Hyposalinity question - QT tank - how fast can you lower SG? - Page 3

Delphinus · #21 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 · #22 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 · #23 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.

Myka · #24 08-30-2009, 01:02 AM

Well, IMO I don't use medications for Ich. Period. The last time I used medication in a QT was on a freshwater Piranha with Dropsy back in 2002 ish. Dropsy is a disease that is expected to be fatal, so the medication was really a last ditch effort. Surprisingly it worked, even after a secondary Ich infection. Tough fish!

Oh ya, back to the topic...I'm going to start up a QT for my tank too when I get the jawfishes and wrasses. I will medicate these fish with Prazi-Pro since the Jawfish are often wormy...I would do the same with any Tangs, and a few other species. The Wrasses will just get hypo for a few weeks.

Delphinus · #25 09-02-2009, 05:50 AM

Day 6 of hyposalinity. Maybe hindsight is 20/20 and I should have medicated them like Kevin said to do.

They looked fine a few hours ago but man when they let go, it's fast and hard. Gonna lose the butterfly for sure, the lieutenant tang is not looking that great either.

So, I dunno. Can't say hyposalinity is really blowing up my skirt so far.

Really not loving the hobby these days.

kien · #26 09-02-2009, 06:05 AM

I suppose there is more than one way to skin a cat as they say..

For as along as I've been in the hobby I have never used meds or hypo to battle ich. The first time I was ever exposed to ich years ago someone said to try cleaner shrimp, so I did and it worked beautifully. Ever since then I have always had an army of cleaner shrimp (presently 4 skunk cleaners and 2 fire shrimp [yes they clean too!]). I have 3 tangs presently and each of them (and sometimes one or two other fish) get ich as soon as they were put into the tank but a few days of cleaner shrimp loving and they are clean as a whistle. When they are not cleaning they readily eat anything I put in the tank, but they seem to enjoy cleaning a lot, even when I don't see signs of ich on any fish. Anyway, that's been my experience. Sorry to hear about your battle

Delphinus · #27 09-02-2009, 06:11 AM

The last time I bought a tang was 2001, my sailfin .. he got a few spots when I got him but it cleared up. I had cleaner shrimp at the time. I'm sure it helped but I always thought that when you had ich beyond maybe 10 spots that it was better to take proactive steps like QT, hospital, hypo, medication, etc.

Ever other fish I've bought either came from hobbyists (so were healthy) or just never got ich anyhow. So I never did QT before. I thought, sooner or later my luck will run out, and I couldn't live with myself if I introduced something that would compromise existing livestock. Especially the now 8 year old tang...

So .. I don't know. Maybe the old way I would do it (ie., hope for the best) was still better after all.

Too late now though. I mean .. even if I wanted to raise the salinity now, it would take a week to bring it back up. It remains to be seen whether they'll make it that far.

marie · #28 09-02-2009, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

The last time I bought a tang was 2001, my sailfin .. he got a few spots when I got him but it cleared up. I had cleaner shrimp at the time. I'm sure it helped but I always thought that when you had ich beyond maybe 10 spots that it was better to take proactive steps like QT, hospital, hypo, medication, etc.

Ever other fish I've bought either came from hobbyists (so were healthy) or just never got ich anyhow. So I never did QT before. I thought, sooner or later my luck will run out, and I couldn't live with myself if I introduced something that would compromise existing livestock. Especially the now 8 year old tang...

So .. I don't know. Maybe the old way I would do it (ie., hope for the best) was still better after all.

Too late now though. I mean .. even if I wanted to raise the salinity now, it would take a week to bring it back up. It remains to be seen whether they'll make it that far.

The nice thing about a quarantine tank is that you don't have to call it quits until you've tried everything. I would medicate immediately if they are that bad and while using copper, start raising the salinity back up.

*edit* I've noticed when treating with cupramine that all visible signs of ich are gone within half an hour and when I treated my achilles for marine velvet, within 10 min he was no longer scratching frantically and his breathing had returned to normal

Another option is a freshwater bath to relieve them of the worst of the parasites.

Delphinus · #29 09-02-2009, 02:33 PM

Well, to my astonishment, this morning the butterfly is swimming around. I'm surprised because last night he was opaque, listless and unresponsive to his surroundings. Usually with butterflys, at least IME so far, they go from "Oh, something looks off" to dead within a couple of hours. So to see him pull out of that funk is not something I expected. Remains to be seen where we go from here though, of course.

And .. well, I guess the lieutenant tang decided to take matter into his own hands and solved his own ich problem ... or rather, made the ich situation irrelevant. He jumped.

FML.

Lance · #30 09-02-2009, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Well, to my astonishment, this morning the butterfly is swimming around. I'm surprised because last night he was opaque, listless and unresponsive to his surroundings. Usually with butterflys, at least IME so far, they go from "Oh, something looks off" to dead within a couple of hours. So to see him pull out of that funk is not something I expected. Remains to be seen where we go from here though, of course.

And .. well, I guess the lieutenant tang decided to take matter into his own hands and solved his own ich problem ... or rather, made the ich situation irrelevant. He jumped.

FML.

So sorry to hear this Tony.

Bloody Hobby! Sometimes you just can't win. Butterfly perks up and Tang jumps.