Hyposalinity treatment (Sharing my own experience)

[mmaisonneuve]

Couple week ago I've acquired 2 new fish for my reef tank. Like any good reefer I've placed them in my QT tank to ensure that they were in go shape. Shortly after my new Dwarf angel was displaying sing of Ick and the next day the clown was in the same situation. For the Angel the episode was intense and within 3 day he was dead. That was it ! The clown was also supersick and I've decided to try the Hyposalinity treatment. That same day I was also able to acquire a large Blue Tang that was also sick with the ick. So my experience started on Friday the 25th. The experience is currently going on in a 29 Gallon Biocube; with a skimmer, Filter media, Carbon Media Bag, Phosban and Purigen


Day 1: Live Rock Removal, Skimmer ON, Carbon Filter ON, Phosban ON, Purigen ON. Every hour I take 1 litre out and replace it with RODI water (using baking soda to buffer the PH)

Day 2: Every hour replacing 1 litre of salt water with RODI water and PH buffering

Day 3: Now dripping RODI in and removing every hour 1 litre of water. by end of day the Density is now at 1.009

[mmaisonneuve]

Day 4: Water change 1 gallon out, during that process I'm sucking out as much sand possible the goal is to remove all the sand bed slowly not to stress out the fished.

Blue Tang and Clow showing sings of imporvement clown is now swiming very well and eat a lot. Blue tang is eating well some ick still present on the fish. Still hidding a lot but general condition is improving.

[mmaisonneuve]

Day 5: Clown fish is definitively improving, eating swimming a lot and most important no more ick visible. Round one of this battle is won for this little guy.

The Tang is still in average shape, very shy, eating ok....not like I would expect a tang would eat. It's definitively harder on her.

Did a 10% water change last night....was able to remove 2 cup of sand.....a long way before this tank is empty.

[Greatwhite]

Thanks for sharing this... I'm sure we're all sitting on the edge of our seats, cheering for the fish to kick the ich...  Hope it works out!

[mmaisonneuve]

2 Weeks into the Treatment: The last 3 days are very enlightning...the Tang is now almost Ick free with only 3-4 spots....he's now eating all the time, lots of food. The Clown is still clean of ick for now. Now by clean i mean no spot on the fish....couple more days and I'll be able to start the first 4 week countdown.

The most crazy thing is to see those saltwater fish swimming around so active and now healty in 1.008 of Salinity.