Starting Hyposalinity tomorrow

[dsmccain]

Hello,
My tank has an ich infestation. No problems with that, as long as I act quick and get rid of it.
From what I read I need to drop the salt level to 1.009 over the course of 48 hours, thus dropping the water pressure and the ich literally exploding.
Now, I consulted with the LFS, I was told to drop it to 1.009 in as fast as 24 hours, since the fish are already stressed from the ich. What should I do? Tomorrow I am going to fill up with RO/DI water, 5 blue jugs(20 gallons). Should I change out 20 gallons worth tomorrow, then the rest on the following day? Or go with the advice and do it all tomorrow?
I have a small 2.5 gallon tank I am putting the inverts in(5 small hermits, two turbos, 1 chocolate star) while the hypo is going on.
This is my first time doing hypo, so I am eager to learn how to do it, as I do not like putting chemicals into the water.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[2quills]

Do you have any corals or inverts in this tank? I'd recommend doing this in a quarantine tank unless you want to kill everything but your fish. My first attempt with hypo was unsuccessful. My second attempt turned out much better. I dropped the salinity over the course of two days. I also raised my temp up to 84 degrees. But raising the temp lowers oxygen levels in the tank so you need to run an air pump if you do this. After about a week all visible signs went away. I kept the tank at low salinity for 6 full weeks before bringing the salinity back up over another two days before returning the fish to the display tank. Everything has been great since and no more signs of Ich. Good food an vitamines to help boost the fishes immune system would be beneficial as well.
BTW, have you read the stickies at the beginning of this board? Perhaps some others will chime in here with their experiences.

 

[dsmccain]

thanks corey, forgot to mention, its a fish only tank, absolutely no corals, i listed all the inverts i have in the tank. I am planning on leaving the fish in the display
for this reason, thats why i do not mess with corals, why make things more complicated?

 

[2quills]

10/4, I guess I read over that lastnight. Ugh, I was having a bad night, forgive me. I guess my only other main concern for you is any live rock or sand that you have in the display and the effects that hypo will have on it. Again, looking for an experst opinion on this.

 

[mr. limpid]

Dsmccain I suggest reading Beth's thread about doing Hypo, very help full, also most important you need a refractor meter. Also you need to check your PH it will go down during hypo you'll need to add PH buffer. Also if you have live rock I suggest pull it out and put it with your inverts and leave them fish-less for minimum of 6 weeks. Don't forget to feed your inverts.
Good Luck

 

[mproctor4]

Just an FYI, I pulled all of my corals and live rock and decided to do the hypo in the main display. I was hoping to reduce stress to the fish. I had a few pieces of base rock and my substrate left in the tank before I started. There was more "life" in the substrate than I realized and when I did the hypo it crashed my tank. I was doing massive water changes....50gals 3-4 times a day and the ammonia was still off of the charts. I lost over half my fish. I'm sure I would have lost them all but I couldn't keep up with the water changes and it was too stressful on the fish, so I started using Prime and Stability. I'm sure that is the only thing that saved the few remaining fish. Unless your tank is barebottomed and you take out all rock that was in the display it could be a nightmare. It was a HUGE mistake on my part and I would never recommend anyone doing that.

 

[florida joe]

Quote:
From what I read I need to drop the salt level to 1.009 over the course of 48 hours, thus dropping the water pressure and the ich literally exploding.
there is more involved than that
Quote:
I was doing massive water changes....50gals 3-4 times a day and the ammonia was still off of the charts.
with all due respect i find this hard to believe

 

[mproctor4]

Quote:
Originally Posted by florida joe http:///forum/thread/383993/starting-hyposalinity-tomorrow#post_3362239
there is more involved than that
with all due respect i find this hard to believe
Believe it or not, it is absolutely true.

 

[deejeff442]

if it werent for ich this hobby would be a breeze.i tried hypo in my 250 dt.i took out 95% of the rock and i only have 1/2" to 1" of sand.got an ammonia spike but delt with it ok.but after 5 weeks in hypo when i raised to salinity three or four days later the ich was back.you really need a bare tank with some pvc pipes for hiding to treat ich properly.
jmo of course

 

[florida joe]

I feel I owe you an explanation as to why I find your statement hard to believe. You have according to your profile a 120 gallon tank. So I am assuming you have some sort of mechanical filtration. Now with in this mechanical filtration a good amount of nitrifying bacteria has colonized. Now granted you took out your live rock and thus taxing the filtration BUT you state that you did a 50g water change 3 or four times a day that over 100% of your water volume each day. IMO whatever die-off you had with in your with in your tank would not have caused as you state ammonia that was off the charts. Again I realize I must assume but I also have to factor in the time it took to bring a 120 gallon tank down to hypo levels and within this time frame the nitrifying bacteria still present with in your system is growing

 

[dsmccain]

i went to the store and got 20 gallons of ro/di water, i went ahead and did some changes, i took everything out, there is literally nothing in there except the fish, the inverts are in the bottom of the tank. right now, the salt level is at 1.017, i'm hoping to get it down to 1.009 tomorrow morning when i get more water

 

[dsmccain]

i'm trying to take advantage of this by siphoning out the substrate as well. i never did add live sand or live rock to my set up, i have two big hang on back filters(aquaclear 100). so i know everyone will say i need live rock, but hopefully in this case it will help me to not have so much "live" in my aquarium.

