R all fish tolerable of hyposalinity

[mccanei]

I am in a hyposalininty treatment phase and my Koran Angel's slimecoat looks whiter than normal. The salinity has been lowered over a 3 day period to 1.085 an dit has been lowered for 3 days.
I still notice tiny white parasites on my dogface puffer and my Koran Angel is itching more than before. LAst night I treated the tank with melafix to help the fish and possibly battle some fin rot. Additionally if I look very closely I can see tiny white parasites on the glass. Does this sounds like hypo is the right treatment?

 

[beth]

The koran should be fine, if you are performing the procedure correctly. The target is 1.009 specific gravity, and 14 ppt. What are you using to measure salinity? And how is the pH?

 

[mccanei]

I am using a hydrometer, I measured the ph yesterday and it was 8.3. Will the hyposalinity essentially rid my tank of all parasites? How long can the parasites thrive in a lowered salinity?

 

[mccanei]

I just read other threads and see that ich is only affectively killed in the free-floating stages and will take up to a month. Now I am wondering what stage the ick is that I see moving around on the glass? The seem to be thriving even at a 1.009 salinity.

 

[92protruck]

you can't see ich moving around on the glass, that is something else like pods. You must get a refractometer you can not do hypo with a hydromoter it is not accurate enough. keep an eye on pH.

 

[mccanei]

What are pods? Wil they respond to the Hypo treatment?

 

[barkdog]

Pods are good. Tiny creatures that live in the sand. Google copepods...
You may do well give your fish a freshwater dip. That should kill the ich that is attached to their bodies. You will need to do more than just hypo to kill the ich in the tank though. Raising the temperature to 82 degrees will help, and vacuuming the sand out will help as well. There are various treatments that you can add as well.
I found the best solution was to put the fish in a quarantine tank for at least 3 weeks. Treat the quarantine with copper. Meanwhile, raise the temp in the main tank, and lower the salinity. The raised temp will speed up the ich reproductive cycle. When they hatch, they will have no fish to attach to, and will die.
There are other products like kick ick, which you can add to the main tank and not hurt any inverts. (Though since you've lowered your salinity, i assume you do not have inverts). I never had any look with kick ick, and Bob Fenner told me its garbage, but there are others on this board that have had success with it.