Rapidly / slowly increasing salinity

[flanque]

Hi,

I lowered my salinity to help fight off a small whitespot outbreak on my new brown tankg. I lowered it down to 1.019. I was speaking to a friend who's had endless (I mean, for like a year now) trouble with whitespot (she just wont leave those blue tangs at the shop) and her advice was that you can lower your salinity "as fast as you want" but that you had to raise it "very slowly".

I lowered it from 1.025 to 1.019 over about a ten minute period. Everything seems to be OK but now that the whitespot is gone I'd like to raise the salinity back to "normal" levels.

The last time I had whitespot was around three years ago and adjusting my salinity was never part of the cure at the time so I'm new on the principles of salinity.

What's the best method? Can I raise it back just by topping off evaporation with salt water? I usually have to top up maybe ten litres each two days or so.

Cheers and thanks in advance.

 

[Devilishturtles]

That's what I would do, just top off with saltwater. Perhaps daily, as to raise it slowly.

 

[flanque]

If that's all I need to do then it'd be acomplished over a period of a week or two, given how much I needed to take out to bring it down to that level.

 

[melosu58]

I just wonder if the ick is gone. You`re supposed to lower it to 1.009 to be effective. The ick will fall off and each one will produce over 200 tomites that will reinfest your fish. Just make sure you did get it. Alot of people keep their tanks at 1.019. Hope all goes well

 

[flanque]

What are the implications to inverts and corals when keeping them at this salinity?

 

[melosu58]

You cannot do hypo with inverts or corals. You`ll need to put the fish in a QT and treat.

 

[flanque]

Hmmm... cos I have a hermit crab, corilamorphs and some button pollups (see this link) and they all seem fine.

 

[tecwzrd]

Hmmm... cos I have a hermit crab, corilamorphs and some button pollups (see this link) and they all seem fine.

That's because all mentioned do ok at 1.019 sg. If you had lowered it to 1.009 then it would have killed them off.

As mike said it's best to QT all your fish and reduce sg to 1.009 for 6 weeks and slowly increase back to normal sg levels topping off with well mixed SW to increase sg,

Fish have little trouble adjusting to quickly lowering sg levels but it can adversely affect mobile inverts/corals. Luckily you didn't lower too much but you also did little to eradicate your whitespot problem.

If you do QT all your fish and drop the sg to 1.009 I'd use a refractometer for accurate sg readings.

 

[roka64]

I definitely agree, you will have to lower the SG to 1.009 for hyposalinity to work.

 

[flanque]

Yeah I've read and heard that I should have lowered it more, but there was something that struck me as "wrong" about lowering it that much. I'm always cautious about change in my aquarium.

As for catching the fish.. well that'd be a really hard task given there is so much live rock in the tank. I'd have to remove all the rock to catch them which undoubtably would stress them even more.

 

[roka64]

As for catching the fish.. well that'd be a really hard task given there is so much live rock in the tank. I'd have to remove all the rock to catch them which undoubtably would stress them even more.

Unfortunately, that is about all you can do. Can you make a trap?
I like your pooch! I used to have a Red Healer!

 

[flanque]

He's a pug from Belgum. A bruno.. blah blah.. I cannot pronounce the rest.

I did try a trap once for my damsel and it worked after two days.. I'd be suprised if he fell for it again. In any event, the whitespot appears to be gone now and it's out in the tank anyways with everyone so I'd have to catch them all.. I'd guess it's just easier to treat it in the main tank now.