Hyposalinity question - QT tank - how fast can you lower SG?

[marie]

I found hyposalinity a bit slow in killing ich on the fish, that's why I decided to go with cupramine instead when I treated my potters angels. I ended up doing 50% daily water changes to keep the ammonia levels down but the fish pulled through and I haven't seen ich on them since

[Delphinus]

Marie, so now that you've done both cupramine and hyposalinity on new fish, do you have a preference for which treatment?

[marie]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Marie, so now that you've done both cupramine and hyposalinity on new fish, do you have a preference for which treatment?

My preference would be cupramine if the fish has visible parasites, just hypo if they appear healthy... I have never lost a fish in quarantine though.
I have heard lots of people that have had problems with both kinds of treatment and I'm not sure what I do that makes the difference

[Delphinus]

Ohhhh .. hmmm, man that sounds like a good rule of thumb. Nuts to it all, I'm only halfway down on the salinity thing but I suppose that's far enough along that I'm committed to completing it since you have to take forever to bring the salinity back up. Guess next time I'll have a hospital tank ready to go that I can copper up.

Have I mentioned lately how crazy of a hobby I think this is? Stress if fun right? Argh. Honestly, knitting sounds pretty good right now.

[Myka]

Well, IMO I don't use medications for Ich. Period. The last time I used medication in a QT was on a freshwater Piranha with Dropsy back in 2002 ish. Dropsy is a disease that is expected to be fatal, so the medication was really a last ditch effort. Surprisingly it worked, even after a secondary Ich infection. Tough fish! Oh ya, back to the topic...I'm going to start up a QT for my tank too when I get the jawfishes and wrasses. I will medicate these fish with Prazi-Pro since the Jawfish are often wormy...I would do the same with any Tangs, and a few other species. The Wrasses will just get hypo for a few weeks.

[Delphinus]

Day 6 of hyposalinity. Maybe hindsight is 20/20 and I should have medicated them like Kevin said to do. They looked fine a few hours ago but man when they let go, it's fast and hard. Gonna lose the butterfly for sure, the lieutenant tang is not looking that great either.

So, I dunno. Can't say hyposalinity is really blowing up my skirt so far.

Really not loving the hobby these days.

[kien]

I suppose there is more than one way to skin a cat as they say..

For as along as I've been in the hobby I have never used meds or hypo to battle ich. The first time I was ever exposed to ich years ago someone said to try cleaner shrimp, so I did and it worked beautifully. Ever since then I have always had an army of cleaner shrimp (presently 4 skunk cleaners and 2 fire shrimp [yes they clean too!]). I have 3 tangs presently and each of them (and sometimes one or two other fish) get ich as soon as they were put into the tank but a few days of cleaner shrimp loving and they are clean as a whistle. When they are not cleaning they readily eat anything I put in the tank, but they seem to enjoy cleaning a lot, even when I don't see signs of ich on any fish. Anyway, that's been my experience. Sorry to hear about your battle