Hyposalinity ?

[porkchop]

I had a suuden outbreak of Ich in my tank so I removed all fish and put in a quarantine tank, boy was that fun. Anyway, I am going to do the hypo thing and having never done it before I was wondering how slowly should I take it down to 1.009. I've read countless threads on this and all that is said is go slow. Couple days? Couple weeks? Couple hours? I dunno. I am also going to treat with Rid-Ich+.

[Loverotties]

Take at least a day and you can drop the temp to 68 deg.

[Loverotties]

Keep it there for 4 or 5 days and then slowly bring both back up again.

[porkchop]

why drop the temp so low? I usually just let it rise and fall with the ambient temp of the room but thought when going through ich it should be kept high to speed op the process.

Kevin

[porkchop]

just to clarify on the temp thing with my pumps and lights etc. I only have a swing of approx 5 degrees from morning to night. I put a heater in the qt and have it at 78 degrees right now and will take it up another 3-4 tonight unless it is better to do hypo with cold water in which case I am screwed because of the heat around this time of year.

Kevin

[Twitterbait]

the fish will not have any problem with the salinity going down quickly. they will need time as you take it up though. make sure to take a few days when you bring the salinity back up. also look into supplimenting Garlic in their food and Melafix in the hospital tank. you might even do a FW dip on the way to the Hospital tank.

[Loverotties]

The low temp kills them to,but if you normaly have a 5 deg swing in temp every day that could be your ick problem.You want all your water parimeters to stay steady!But like Twitterbait said it's good to feed the fish garlic soaked food,plus they love it.

[porkchop]

Thanks for the replies. I do soak my food in garlic and have been using it for about two months now and the ich goes away for a couple days and then comes right back. As far as the temp thing goes I was going on Woody's advice to ditch the heater and have had no problems in the last year. He bases his theory on heat that in a reef the temp will swing with the tides and also if a heater goes bad you can cook your tank. I think the ich came in on a couple of clowns I purchased about three months ago. At any rate, I have put heaters back in the tanks and I figure I stare into the thing enough each day if a heater fries I will catch it in a few hours. Once again thanks for the info.

If anyone in Bridgetown has a refractometer they have lying around I would be interested in buying it. Been using one of those plastic swing arm jobbies and with running my qt hypo I think I need something a little more accurate.

Kevin