Hypo Salinity in my 92 FOWLR tank, please help!! 911

[psuj22]

Everyone,
I’m currently treating Ich with Hypo salinity treatment in my main tank (92 gallon) and my current S.G. is at 1.014 and my fish are already acting funny and not eating. I cant even see my Powder Blue Tang anymore and my Imperator Angel is staying at the top of my overflow, turned slightly sideways and doesn’t even run that much when I tried to touch him to see if he was alive. All my other numbers were ok this morning.. Except for the PH, which was at 7.8, and I just added some PH buffer to bring it back up to 8.4(which was brought up pretty quickly as soon as I added the powder) Please help.. I’m freaking out because of the way my angel is acting. Any comments on the situation? Any advice?

Should I start taking the S.G. back up slowly? (I’ve been bringing the SG. Slowly for the past few days and only jsut lowered if from1.020 to a 1.014yesterday over an 8hrs period..) ?
I got a few other fish that are hiding, butseems to be holding up ok.. Like my yellow tang, damsels, cardinals, puffer, and Blue Girdled Angelfish…Should I move the Imperator angel to a different tank and slowly bring up the SG in that tank??

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of the situation your fish are in.

Performing hyposalinity with live rock is risky at best. You didn't mention if the tank had substrate. If it did, then the pods and worms in the substrate are in trouble, like the inverts in and on the rock. The inverts in and on the live rock and substrate will die in hyposalinity, creating spikes in ammonia and nitrites the bacteria aren'te prepared to handle and which will poison the fish. Not the recommended approach.

The drop in pH is a complication to the above and can be quite costly in fish life. When the inverts start dying off and death runs rampant in your LR and substrate, the pH is stressed to the point where quite often, the salt's buffer is broken.

Even small pH swings can kill fishes. When the pH went down, how fast did you bring it back up? Down 0.3 to 0.5 pH units, it should take you about three days to raise it back up. Some recommend longer. So, it isn't just the lowering of the pH that will cause problems, it's the raising of it. To put it bluntly: fish can't stand a change in pH (up or down). To change the pH without affecting the fish takes days.

You're witnessing that all in one narrow time zone.

My best recommendations:
Keeping the salinity low is, at this time, a good idea to continue. A low salinity will remove stress from the fish. I've seem Emperor Angels act like you described. Classic result of pH and chemical poisoning. Other fishes can be more tolerant.

Since you're doing a treatment for Marine Ich then I'd recommend conforming to a more traditional process. Remove all fish to a hospital tank or a couple of hospital tanks to continue the treatment. Raise the salinity on the main tank and leave it fishless for at least another 6 weeks.

Perform a water change on the display tank, matching pH, salinity, and temperature. Monitor all chemistries in the main tank.

In the hospital tank keep water parameters steady, especially pH. Change water once or twice a day if you have to. If you need to adjust the pH do it slowly.

Once all fish are in the hospital tank and everything stabilizes, I'd continue to lower the salinity to 11ppt to 12ppt. You'll need a refractometer to control the salinity and be alert to water quality.

Good luck! :rollface:

[psuj22]

Thanks to all your responses..
I did a very stupid thing and forgot to check the Ph of the water I was adding yesterday.. Which, I’m now certain, was the cause of the PH droppe, and it was even more stupid to raise it back up quickly as I did, this morning.

The good news is that I found my Yellow tang, still alive, and the Imperator is doing better now.. he’s not hanging out sideways by the overflow anymore. He’s down in the rocks with the other fishes. Unfortunately, none of them are still eating well. What I am thinking of doing is moving them all to a 30gallon with nothing in it..(except some PVC piping for hiding) and to continue the treatment in the smaller tank with HYPO(or maybe even some other medications like copper).. so that I may be able to salvage the live rock and live sand in the display tank. This way.. I don’t have to worry about the ammonia spikes in the tank with the fish as well. Any comments, ideas, or concerns?

Also… The imperator is showing a lot of discoloration.. pale patches of color all over his body… but I assume this is normal with the stress caused by the SG and PH fluctuations.

[leebca]

Sounds like you're on the right path. This article gives some ideas on a hospital tank which, for this purpose, is a quarantine tank:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.htm

This two-part article provides options for treatment of Marine Ich:
Steven Pro’s article on Marine Ich (Part 1):
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.htm
(Part 2):
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.htm

Keep an eye on the Emperor. I wish you well with it, but I've seen more eventually expire than recover.

Good luck! :rollface: