Hyposalinity

[lightcs4]

From Fatman:

Quote: - For hyposalinity treatment you would have to slowly lower your tanks specific gravity to 1.011 to 1.012. This is normally done in a seperate tank to only the effected fish and for a period of three to four weeks. If that can not be done then it can be done in your main tank with out harm to the fish as long as the lowering of the salinity is done over a period of hours, or even better over a period of several days, instead of over a period of minutes. - End Quote.

I didn't want to steal a thread, so I am starting up a new one. I know this has been discussed before as I already searched Living Reef and the web to see what I could find out about it.

I am currently using Hypo for a Singapore Angel. I have the DT down to 1.010 - 1.011 and all three fish seem to have adjusted well. The level was brought down over a two day period. I do not have any corals yet. I have read it takes up to eight weeks to be certain that all parasites are gone so I will wait until August to start adding corals.

I would love to hear from individuals who have used this method, both the good and the bad. Is there anything to watch for while using Hypo? The fish seem to be doing great and I want to completely irradicate the problem. All the fish have been in the tank for over four months, the Singapore for six months, without any sign of parasites.

Thanks.

 

[fatman]

:bounce: Parasite cycles go faster at higher temps. Usually the data given for the life cycle for parasites is given for temperatures of 70 to 72 degrees. Although a margain of safety is nice. 8 weeks is a bit extreme with common reef temps of 76 to 78 dregrees or higher, but I would consider 7 weeks not much different from eight and I think six week would be to little time.:^:

 

[lightcs4]

I keep the tank at 78 at night and it doesn't go above 80 with the lights on. I hate to be patient, but I hate having to cure the same problem twice if it is only an additional week of waiting. It is likely that I won't add any more fish to the tank so I hope this will be a one time shot. I also plan on using a QT tank and use Hppo if I do add another down the road, just to be safe.

And my daughter was all set to pick out the first coral :frustrat:.

Oh, I also moved some live sand and rock to a small QT with regular levels of salt as I read the biological filtration will be killed. Does this sound right?

Thanks!

 

[fatman]

I keep the tank at 78 at night and it doesn't go above 80 with the lights on. I hate to be patient, but I hate having to cure the same problem twice if it is only an additional week of waiting. It is likely that I won't add any more fish to the tank so I hope this will be a one time shot. I also plan on using a QT tank and use Hppo if I do add another down the road, just to be safe.

And my daughter was all set to pick out the first coral :frustrat:.

Oh, I also moved some live sand and rock to a small QT with regular levels of salt as I read the biological filtration will be killed. Does this sound right?

Thanks!

Bio bacteria will live through hypo treatments just fine. They seldom live through copper, antibiotic or fungacide treatments however. Some people recommend that hypo treatments be used in a bare bottom tank because one stage of the parasite is for the cyst to fall off the fish onto the bottom of the tank and in a bare bottom tank regular siphoning assures the cysts are likely removed before they hatch. But the hypo salinity kills the parasite when they are in the free swimming stage (after they hatch and are searching for a host) so that really isn't necessary.

 

[Bifferwine]

Hypo salinity won't kill bacteria, but it will kill inverts like any coral, shrimp, crabs, snails and other hitch hikers. It's a much easier treatment in fish only tanks, since you can treat the main tank then return it to a condition where you can add inverts, whereas with copper, once your rock and sand is contaminated, it takes a lot of effort to remove the copper from the rock and sand, and complete removal is rarely possible.

 

[reeffreak]

First,I like to say I'm not fish disease expert.

...but I've been reading up on fish disease lately.Isn't Ich in the mature stage,when it's attached to the gill lining that hyposalinity is useless?I think,even in fish only tanks that fish should be removed and treated in a QT.What I got from the article is copper treatment is more effective than hypo,and a shorter treatment period.Maybe irrelevent,if the main tank has to be fish free for 6wks or more to trully get rid of Ich.

 

[fatman]

Ich., is caused by a ciliated protozoan, Crypotocaryon irritans. The tropant (parasitic stage) lives imbedded in the skin, gills, and sometimes the eyes of the fish. The average length of time that the Cryptocaryon spends as a a parasite varies with temperature. At 70 to 75 degrees they survive for four days. At 80 degrees the period is reduced to two days. But, at 60 degrees they remain as a parasite on the fishes body for 14 days. During this time they move about the skin, ingesting tissue and body fluids. Eventually they develop into tomonts (reproductyive stage) which can easily be seen as pinpoint size, white spots on the skin. The tomonts may or may not drop off the host fish. Within three to twenty eight days as many as 200 tomites (swimming stage) can emerge from a single tomont. They are short lived and must find a host within 48 hours. The ich is killed in both the tomont and tomite stage by hyposalinity. A main tank treatment is not very stress fukl to fish and does not harm the bio system so there is no need to have a empty tank. Even if you remove all fish from a tank for treatment a tank only needs 30 days before it is usable again, not six weeks. Less time is possible with higher tank temperatures. Even if copper was used in a seperate tank the time that a tnk needs without fish if there is no hypotreatment is the same (30 days, plus a margain of safety of a few more days, say 35 days). With hypo treatment in the main tank the treatment takes care of every thing in those 36 to 40 days from the time the spots are first seen and the treatment is started.

