My experience with hyposalinity/not a good one

[habsfan]

I had what I assumed was an outbreak of ich. My coral beauty had what looked liked grains of salt on its dorsal and tail fins. When I came back from vacation 10 days laters the condition had cleared up. About a week later the coral beauty, gramma and clowfish were developing white spots on the body and in their eyes. I set up my two ten gal. as QT tanks. I filled the tanks with half display tank water and half day old SW mix and added sponges that were in my DT. After quite an effort I tranferred all but two green chromis(couldn't catch the bastards) to the QT tanks. C.B. and gramma to one tank, clown and 2 G.C. to other. Over two days I lowered S.G. to 1.10.(that's all the lower my swing arm went) I tested for ammonia and ph daily and did 2x a day water change adding Amquel. Well to make a long story short I lost all the fish. I'm sure it's something I did wrong but not sure what. Any thoughts?
ALSO the 2 reaming GC that are in my DT show NO signs if ich? Could I have been premature in my assessment?

 

[ChrisRD]

Sorry to hear about your fish. You may have lowered SG too much. Personally I would stick to a refractometer when accuracy is critical (which is the case here). Another possibility could be a bad ammonia test kit (ie. levels were elevated but not showing up on the kit).

For future reference, it's possible to make a homemade calibration solution to check on the accuracy of your swing arm.
Article: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-06/rhf/index.php

HTH

 

[habsfan]

Thanks. That was a lot to digest but I get what to do. Any thoughts on why the two chromis in my DT haven't shown signs of ich? It has been almost one month since I initially saw the signs on the coral beauty.

 

[ChrisRD]

Some fish are more disease resistant than others. That said, just because there are no obvious visual signs doesn't mean the parasite is not present on these fish as well. It's likely that all fish have been infected at this stage.

 

[habsfan]

Thanks Chris. I will attempt to get the remaing chromis out of my tank into QT and treat them. They won't leave willingly though!

 

[Anonymous]

Go UV. You don't have to move your already stressed out fish. Chris is of the belief that it's a simple thing to remove all our fish treat them with chemicals, then dump them back in. Strap a UV on it- all the inverts and everything else that made it through the Hyposalinity will not have a problem with this at all. Do some research on a UV.

 

[ChrisRD]

Well, I've been keeping marine fish for 15+ years and I can't tell you how many people I've seen lose fish to ich with a UV unit running on their system...

If you understand the life cycle of Cryptocaryon irritans you'll realize that a UV alone cannot eliminate the parasite from a system. A UV can only effect what passes through it. Also, most UVs purchased by the average hobbyist are underpowered and undermaintained, so they're not all that effective. Good units are pricey and need to be kept up to work effectively.

...and let's not put words in other's mouths - I've never said that it was easy to remove fish from a display and treat them properly. Actually, I prefer to keep fish in a healthy, low stress environment and give them a chance to recover naturally from minor issues without intervening. With serious infections/infestations, however, that's not always an option.

Further, I do not advocate the use of "chemicals" to treat ich. IMO the medication that's most effective against ich is copper, but I'm not a big fan of copper (sorta like chemotherapy for fish). Hyposalinity, when done correctly, is the safest option for a total cure IMO.

I'll be the first to admit that many otherwise healthy fish will recover from a case of ich with no intervention provided they're eating well and are relatively unstressed. This doesn't mean, however, that the parasite is no longer present in the system. If you're looking to totally eliminate it from the system, your best chance is removing the fish from the display, keeping it fallow for an extended period of time and properly treating the fish. Actually, if you're properly quarantining your fish, you should never be in a situation where they need to be removed from the display and treated to begin with... :wink:

I encourage anyone who's interested in the facts concerning these issues to ask some of the fish experts in the hobby (like Terry Bartelme et al).

Here's a recent article on hyposalinity by Terry that might be helpful:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/fish

Hope that clarifies...

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I've been keeping marine fish for 15+ years and I can't tell you how many people I've seen lose fish to ich with a UV unit running on their system...

If you understand the life cycle of Cryptocaryon irritans you'll realize that a UV alone cannot eliminate the parasite from a system. A UV can only effect what passes through it. Also, most UVs purchased by the average hobbyist are underpowered and undermaintained, so they're not all that effective. Good units are pricey and need to be kept up to work effectively.

...and let's not put words in other's mouths - I've never said that it was easy to remove fish from a display and treat them properly. Actually, I prefer to keep fish in a healthy, low stress environment and give them a chance to recover naturally from minor issues without intervening. With serious infections/infestations, however, that's not always an option.

Further, I do not advocate the use of "chemicals" to treat ich. IMO the medication that's most effective against ich is copper, but I'm not a big fan of copper (sorta like chemotherapy for fish). Hyposalinity, when done correctly, is the safest option for a total cure IMO.

I'll be the first to admit that many otherwise healthy fish will recover from a case of ich with no intervention provided they're eating well and are relatively unstressed. This doesn't mean, however, that the parasite is no longer present in the system. If you're looking to totally eliminate it from the system, your best chance is removing the fish from the display, keeping it fallow for an extended period of time and properly treating the fish. Actually, if you're properly quarantining your fish, you should never be in a situation where they need to be removed from the display and treated to begin with... :wink:

I encourage anyone who's interested in the facts concerning these issues to ask some of the fish experts in the hobby (like Terry Bartelme et al).

Here's a recent article on hyposalinity by Terry that might be helpful:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/fish

Hope that clarifies...

You've said it yourself - keeping fish for 15 years versus a newbie! How on earth are they going to set up a hyposalinity tank, or a QT tank, do the proper dosage with out stressing out the fish? While what you say is true - don't you think it's a bit advanced for a new person who just came home from the petshop with a bunch of fish in a new tank- who can even get that tank right - much less match the PH, salinity, and temperature of a new qt tank and try catching new fish in the tank set up - destroying inverts, rockwork and every thing else? You're asking for disaster and more fish killed. Strap on a UV.

FWIW - I followed the directions of many people here - hyposalinity, QT tank, Malicite green, Copper - and after utterly destroy many fish - a simple UV on the main tank cleared up every thing! Do I run it every day? No! But do I have the ich-fish still living? Absolutely.

Telling someone to set up multiple hospital tanks with out even getting the first one right is just frustrating for the newbies - along with countless fish deaths because it never works the first time through.

 

[ChrisRD]

Honestly, if setting up a Q-tank is too complicated for you, you're in the wrong hobby. There's really not much too it. Pretty weak argument IMO...

There's lots of info out there on how to properly QT and treat diseases/parasites. Folks reading this thread should do their own research and get the facts from the experts. A UV unit is not a cureall, and to suggest that it replaces quarantine or proper treatment of parasites is just ill-informed, irresponsible advice IMO.

 

[Anonymous]

Honestly, if setting up a Q-tank is too complicated for you, you're in the wrong hobby. There's really not much too it. Pretty weak argument IMO...

There's lots of info out there on how to properly QT and treat diseases/parasites. Folks reading this thread should do their own research and get the facts from the experts. A UV unit is not a cureall, and to suggest that it replaces quarantine or proper treatment of parasites is just ill-informed, irresponsible advice IMO.

Great. You're awesome. Most people who start this hobby don't have a clue for what they're in for. I'm going by what worked for me.

 

[Anonymous]

I had ich a couple of years ago, so I set up a large UV - it did nothing to help the situation and the fish continued to have ich.


Ich is tricky because it can clear up 'on its own' which has spurred the imo erroneous belief that all kinds of things, from ginger to magnets to changing light bulbs, can cure ich. Frustratingly, just because you added something and the ich cleared up doesn't necessarily mean that what you added had any effect on the ich at all.