The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

[Wolfgang]

You should be aiming between .013 and .017. for true hypo treatment.

[Blueface]

Originally Posted by shilala

My salt is up around .025 right now, Carlos. I'll have to swap out a couple buckets of water in the morning.
She's really not in bad shape at all. I should probably not screw with it real fast. I'll bring the temperature up slowly and lower the salinity slowly. I need some water changes anyways, so I'll start making RO water in earnest.

.025 is too high for what you have.
Fear not about slow transition. I have taken them down in one water change. Does not hurt them. In fact, I have often times taken a fish out of one environment, into the other, without any acclimation. My son's shop did it all the time also.

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

the hypo salinity should do the trick. Cranking temperature in the tank isnt shown to help mush with marine ich. Freshwater raising the temp works winders though.

Everything I have read indicates both salt water and fresh water ich are affected by temperature. Lower extends life cycle while higher temperature speeds it up. I have never done temperature alone or salinity alone so can't really tell if one is better than the other. However, note that most outbreaks occur when heaters go bad and temperature drops rapidly. The other outbreaks occur when introducing infected fish. Conversely, high temperature must have an effect also.

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

You should be aiming between .013 and .017. for true hypo treatment.

An oceanic institute published a study with a large Angel where he was kept at .012 for well over two years with no issues. While .013 to .017 may do it, the lower you go, the faster the fresh water mixture penetrates and blows up the cysts. My tank runs at around .016 to .017 year round. Note I have seen many outbreaks on folks around .017 so I won't therefore trust that as a safe level for no ich. Saltwater ich cannot survive in fresh water but it is due to their single cell composition blowing up. The sooner you can get those critters off their bodies, the better the survival rate and better chance of not contracting bacterial infections. Sometimes the latter sets in and kills them before the ich suffocates them.