 

[lightcs4]

Thank you all for your help. I quickly recommend this site to friends and family that are even considering this hobby due to the willingness of so many to help.

I'll move the live rock and sand back into the DT. That should make things a bit simpler.

I am treating the DT primarily due to the fact that there are no corals yet and I want to try to eliminate all parasites if possible. My understanding is the ich may be carried by the healthy fish and reappear down the road if I don't treat them all. I will get a larger QT if I have problems in the future.

I will also continue hyposalinity for at least eight weeks. It is a bit over kill, but I don't want to do it again once corals are introduced. I also increased the temp. a couple degrees so it is a fairly constant 80. Hopefully it isn't too high. The fish have adjusted well. There are only two spots left on the Singapore. I started hypo as soon as I saw it so I think I got it early (there were less than a dozen when I caught it).

 

[fatman]

All fish should be treated as other wise you are likely just going to have to keep adding more fish to your treatment as they are kely likely to develop it after the others when they get infected my tomites from the earlier fishes parasite infections. If they were in a community tank it is usually best to just treat them all. The story that all tanks have Ich and that healthy fish are not infected and that only fish that have been stressed develop Ick is a Myth. Ich can be irradicated from a tank and fish properly quarantined to prevent reinfestations in a display tank. However, it is awfully difficult to convince people that they should also quarantine live sand, live rock, macro algae or used tank water, but they all should be quarantined for at least 30 days before being added to an existing tank, or before adding fish if it is a newly set up tank. I am sure some of the others will foolishly disagree with the contents of that last sentence. The logic is so simple though! Treat every thing taht will be added to your system as is it might be infected. No hosts usually means death, quarantines make sence for fish, corals, sand, rock, macro algae and used water. One could carry it further and quarantine all live stock due to the fact that it comes in water from a source that may be infected.

 

[Damseluver]

Amen to all of that and then some. They say never to assume but when it comes to livestock these days its safe to assume there is parasite exposure.

Its sad to say but there appears to be no effort what so ever these days by the industry to control the parasite. At the retail level wilily nilly copper dosing takes place in many LFS but this is of little help and often dos more damage than anything else. IMO the industry just raised the white flag and then there prices to offset the staggering loses.

IMO an incredibly poor business practice but the attitude seems to be that many people will enter and leave the hobby in a short period of time, which is often true, and they need to take there profits as quick as possible.

This can be easily changed by the hobbyist them selfs by simply changing the focus of there tanks to inverts and coral and forgetting about any pricey fish specimens until the industry decides to get there act together.

Of course getting the new hobbyist to be happy with just a few inexpensive fish and focus on just inverts and corals is pretty much like telling the sun not to shine.

 

[fatman]

It is a sad time when you can look regularly look at some of the near modern quarantine systems set up over seas so as to assure better survival and health of the fish being exported, but then they arrive in the states to be poorly housed and sold with out quarantining by nearly all LFS's. We are supposed to be a first world nation, using, owning and doing only the best. What is especially bad is to see the overseas people supply are fsh are very often housing the fish seperately, and to see those fish here in the states in over stocked tanks, and a lot of the time with out much regard to the natures or temperments of the fish should not be happening. Admittedly it is hard to run a LFS profitably with todays economy, but the LFS's are doing a lot to supply the environmentalists with the ammunition needed to put a stop to the importation of tropical marine fish. It is hard to convince the LFS's and the typical aquarist to buy less and spend more and that the aquarist should demand better, but at a higher cost, than what they are so cheaply provided now. It is sort of like trying to convince the average person as far as the value of energy is concerned and what oil is capable of being turned into as a base for the petrochemical industry that gasoline and fuel oil is selling to cheaply. Tropical marine fish are worth too much to be handled, held and treated so poorly and if to change that would mean the price would have to increase then the price should increase.

 

[lightcs4]

Very educational discussion. It's amazing to me that people who's livelihood is selling aquatic animals would not want to sell the best quality, thereby having a better reputation and getting a better price. I guess I'll have to eventually look for lights to quarantine corals as I wouldn't want any of the water affecting the work put into the tank.

By the way, do any corals adjust well to hyposalinity treatment (specifically mushrooms)? I know invertebrates won't survive and thought I read that corals don't survive low levels of salt as well.

