Hyposalinity Treatment, Part 4

Well, the plan has worked to perfection thus far. Yesterday I completed the madness around 10 pm, when I released Jaws and Red into the 29 gallon tank. I drip acclimated them in the same bucket for about 10 hours. In other words, the drop in salinity was about 4 times faster for them than it was for Fins. Nevertheless, they appear to be fine. They are both swimming around and eating, and Jaws is doing his thing with the sand in that tank.

It definitely helped that I was able to find two pieces of plaster coral in the basement of my house and a little freshwater fish house for the fish to hide in. Jaws appeared to be a bit more stressed when I eventually threw the two of them in the tank. His time in the bucket was nothing short of stressful. Two times--once at the beginning of acclimation and once at the end--he tried jumping out of the bucket and was almost successful. Luckily in both cases he plopped right back into the water, but I was definitely surprised to see how high these fish can jump (there was about 2 inches of water in the bucket, which is itself more than 12 inches tall, and Jaws managed to jump about six inches above the bucket.)

But I'm happy to say that the two of them appear to be doing fine today, and that the hypo appears to be working. So far there is no sign of ich on any of the fish and they are still eating and swimming normally. Fins doesn't seem to mind his former tankmates sharing the cramped space, which is nice as well.

In sum, it appears okay to lower the salinity on a clown and goby faster than it might be for a tang. Meanwhile, the three fish appear to be fine together in the 29 gallon tank. Fins even looks less stressed out now, especially with the rocks in place.