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Hyposalinity always sounds good but can have its own problems. I have seen so many posts on this topic but have never seen any negatives posted up and I know that if there are as many people using this method as claimed there has to be alot of valuable info out there on which fish did not respond well, how low was the specific gravity dropped to attain results, what was the time frame for the treatment to eradicate the outbreak etc... . One of the biggest problems we had on a commercial level with hyposalinity treatments was that the salinity had to be dropped to .07-.08 to be fully effective. At this level serious problems began to arise with long term tanking of more than 5-7 days on fish such as tangs, butterflies and angels. We found that the parasite Crypt. Irritans adapted fully to sal. levels of .09-.10, which is the bottom of the safe range for alot of species of fish, inside of 12 weeks on several occasions. I discontinued use of hypo. sal. when we also determined that therapeutic levels of copper increased from a level of .10ppm copper sulfate at 1.023 specific grav. to over .22ppm copper sulfate at 1.010 specific grav. This high level of nonchealated copper sulfate is very dangerous for fish but was necessary to effect a kill factor of the parasites that was high enough to stop the massive outbreaks. I was also amazed at the speed with which the outbreaks progressed at a low salinity compared to a full blown outbreak at higher salinities.
I realize that our findings may differ somewhat from that of a hobbyist in a quarinteen or display tank because of the regular additions of new wild collected fish being added to the systems in a commercial operation, but they cant be 100% different.
I would be extremely interested in hearing about any conclusions any of you have drawn in your experiences with hyposalinty and parasite eradication and or adaptation.
Sorry to stray from the thread topic.
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