EMERGENCY- hyposalinity may be killing roughhead blenny, how fast to acclimate back to salt?

[Tired]

I have a trimma goby and a roughhead blenny in a quarantine tank I've been slowly lowering to 0.009 to treat ich that the trimma goby has. The roughhead blenny wouldn't eat yesterday, but I thought it was from the trimma goby being perched right by her and scaring her. Today I went and looked in there, and she was crammed head-first between a couple bits of filter media, not moving. 

 

She looks dead. She lays on her side and makes no effort to right herself, but she's still breathing, and she moves her tailtip if it's touched. 

 

I'm acclimating her back to the water in the tank she came from, because I know that tank's fine. How fast can I safely acclimate her back to full salinity? Should I do drip acclimation? Faster? I don't want to move too slowly and let whatever's killing her finish her off, but I don't want to kill her from shock. 

[Tired]

Well, it's no longer urgent. She stopped breathing and went stiff. Pretty sure she's dead. 

 

So... do blennies just not tolerate hyposalinity? That doesn't seem right, given where they usually live.

 

I acclimated them over the course of 4 or 5 days, by dripping freshwater into a saltwater quarantine tank to lower the salinity. PH is 8.1, and my ammonia test kit isn't in yet (the old one spilled), but the other fish is eating like a pig and I just did a water change yesterday, so I don't think ammonia is an issue. I don't know what happened. She seemed fine until yesterday, eating and everything, and then yesterday she didn't eat. The trimma goby was perched right by her, so I thought maybe he was making her too nervous to grab food. 

[Tired]

Do fish ever react badly to the ich dying off? I know some parasites can make you really sick if you aren't treated properly when the parasites are killed by medication. Ich isn't a parasite, (edit; isn't a multi-cellular animal parasite like a worm, at least), but I wonder if it's possible she was allergic or had some other immune reaction. She was never symptomatic, I don't think she had a bad infection, but there's no way she didn't have any ich from being in a tank with an infected fish. 

 

 

I'm going to bury her in my orchid terrarium, in one of the shells she liked to hide in. It's got plenty of secret hidden nooks, and microorganisms crawling around. Fish don't care where you bury them, but I think if they had some concept of it, she might like to be buried in a place with lots of hiding places and critters. 

[Humblefish]

2 hours ago, Tired said:

So... do blennies just not tolerate hyposalinity? That doesn't seem right, given where they usually live.

All fish can be a little hit-or-miss when it comes to hypo treatment. Most handle it fine, but there’s always going to be the oddball that just won’t tolerate it for some reason.

 

Another possibility is your fish actually have Velvet (which can look very similar to Ich.) Hypo will only suppress, but not fully treat, Velvet.

[Tired]

Pretty sure it's Ich. Salt-grain-sized white spots, only ever a few at a time. The trimma goby was the one showing symptoms. The spots would crop up for a couple days, then vanish. From what I've read of Velvet, it tends to be much worse, right? I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention that they have a fish that occasionally shows Velvet symptoms and then fights it off, like some people have with Ich. 

 

I wanted to get rid of the Ich for good, both to avoid the possibility of a serious infection if something ever badly stressed them, and so they wouldn't just be constantly infected. Sort of regretting that right now, but on the other hand, I don't feel like it's responsible to let a fish just stay sick. I know every wild animal has some pathogen load, but if I had a cat who had a contagious, curable disease that he was periodically showing symptoms of, I'd take him to the vet to get it cured. Feels like the same principle should apply to every animal capable of feeling pain. 

 

I really love roughhead blennies, and I'd like to get another one once the goby is treated and the tank is done with the fallow period. On the off chance that it happens to arrive with ich that shows up in the QT tank, is there any way to tell whether that fish will tolerate hypo alright, aside from trying it and watching like a hawk? 

 

On that subject, if the trimma goby is eating happily in full hyposalinity, is it safe to say that he's fine? He seems pretty happy- he finally stopped hiding behind the filter outlet in terror of the new tank. 

[Humblefish]

On 3/30/2022 at 12:42 PM, Tired said:

On the off chance that it happens to arrive with ich that shows up in the QT tank, is there any way to tell whether that fish will tolerate hypo alright, aside from trying it and watching like a hawk?

Basically, you just have to observe closely for any adverse reactions. Which (ironically) are similar to copper intolerance: Appetite suppression, lethargy, heavy breathing, etc.

 

I have found that wrasses and anthias don't always do well in hypo. And after looking back over my notes, I've had issues with gobies and blennies as well. 😞

 

On 3/30/2022 at 12:42 PM, Tired said:

On that subject, if the trimma goby is eating happily in full hyposalinity, is it safe to say that he's fine? He seems pretty happy- he finally stopped hiding behind the filter outlet in terror of the new tank. 

Unless he's showing adverse reactions, I would leave him be. The difficulties with hypo usually happen at the beginning.

[sadie]

sorry for your loss Tired.  

[Tired]

Thanks. I still feel bad- I wish I'd realized sooner that she was reacting badly, or maybe tried a different method in the first place. Though I'm not sure what this reaction means for how she would have reacted to other treatments. 

 

At least the other fish, a trimma goby, seems fine. He's got plenty of appetite. I'm getting this tank ich-free, then I'm going to keep an eye on the KP Aquatics site for more roughheads. They have so much personality. There'll be no shortage of snacks- the microfauna in this tank is going nuts with nothing to eat them. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Very sorry for your loss, Tired. Losing fish sucks. 😔