Copper in quarantine?

[mandyplo]

Hi I've been battling Marine Ich for over a month and a half and well after losing 4 fish I have definitely learned my lesson.

I have set up a 30 gallon quarantine tank with glass barebottom, PVC pipes and only sponge/ammonia filtration. It has been running for about a month and I'd like to re-stock my display tank with fish at some point in the future, so I'm wondering what do you guys use for copper medications in your quarantine tanks?

Cupramine by Seachem is available to me locally, does anyone use this one and have success with it?

Any tips / pointers would be great this is my first time quarantining marine fish and I want to make sure I do it correct right from the beginning. Thanks.

[howdy20012002]

I use cupramine and it is the only one I would use
Make sure you follow the instructions and test for the levels every day until it levels out and then every week or so after that
Use API or seachem tests kits
If the reading isn't close to what it should be buy another test kit as they can be unreliable especially the seachem
Don't waste your money on the API test it is junk

[mandyplo]

Originally Posted by howdy20012002

I use cupramine and it is the only one I would use
Make sure you follow the instructions and test for the levels every day until it levels out and then every week or so after that
Use API or seachem tests kits
If the reading isn't close to what it should be buy another test kit as they can be unreliable especially the seachem
Don't waste your money on the API test it is junk

I'm confused you said use api or seachem then you said seachem is unreliable and not to use api cause it is junk....So what test kit should I pick up for testing copper?...

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by mandyplo

I'm confused you said use api or seachem then you said seachem is unreliable and not to use api cause it is junk....So what test kit should I pick up for testing copper?...

+1 Neal im confused

[howdy20012002]

hey there
sorry about that..I answered in a hurry and on my Iphone
what I meant to say is....
I personally like the salifert Copper test and I find it to be the most accurate
I have gone through 3 API testkits and I have yet to get any reading that even looks close to what the reference cards shows.
I have used seachem and still do, but have had issues with a couple where they weren't showing what they were supposed to show.
I can't really comment on the others because I haven't used them.
so, salifert would be my first choice
seachem second
however, with any of them, if you do get a reading is not enough close enough to what you think, definitely retest.
I would personally buy 2 tests kits and test with both just to make sure.
copper, although very effective at killing parasites, can be just as effective killing your fish if the dose is too high.
let me know if you have any more questions.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by howdy20012002

hey there
sorry about that..I answered in a hurry and on my Iphone
what I meant to say is....
I personally like the salifert Copper test and I find it to be the most accurate
I have gone through 3 API testkits and I have yet to get any reading that even looks close to what the reference cards shows.
I have used seachem and still do, but have had issues with a couple where they weren't showing what they were supposed to show.
I can't really comment on the others because I haven't used them.
so, salifert would be my first choice
seachem second
however, with any of them, if you do get a reading is not enough close enough to what you think, definitely retest.
I would personally buy 2 tests kits and test with both just to make sure.
copper, although very effective at killing parasites, can be just as effective killing your fish if the dose is too high.
let me know if you have any more questions.

I think the reason API kits are such garbage when testing cupramine is because the copper in them isn't really either 'free' or chelated. The copper is bound up in an organic amine complex, which makes it invisible to some tests, like API. It's also why you need to be really careful about dosing reducing agents like Prime or anything designed to make ammonia non-toxic, because they also reduce the copper in cupramine which can make Seachem's recommended copper level of 0.5ppm lethally toxic. For that reason, I wouldn't use cupramine in a system that wasn't 100% cycled, because it's so dangerous to dose water conditioners with it, and the most commonly available test kits for ammonia are salycilate tests (like APIs), which can break apart the amine complex and give a false reading of ammonia.

Also, I wouldn't necessarily agree that copper is that great at killing the parasite. It's totally ineffective against 2 out of the 4 main stages of the parasites life cycle, and one of those stages, the encysted tomont, is perfectly capable of staying in it's bulletproof little cyst for way longer than any fish could tolerate exposure to copper. In some instances, a two week course of cupramine (as recommended by Seachem) will be enough to clear a QT system of the parasite completely, but there are going to be just as many cases in which a tomont sits patiently in the QT system for 3 or 4 weeks, hatches after the aquarist has halted the copper treatment, and re-infects the whole system, leaving the aquarist to scratch their head and wonder what the hell is going on.

In all my reading and communicating with people who have made careers out of studying marine parasites, the only treatment method that has been shown to be 100% effective in eradicating the parasite from fish completely is the tank transfer method, or a hybrid method that functionally does the same thing, which is remove tomonts from the system and destroy them. The only things that are known to kill C. irritans tomonts in-situ will also kill all your fish.

[duncangweller]

I would second the hyposalinity route. I currently have my fish in QT tank because of ich and I am leaving my DT fallow for 10 weeks to make sure the little bastards are well and truly gone. The fish are doing really well, eating like its going out of style and in great condition. It's been really easy to maintain so far as well with water changes every second day with ro/di water made up to 1.009 salinity.

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[Baldy]

Originally Posted by duncangweller

I would second the hyposalinity route. I currently have my fish in QT tank because of ich and I am leaving my DT fallow for 10 weeks to make sure the little bastards are well and truly gone. The fish are doing really well, eating like its going out of style and in great condition. It's been really easy to maintain so far as well with water changes every second day with ro/di water made up to 1.009 salinity.

Sent from my HTC Incredible S using Tapatalk 2

Im going through the exact same thing now due to negligence on my part with new additions. i lost a foxface to it but all 7 other fish are doing great right now at 1.009. Eating like pigs.

Why the water changes every 2nd day though? are you having nitrate or ammonia problems in the QT?

[duncangweller]

I started off doing water changes frequently in order to get the salinity down to 1.009 then once at the correct level I slowed down with the water changes. At the moment I do one about every 3/4 days. It isn't a very big tank and there are 5 fish in it so just want to be safe. I read an article saying that you should do a partial water change every couple of days so that was kind of the route I was following.

Either way it is working so.can't complain.

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[Reef Pilot]

Once I had my water down to 1.009 (the magic number), I never changed it again, until I was raising it back up. For that, I used display tank water (from water changes) to get it back up. The advantage was that the new fish were fully acclimated to my DT (their ultimate destination) water when they were ready to be moved.

Of course, I checked water params in the QT the whole time. And be sure to use an accurate refractometer. Those swing arm hydrometers are totally inadequate for this purpose.