Hyposalinity question - QT tank - how fast can you lower SG?

midgetwaiter · #1 08-27-2009, 11:20 PM

What you are worried about when dropping the salinity in a QT is the bio filter, the fish don't mind. You can move fish into hypo without acclimation provided the pH is steady.

Watch for bacterial blooms and ammonia levels, have some prime handy, etc. 72 hours would be a good time frame although 48 is possible.

Going back up plan to take at least a week.

Delphinus · #2 08-29-2009, 04:41 AM

What do people use for adjusting pH if necessary?

QT tank is now down to 1.017. I guess I need to keep going, the spots are worse than ever and quickly approaching among the worst I've ever seen for ich. Certainly the worst for any fish in my care anyhow.

Water is starting to get a slight cloudy look to it, too. I wish I had a bigger aquaclear. I'm torn between continuing to lower the salinity or holding it here for a couple days while I go out and buy a bigger aquaclear. (Bearing in mind I'm not sure how best to to adjust pH, if need be, and that I'm not sure my aquaclear is adequately keeping up with the cycle - I don't have an ammonia test kit but I do have a nitrite test kit and it is measuring 0.1 --- however for what it's worth, anytime I've used it, it's always told me 0.1 so I'm not sure what to make of that).

I feel really bad for these fish. I'm not sure whether I've done them a favour by putting them into QT first or not. I've always just let them go into the main tank and let it be, and while spots usually would appear, never quite so bad as this, and always went away after the first week.

These fish are at about 1.5 weeks in QT. I thought things were going really well as they ate with gusto and showed no signs of spots until this week.

Especially after the cuke nuke incident in my cube tank this week, the stress of this is starting to take its toll. Why do we do this again? This is fun, right? I'm really starting to wonder about this..

BlueWorldAquatic · #3 08-29-2009, 05:35 AM

Don't forget to raise the temp of your QT tank also for Ich.

Only time we use any meds or copper is if its a very severe case.

Either than that we add Immuno-Vital, and use Ich attack.

Ken - BWA

marie · #4 08-29-2009, 06:12 AM

I found hyposalinity a bit slow in killing ich on the fish, that's why I decided to go with cupramine instead when I treated my potters angels. I ended up doing 50% daily water changes to keep the ammonia levels down but the fish pulled through and I haven't seen ich on them since

Delphinus · #5 08-29-2009, 04:14 PM

Marie, so now that you've done both cupramine and hyposalinity on new fish, do you have a preference for which treatment?

marie · #6 08-29-2009, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Marie, so now that you've done both cupramine and hyposalinity on new fish, do you have a preference for which treatment?

My preference would be cupramine if the fish has visible parasites, just hypo if they appear healthy... I have never lost a fish in quarantine though.
I have heard lots of people that have had problems with both kinds of treatment and I'm not sure what I do that makes the difference

Delphinus · #7 08-29-2009, 09:51 PM

Ohhhh .. hmmm, man that sounds like a good rule of thumb.

Nuts to it all, I'm only halfway down on the salinity thing but I suppose that's far enough along that I'm committed to completing it since you have to take forever to bring the salinity back up. Guess next time I'll have a hospital tank ready to go that I can copper up.

Have I mentioned lately how crazy of a hobby I think this is? Stress if fun right? Argh. Honestly, knitting sounds pretty good right now.