fast-tracking hypo??

[jasonmarc]

Hi all - I was reading through Sep's postings with stdreb27 about the hypo process, etc (I need more to do at work huh? lol) and it raised a question in m mind.
Suppose you have a fish in QT, who shows no signs of ick, but you want to hypo anyway as a precaution (like, say it's a tang that is such a magnet, then the odds are good it would have it) before you put it in your DT.
From what I understand, when you get the level to .009, within a few days the ick critters go a little crazy and "explode" all over the fish. Then when they drop off, you start your counting to make sure they're all dead in the tank.
If you drop the level to .009, and after a week you see no signs of ick on your fish, why couldn't you just start raising back to a normal level, instead of waiting another 3 weeks? If you don't see the "explosion" - would it be safe to assume the fish is clear and you can start raising the level?
I'm not advocating doing this - I'm asking if this would be an option. I'm assuming it's not, since I've never heard of it, so I'm curious as to why not?
Thanks
Jason

 

[m0nk]

Well, the main reason for waiting 3 weeks is so that ever stage of the parasite dies off before it's able to live long enough to attach to the fish, so I don't think any less than 3 weeks is a good idea.... this would just weaken the fish's immune system so that if there are free floating stages that didn't have time to die off they'll just attach to the fish easier (and cause more harm when doing so) as soon as you start raising salinity. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my understanding of the whole thing.

 

[jasonmarc]

Ok - like I said - I wasn't advocating it. It's more for my own edification. My understanding was that if the level is at .009, anything free swimming "freaks out" as it were and quickly tries to find a host, thus you'd likely see the explosion you read about. My curiosity was no explosion = no ick?

 

[m0nk]

Originally Posted by JasonMarc
Ok - like I said - I wasn't advocating it. It's more for my own edification. My understanding was that if the level is at .009, anything free swimming "freaks out" as it were and quickly tries to find a host, thus you'd likely see the explosion you read about. My curiosity was no explosion = no ick?

I've never seen that freak out... in fact, quite the opposite, when the level gets down to 1.009 they disappear. I could be different, but I've treated several fish with hypo at this point (have a single chromis in right now, actually) and if there's never been a greater accumulation after starting hypo.

 

[earlybird]

I agree with monk. I've never seen an "explosion" just a reduction of parasites on my fish until I could no longer see anything. My fish looked great after day 3 but I continued with hypo. Don't forget to add a week to slowly raise the SG, and to err on the side of caution, I observed for another week just to make sure.

 

[jasonmarc]

Ok thanks guys - the two times I've gone through hypo I've seen the fish suddenly COVERED after about 2 or 3 days of achieving the .009 level. If that doesn't always happen, that's a pretty good reason to make sure you keep it going for the recommended 3-4 weeks!
Learn something new every day!

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by JasonMarc
Ok - like I said - I wasn't advocating it. It's more for my own edification. My understanding was that if the level is at .009, anything free swimming "freaks out" as it were and quickly tries to find a host, thus you'd likely see the explosion you read about. My curiosity was no explosion = no ick?

Some see an increase in ich attatched to the fish after 1.009 is reached. This is more likely in a display tank than in a QT. Many people do decide to hypo their fish, especially tangs, but the time frame is still three weeks. Ich often goes undetected when it is in the fish's gill tissue.