I have done hypo twice in my current display tank. I removed inverts, macroalgae and corals. I scrubbed my rocks to minimize die off of algae and sponges and I siphoned my shallow sand bed well. Both times I dropped the salinity over 4 days and dosed Microbacter 7 (not sure if it made much difference but I never had any detectable ammonia. I did hypo for 4 weeks each time. The first time I did hypo I don't think I held the tank steady enough at 1.009 because ich came back a month after salinity was back at 1.025. So I started over and was much more careful about salinity. Again, no ammonia. It's been a year since I did hypo and no signs of ich at all.

The only annoying part was keeping my corals and inverts in a QT tank for 3 months but it was worth it.

Thanks for your advice, I may give Microbacter a try. Though I doubt i will have any ammonia spike since my tank is only 3 months old with nothing really to kill on the rock. my nitrates where very high to begin with and biological filter is pretty robust given my nitrates are 55PPM. I removed most of the 100Lb of old LR from the sump - which was the cause of most of the nutrients being very high before adding fish.

 

[Ashish Patel]

I didnt feel confident in reading the 1.009 - most time i felt i was in-between 1.010 so i reduced it slightly and put ATO on the sump. I am 100% officially at 1.008

Fish are doing good.

Now its time to build a foam tray for biological filter, build a Algae turf scrubber, and do some wire managment. This should help pass the 30 days since I'll probably need 5 weeks.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Day 2 hypo video