Ridding tank of parasites, Super Hyposalinity!!!

[Y2J]

I'm so frustrated at this point, it seems that every fish i throw into my tank has been getting sick. They seem to be getting the same sickness, it kinda looks like Oodinium, from what i've seen in my books. I have a 60gal FOWLR it's been running for about 3-4months now. I originally cycled the tank with a Dogface puffer that eventually died from ich. About 2weeks later, i put in 4 damsels and sometype of tang. They were doing great at first, but eventually the tang got ich/Oodinium and died too. Then one of the damsels got the same thing and died. I just recently added a rainbow wrasse 2 days ago, and now he is starting to get some Oodinium on his head. My fish seem to be scratching against the live rock. I'm so used my freshwater tanks, where i can just treat the whole tank. But i have to worry about my live rock. I was thinking about Q'ng my fish and treating them with copper. As for the tank, I was thinking about removing the live rock and doing a Hyposalinity treatment of 1.007 to make sure everything gets erradicated. Ph 8.2 Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate less than 10. I've been really thinking about just getting rid of the live rock and just going with just regular rock, so i don't have to hassle about using hyposalinity or copper, the next time i treat my fish. Any suggestions?

[FMarini]

Hi:
I can't tell from your post what is actually in this tank. Please list out current setup and inhabitants.

You have to stop adding fish to this infected tank.

Everytime you add a new fish to this tank you are adding a new host for the parasite to continue.

Why do you think its velvet?

What is your long term plan? do you plan on keeping this tank a strict FO w/ no corals or inverts

Heres what i would do (I am assuming this tank is just a fish tank w/ fish no corals or inverts, and that you have a perpectual ich infection). Use hyposalinity to treat this whole tank. Use a refractometer or precise floating hydrometer and ensure you have 1.009-1.010. The salinity has to be w/in this range (not 1.007). Wait for at least 45days of treatment, and do not introduce any new fish. Period.
Once the hypo treatment is completed, do not introduce any new fish into your main tank w/o first quarentining them for 1 month first.

After the hypo treatment your live rock will not be full of invert life, they will be rocks w/ bacteria in them, thats all. During the treatment period you might want to provide additional filtration. What else did i forget??

Right, good thing happen slowly in a fish tank, bad things happen fast.
go slowly
my opinion
frank

[Y2J]

I started today by changing about 3gal out and replaced it with freshwater. I tested my water and the SG measured at 1.023!! Which leads me to believe that the SG in my tank was higher than that. Could this be my problem? Should i still go on with the hypsalinity treatment or just lower the SG in my water?

[Y2J]

FMarini,

I forgot to say that the current inhabitants in my tank are 2 lemon damsels, 1 watchman goby, and 1 Rainbow Wrasse. No corals or inverts. When i woke up this morning, my rainbow wrasse was dead. =(

[slojmn]

Y2J, for what it is worth I keep my salinity in all 3 of my reef tanks around 1.026. Sometimes it hits right on 1.025 but mostly 1.026. I don't think your salinity is problematic. You have a disease of some sort, could be ICH, and it is infecting every fish you put in. If it is ICH go with hyposalinity for 30 days. If your tank is fish only with no live rock, live sand, inverts, or corals you can do it in the tank. Take 3-5 days to drop the salinity to 1.009(use a refractometer if you can) and hold it there for 30 days then slowly,over 2 weeks, bring the salinity back up to normal. This will rid the system of ICH, if that is in fact what the problem is. Go do a search here and you will find all you need to know about ICH and treatment. Good Luck.

Just re-read your post and saw you have live rock, sorry... Okay, in that case it is time to set up a q-tank. Easy enough to do just make sure you put a sponge in it that has bacteria on it from your tank. Otherwise you will get a cycle and that will kill the fish in quarantine, this just happened to me and it sucked. I had two sponges but put in 8 fish so the bacteria could not keep up, I lost 3 of the 8 fish. Just use tank water to set up your q-tank stick a heater in there and some kind of filter, like an Aqua Clear mini for the sponge to sit in. Monitor the nitrites and ammonia closely. Mine didn't show up till day 6 of quarantine so keep testing. Do the above described salinity reduction. This will also leave your tank fishless. The ICH in the tank will have no host and it will die off as well. Meaning when quarantine is over your fish will have a safe place to come home to. Then in the future I would always quarantine new fish before adding to your system, this way you wont have new ICH introduced.

[Y2J]

thanks for the help. I've moved some of my freshwater fish around to make room for a quarantine tank. I never thought saltwater fish keeping would be this difficult. LoL i'm so used the my freshwater tanks being able to just dump fish in.