Hyposalinity treatment during nitrification process

[mccanei]

I recently added a porcupine puffer and clown trigger to a 145 that had been empty for a few weeks. Unbeknownced to me the ammonia spiked starting the nitrifaction cycle. My fish developed ick due to the environmental stresses. The fish have had ick for about 5 days, during this time I have been closely monitoring the levels with all normal levels except for my ammonia- 1.5-2. I have been feeding the fish well adding garlic and selcon all the while making small water changes to keep the ammonia down.
Question- Can I treat with hyposalinity during the nitrification cycling process? Thus, lowering the ammonia while treating the ick. Or do I need to let the bacterial colonies mature at a certain salinity? The reason I ask is because I have read in certain strings that you can not simply add salt to a mature fresh water aquarium, it will kill the bacteria colonies and cause the tank to recycle. Is hypo during tank cycling the same?

 

[beth]

Yes, you can, in fact, the change out of water will keep that ammonia down. Keep or drop the pH slowly to 8.0. Don't go above that as long as you have ammonia.
I'm assuming your tank is FO?
However, I don't quiet understand why you had a sudden spike in that tank. Is is a relatively new setup?

 

[mccanei]

Well that's good to know... It is an FO setup and I removed my live rock for hypo purposes. The tank is about 5 months old but for the last month had been empty( I lost all my fish to ick complications and secondary diseases) So in the last month all I had was two hermit crabs in my 145 gallon tank. I thought the bacterial colonies would degrade, but not as bad as they did. When I added the 6" porcupine puffer and the 4" clown trigger it proved too much at once... thus resulting in my ammonia jumping up to .2.