 

[mproctor4]

FL Joe-You are correct, I do have a 120g + a 25g sump. I had bioballs in my mechanical filter and approximately 2" of agronite in my tank. I took 4 days to drop my salinity from 1.025 to 1.009, using a refractometer. I did quite a bit of research prior to attempting hypo. and everything I read said that the bacteria should not die off during hypo. It is my belief that the bacteria did indeed die. (for whatever that is worth) None of the fish had died prior to the ammonia spiking and later when they did die they were removed immediately. I am sure my test kits were accurate, we have more than one tank and had 0 readings on those tanks + I had my LFS double check my results. Also over a period of time, using the same test kits, the ammonia in this tank came back down to 0. The ammonia was higher than both test kits would read. I have 2- 33 gallon trash cans that I was using to do the water changes, both of which were filled to within 3-4" from the top and I did at least 3 water changes a day, and a couple of days did 4 water changes. My husband can vouche for me, he got up in the middle of the night a couple of times to do them for me. I have discussed this with several people who have had marine tanks for many years and no one can give me an explanation why this happened. In theory, it shouldn't have happened. I have had marine tanks for many years but I must admit it is the first attempt at hypo, I've never had a reason to do it before. I took 4 days to lower the salinity, kept the fish in hypo for 4 weeks and 5 days after the last sign of ick, brought the salanity up over 7 days--and still have ich! I would highly recommend leaving your fish in hypo longer if possible.
Joe--I would be happy to hear any thoughts you have as to why this happened.
dsmccain--I am wishing you lots of luck.

 

[kiefers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by florida joe http:///forum/thread/383993/starting-hyposalinity-tomorrow#post_3362285
I feel I owe you an explanation as to why I find your statement hard to believe. You have according to your profile a 120 gallon tank. So I am assuming you have some sort of mechanical filtration. Now with in this mechanical filtration a good amount of nitrifying bacteria has colonized. Now granted you took out your live rock and thus taxing the filtration BUT you state that you did a 50g water change 3 or four times a day that over 100% of your water volume each day. IMO whatever die-off you had with in your with in your tank would not have caused as you state ammonia that was off the charts. Again I realize I must assume but I also have to factor in the time it took to bring a 120 gallon tank down to hypo levels and within this time frame the nitrifying bacteria still present with in your system is growing
Okay... my veteran brother, You caught my attention on this topic. Everything you said here is accurate, as hers, nonetheless it did happen. She talked to several hobbiests and they were as confused as we were. As there can be several explainations, we were not getting any other than "you did this wrong". 3 days. + add a few to lower salinity, all inverts removed, so what then? The point is it did happen. IMO.....the water changes were to extreme. Here the tank was trying to cycle again and yet with every water change we took it back to stage one not allowing the NO2, NH3/NH4, and NO3 to do there thing. Everything has been documented in her tank journal. To many ands if's or butts here but one thing needs to kept in mind please, it was her first attempt to save her tank, as it is the OP's, and with every newbie there is going to be a learned experiences to share.
Good luck dsmccain, and research, research, research.
Goodnight

 

[florida joe]

Let me add to the mystery.
You started doing hypo you removed your LR so now you add water to your system to take the place of the displaced displaced water when you had the rocks in your tank. Thus adding more dilution to your system. Let’s for a minute say you had NO bio filtration going on, which I just do not believe to be true. Now let’s say you started testing for ammonia after the first fish died. Do you remember the reading? If so please post. You really don’t have anything in your tank that died when you reached hypo levels that would have caused a spike in your tank that your speak of. A tank of your size along with the amount of water changes just does not make that possible. I am sure you were not just dumping in food hour after hour.
FYI
I have been souring my books as well as the web and I have not found one incidence where hypo preformed properly has been detrimental to the nitrogen cycle.

 

[dsmccain]

random question for you joe, i just googled naples florida and noticed its by the ocean, i live very far from the ocean, so i wouldn't know the answer to my question
do you, or know anybody who just goes straight to the ocean to collect their water? also, have you ever caught any living thing from the ocean and put it in an aquarium?

 

[florida joe]

Actually I don’t live near the ocean BUT I am 10 min from the Gulf of Mexico. And yes I know many people that collect water from the ocean. As Naples is a very big tourist attraction the water off our beaches is checked often for toxins. I personally collected sand from the sand bar off Vanderbilt beach for the deep sand bed in my refuge. I would also say about 90 % of my rock is in my DT was found on the beach. There are a lot of people that keep tanks with indigenes small bait fish in their tanks and release them back into the ocean when they get to large

 

[dsmccain]

thats pretty cool, i remember one time when i was at the beach, the tide washed up some type of goby that was caught in a small pool, nothing like getting free fish, i had to let it go though since i was on vacation
update, the hypo salinity has been going for a few days, no ammonia spike fortunately, just hoping the ich literally explodes!

 

[florida joe]

Quote:
just hoping the ich literally explodes!
i will not get into why this is not exactly correct but why do you think hypo causes this to happen

 

[dsmccain]

osmotic(sp?) pressure