Hypo in the Main Tank?

[ms71171]

I have about 11 fish(tangs, angels, hawk, goby, damsels) several SPS colonies and some softies.

Since I don't really have enough tanks to QT all of my fish separately, I was thinking of pulling all the corals out and hypoing the main tank.

Will this work? Will it totally kill all my pods, sand critters etc?

If I have to pull all the fish and qt I guess I'll put them all in separate rubbermaid containers or something - total pain, but I'm sick of the ich.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SCOTT42]

pm sent, for a used hospiltal tank.

 

[waterbeing]

@ms71171 wrote:

@Matt wrote:

This is a complicated question and depends on many factors in my experience. So, yes... it will work, but as Matt said above, you will almost certainly experience an ammonia spike due to the die off of many of the inverts. If you have a tank with a large amount of bristle worm, copepods, snails, crabs, etc, it will likely be a nightmare trying to keep the ammonia under control. We had a tank full of angel,tang,clown trigger,others when we hypo-ed a full tank and besides the pH issue that you have to fight while converting, the ammonia spiked and we were doing almost 100% water changes for the 1st week. In defense of that though, the ammonia dropped quickly after that and it was very easy to maintain the hypo state from that point on. The change to hypo does not appear to affect the bio bed except the additional ammonia from the die-off. We have since converted to hypo immediately with no ill affect and no real ammonia spike since we don't have inverts (well...we do have a few that actually survived hypo) If you do not have the capability to make between a 50-75% water change daily if needed, I would not even begin to think about it. Also, if the fish are severly distressed already, an ammonia/nitrite spike is just going to complicate the stress condition and possibly cause the death when they otherwise wouldn't have. It's a difficult decision, just wiegh the options as best you can
HTH
Doug

 

[ms71171]

Thank you everyone and thank you Scott for the offer of the 30 gallon.

I took everyone's advice today and bought a 50 gallon rubbermaid and found an old 20 gallon I had in the attic.

This is a real pain - I just now finished taking all the rock and corals out so I could catch all the fish. Did that and now have the two tangs in the 20 gallon and the rest of my fish in the 50 gallon rubbermaid with about 30 gallons of water.

I'm starting with the hypo this evening in both QT tanks - dropping to 1.020.

I seperated the tangs b/c I heard they don't do well with copper - not sure - but in case I do decide to use it I'll have them alone. They're also the most infected.

Not sure if I should start copper treatment now or wait until the hypo is at 1.009

Is it true about tangs not doing well with Copper?

Should I treat with copper at all or just do the hypo?

Also, should I also treat the water with a bacteriological treatment - I have some Tank Buddies I thought might help the tangs since they have a few scratches.

Thank you everyone for the input!

Ready for a beer after a stressful day. :lol:

 

[waterbeing]

@ms71171 wrote:

You can easily drop the salinity to way below 1.020 in 1 day. We normally drop from 'normal' salinity to hypo (1.09) in much less than 24 hrs for any we have done. Be VERY careful with the pH changes that will occur during the conversion. It is difficult to keep the pH in balance, but it must be checked and adjusted quickly during the switchover. You can buffer up the RO with one of the pH increasing additives and try figure out how much it takes to keep the pH from changing while adding RO. While you can supposedly use copper with hypo, we have not had good luck with both at the same time. I actually have my doubts about the information we received from the manufacturer of the copper treatment when we tried it once. If the animal has something other than ich that requires copper, I would not hypo and only use copper itself. If you are just treating ick, the hypo should be sufficient. Tangs are more sensitive to copper and that is 1 of the fish we lost during a hypo/copper treatment and it reacted almost immediately to the copper addition even though it was much less than was suggested. I wouldn't add any more chemicals for bacterial aide unless needed as it will be hard to determine whether they will be made stronger/weaker by the hypo when mixed with the treatment.

Doug

 

[DaveJ]

Just curious, but why are doing a mass hypo??

 

[ms71171]

@DaveJ wrote:

Well... according to everything I've read, it's the only way to eradicate the parisite from the display tank - by letting it sit fallow for 4-6 weeks without fish and treating all the fish with hypo throughout the duration.

 

[tnn1567]

Since you are doing a mass hypo in a 50 gal tank. Try adding some air stone if no one has suggested it yet. Also, you will notice your pH will drop constantly. You may want to start dripping kalk 24 hrs to keep up with the pH.

If you do notice a dead fish no sign full coloration, that mean your pH is off. I did a massive hypo on a 100 gal tank. It started off with 560 gal and finally made a decision to down grade to 100 gal. Where I lost my fish is due to pH. Good luck with your hypo.

 

[ms71171]

Thanks man for the tips - I really don't want to loose anything.

I have powerheads already. Do you think I should also add the air stones?

 

[ms71171]

Could I use baking soda to raise alkalinity? I know I could. I just don't have any kalk.

 

[rckrzy1]

@Matt wrote:

Sure can! I use baked baking soda though."]

What is Baked baking soda ? And is it found at the grocery ?

 

[tnn1567]

@ms71171 wrote:

Are you trying to raise akalinity or pH? Not sure how the alkalinity part got into the equation. If you need some kalk to help raise pH, you can swing by Keller to pickup some lime.