Hypersalinity

[Leah]

Curious when QT'ing new fish, if they would benefit from a slightly higher salinity? Would it kill parasites? Or stop the other deadly things that can wipe out a tank if we did not QT.

With all the talk lately of tank wipeouts it has me thinking.

Just throwing it out there? Anyone tried it before?

[sphelps]

It will prevent ich if done properly but that's pretty much it for parasites, it won't do anything for velvet. However it's beneficial in other ways, it lowers stress in fish as they require less energy to maintain internal salinity so it promotes better adjustment to aquarium life so to speak. Suppose to help with getting fish to eat faster as well.

So it's beneficial for a quarantine process as it's not really a treatment. Really you want to observe the fish while in quarantine and only treat specifics if necessary. Being proactive with treatments like copper will just stress the fish out and lower it's chances of survival.

[Leah]

Interesting sphelps...I hate medicating with a passion.

[Reef Pilot]

I think she is talking about hyper not hypo salinity which is higher salt content. As far as I know, fish don't like hypersalinity as it causes their internal systems to work harder to regulate it. Hyposalinity on the other hand is less stress on the fish, and also kills the parasites like ich (not velvet).

Every time I used hypo treatment in QT, I was 100% successful. The only QT failure for me happened late last spring when I QTed new fish, but did not do the hypo routine. That was because I also had bought new shrimp and snails at the same time. The livestock looked fine after several weeks, so I then transferred them to my display tank. It took another month or more, but then I had another full outbreak in my display tank. I ended up losing 2 fish in my display tank, but ironically none of the new fish. Eventually, the ich subsided on its own, and all is well again in my display tank.

[sphelps]

Yeah I assumed she meant hypo, I have no idea what hyper would do

[Reef Pilot]

I have my QT running all the time. I change water in it from my display tank, so doesn't cost me any extra salt to maintain. Then newly purchased fish start off with standard salinity (1.025). But immediatley I start changing the water in my QT with new RO/DI to lower the salanity to about 1.009 over a period of about a week. I keep it that way for at least 6 weeks. If any ich does happen at the beginning (and I have seen it), it is quickly eradicated once the salinity reaches 1.009.

If I don't see any ich for 6 weeks in the QT, I start raising the salinity to 1.025 by successive water changes, again from my display tank. The added advantage is that the new fish are then also acclimated to my DT water. That takes another week or so, and I leave them that way for another 2 weeks to ensure no more ich, and then transfer them to the DT.

The whole process usually takes about 3 months. Yes, it is a long time, but I also use that time to get the fish feeding well, and they are then healthy and strong before they meet their new tank mates in the DT (which are not always so friendly at first).

The trick is to have a fully cycled and mature QT running all the time. The mistake people make is setting up a new QT, and throwing in the new fish. Then they have to battle ammonia and other problems associated with any new tank, and it often does not turn out well for the fish.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by sphelps

I have no idea what hyper would do

I'm going to guess it would be bad. I ran a rock tank at 1.035 (apparently water evaporates??) and it killed all the crabs. Pretty sure it would do the same to fish

I've never heard of it being done, and I'm sure that's for a reason.

[sphelps]

Yeah I'm going to continue down the road assuming we're talking about hypo for obvious reasons. For me the problem I find is it's not overly easy to maintain a hypo tank. Ideally you want to maintain a cycled tank at 1.009 SG which is pretty easy but it gets complicated when you need to maintain a higher pH around 7.8, a constant pH monitor is key to this IME. You also need a refractometer that's accurate in that range which can be hard to confirm, although I think most aren't an issue, but if SG is too low fish will die and if SG is too high parasites will survive.

The next issue relates to raising the salinity back up to normal levels which if done in the hypo tank it may effect the cycle (I got ammonia spike doing this but I see others not mentioning any issues) and you risk releasing surviving parasites as well. Plus if you use a decent size QT like I do (55 gallons) raising and lowering the salinity is pretty wasteful and can be costly on salt. Also the whole procedure of holding fish for 4 weeks at hypo then raising salinity and holding for another 4 weeks is just too painful for me personally, it's going to be stressful for a fish and lot of work which 9 times out of 10 wasn't necessary in the first place.

Currently I'm now using two tanks, one hypo cycled and always maintained at 1.009 which in theory means ich can never reach Theront stage (attach to fish). The other cycled and maintained at natural seawater levels. I'm going to be adding an acclimation station between the two so I can preform tank transfers as necessarily. I find acclimating fish to hypo can be done fairly quickly (over a few hours) and the going the other way a little slower (12 hours). I personally think acclimating over a week is overkill but to each their own.

With the two tanks fish potentially effected with ich only need to stay in hypo tank for 8 days to insure the ich has fallen off the fish, they can then be transferred to the other tank and monitored as long as necessary to confirm fish is healthy and no other diseases are present. Cuts off at least 3 weeks, significantly more if it's only ich you're concerned with. The hypo tank can be used for it's other benefits as well plus with the two tanks I'm not limited to purchasing fish once every 2-3 months.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by sphelps

Yeah I'm going to continue down the road assuming we're talking about hypo for obvious reasons..

But we're not. The post is about hyper, specifically a "slightly higher salinity". Hypo is a wonderful topic, but not this topic.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

But we're not. The post is about hyper, specifically a "slightly higher salinity". Hypo is a wonderful topic, but not this topic.

Oh great Brad's putting on his topic police hat again