 

[Bifferwine]

It is highly unlikely that corals would survive a hyposalinity treatment. Although I'm sure my kenya weeds would thrive. A mushroom or a zoanthid polyp here or there, maybe, since they are so hardy, but I still would not risk it and I think that most would probably not survive.

Corals don't need to be quarantined, but it is smart to dip them before you put them in your display tank. Either a freshwater or iodine dip will get rid of any nasties that hitch hike in on new corals.

 

[lightcs4]

Thanks Biffer.

So, my daughter will have to wait until the end of July or beginning of August to pick out the first coral (my favorite hobbies are ones that allow me to spend time with my kids).

Do you think a freshwater dip will kill all parasites? I'm thinking about getting a 10 - 20 gal tank for a QT, but that would be a bit small for the three fish for two months, should there be another introduction of parasites.

 

[reeffreak]

Only a few corals can be freshwater dip,so research the coral before treating.

Sorry Biff,I wanted to clear that up.Dipping some(many) corals in freshwater will kill them.

I still can't recommend hypo in a display tank with live rock.The beneficial bacteria could live through hypo....not sure on other critters.Can copepods,little brittle stars and worms,which are beneficial even in FOWLR tanks survive such low salinity?

 

[fatman]

Lagoonal corals are about the only corals that except hyposalinity to any extent, in that some lagoons can be hyposaline, but again some can be hypersaline. It is very doubtful that the chain of custody documents needed for importation of the corals from the wild will include whether or not the coral came from a lagoon though, so any attempts at hyposalinity treatment of corals common to lagoons would still be very risky. Quarantining a coral is more akin to quartining a potentil risk, not so much a necessity. Though quarantining new corals probably in hind sight sounds awfully good to any coral owner who has had to treat his display tank for flat worm.
When aquarists will only spend small amounts of money they tend to get coral and fish that are held in bad conditions and otherwise treated and handled poorly, most often by people with little or no experience with marine organisms. If we pay little we get poor quality, poor service and a never ending number of opening and closing LFS's. If we insist on better and are willing to pay for that and nothing else that is what we will get. If we continue to under pay we will continue to get poor service and poor quality stock.

 

[lightcs4]

Reef,

Thanks for the heads up. I tend to do a lot of on-line research when looking at fish and corals, but I doubt I would have thought to check on their capability to get a fresh water dip. Do you or others here tend to quarantine their corals?

Fatman,

The LFS in my area is excellent as far as knowledge and service go and their price does reflect it to a small degree. I can get most, if not all, items on-line at lower pricing. However, I will likely suffer in customer service and quality. I don't mind shopping on-line for lights or dry rock as 1) they don't carry much in lighting and 2) they only carry live rock. But I think it is good to not only support the LFS but local business in general.

 

[dustin_P74]

one of my favorite sayings is you get what you pay for, if your willing too spend a little extra you usually get better quality, its that simple

 

[lightcs4]

one of my favorite sayings is you get what you pay for, if your willing too spend a little extra you usually get better quality, its that simple

The older I get the more obvious this becomes.

 

[fatman]

Reef,

Thanks for the heads up. I tend to do a lot of on-line research when looking at fish and corals, but I doubt I would have thought to check on their capability to get a fresh water dip. Do you or others here tend to quarantine their corals?
I quarantine (or disinfect) everything that goes into my established tanks, except that which goes from one of my tanks to another, such as to a customers or my own display tank. However, I quarantine everything coming from a customers tank or from a local or non local persons/bussinesses tank. It is not a perfect solution, but it is much better than the chances that are taken when not quarantiing. I do not medicate if not needed, and I do not use iodine dips on new corals unless there is reason after observation in quarantine. I keep a sponge filter for a quartine tank in my sump at all times unless it is in use, and I disinfect it after each use.
Fatman,

The LFS in my area is excellent as far as knowledge and service go and their price does reflect it to a small degree. I can get most, if not all, items on-line at lower pricing. However, I will likely suffer in customer service and quality. I don't mind shopping on-line for lights or dry rock as 1) they don't carry much in lighting and 2) they only carry live rock. But I think it is good to not only support the LFS but local business in general.

There is one LFS in my area, I do not support it. I expect a LFS to charge up to 50% or even a little more, with 100% on perishable and heavy items, but the LFS in Fairbanks, sells nothing for less that double to triple the online prices with shipping added. It is not a good place. There is only Petco and Walmart other than the one LFS. There were four or five before Petco came to town. Petco prices are cheaper than online once shipping is added, but their typical brands up here are not so good. The store manager has a problem with them sending the items that will not sell down there up here and making unavailable to Fairbanks, Alaska those brands and items he requests.