help with hyposalinity

[DreamCatcher87]

ok, i have a BAD case of ich in my 29 gallon saltwater tank. i was stupid and did not quarantine and now my main tank is very infected. I have removed all inverts and all live rock from my main tank and i have covered the tank up to reduce stress to the fish. ok, is hyposalinity a bad idea right now, my tang has ich, my dogface has ich and i am afraid my damsel and clown may have it dormant in them. i have heard to lower salinity to .010 over the course of 3 days, leave it there for 10 days, then bring it back up to normal (which is .0212) over the course of 3 days. does this sound good or should i abort before i start and try something new. a friend told me ich is like a cold it takes time to get over it, but if/when i add new fish, they can be killed by it. is hyposalinity bad to do. my dogface has it so bad that when he darkens, it looks like he is covered with sand.

Please help any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

[harif87]

You could try it, cant hurt. The only thing is you dont drop the salinity that low.... it should be more around 1.010 while normal parameters would consitute sg levels of 1.023-1.026.
Ich is "like a cold", but not exactly. When we have a cold we get rid of it. When your tank gets an ich infestation it has no means of defense, so the ich (while following its normal life cycle) is not visable because they migrate to the sandbed for mating. I would advise treating the fish with meds in a hospital tank.
Only if you lose your livestock should you start from new. There is no reason to do so when you have an alternative that can fix your problem.

[DreamCatcher87]

i meant 1.0212 and 1.010 that's what i mean, i just drop the 1 most of the time

my hospital tank is 5 gallons

[harif87]

1.0212 is still very low.

I would try to get a hold of a larger tank though, 5 gallons as a hospital is way too small.

[DreamCatcher87]

until i get the money for a bigger tank i have a 1 gallon a 5 gallon and the 29 main tank. when i get the money, im going to try to get a 55 gallon tank or maybe a 15 gallon, depending on how much money i get

[harif87]

you could temporarily use a rubermaid bucket (around 20 gallons) for a hospital tank.

[Fishfirst]

I wouldn't lower the s.g. in the main tank if you still have your sand bed in... too many creatures in your sand bed could die from the lower salinity and you could have a major ammonia spike in just a few days. Hypo works for most cases of ich, but I would get a refractometer or calibrate your hydrometer against a refractometer... just .001 high and ich stays alive.. and being a hydrometer, temp influences it majorly.

Qt in a rubbermaid wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Depending on the fish, you could do a freshwater or methaline blue dip before putting them in qt to relieve them temperarily.

[TheOldSalt]

.010 is too high to be reliable. It does work fine if you want to combine it with copper or formalin or whatever, but .008 is what you'll need to absolutely wipe it out without meds. 007 or lower is not required or recommended.
A series of freshwater dips will also be very helpful, and add some Kyolic garlic or reef-made garlic stuff to the food. The dips will keep the fish alive long enough for the other stuff to do the job.

If you have livesand in the main tank, then you'll have to leave that tank fishless for about 6 weeks to be reasonably certain the parasites are all gone. If that isn't possible, then install a powerful Ultraviolet unit instead to deal with whatever swimmers you miss. Otherwise, either remove all your sand or brutalize it with the low salinity.

I certainly hope you've learned your lesson about quarantine. One of the first things a new saltwater keeper learns, and usually learns the hard way, is that quarantine is not a luxury in saltwater, but a necessity.