Not to mention if you have a reef or want to ever have one, you can't use copper; or if you ever want to sell your tank in the future for an upgrage, a downgrade, or because of a move. Using the copper with formalin turns the silicon in the tank a disctinctive blue color that can't be missed by anyone with experiecne. I would stay away from copper, at least in the main tank, if you want to use it in the QT tank, that's ok.
Anyone have tips they can give me for treating ich
- Thread starter mattyice
- Start date
well ive been using Kent Rx-p it is reef safe and is doing a great job, no other fish in the tank has ich as of now, and the cleaner shrimp are doing a good job on my fish, i feed garlic with everymeal (2-3 times a day) and i constantly have a full algae clip in the tank for my flame angel and sohal, Kent Rx-P is a reef safe treatment for ich and other parasites and it is doing its job, i dose the tank every other day for 2 weeks (7 doses total) and it is supposed to completely kill off the bastards, i am on the 4th treatment and the disease is going away on the fish and as i stated no other fish in the tank has caught it yet, if i do get a big outbreak of it in the next couple days then the fish will be moved to QT and treated appropriately and the tanks temp will be raised to 83* to kill the parasite
Paul B
Premium Member
K-ROK you can disagree with me, thats fine. You can use cleaner shrimp to eat ich too. As for copper being a poison, you are correct. All the medications you have ever taken in your life were poison too in the wrong dose.
Just about all the fish you have ever bought were shipped and sold in copper treated tanks. If it were not for copper, there would not be a salt water hobby. Before the seventees they did not sell saltwater fish for that reason.
Paul
Just about all the fish you have ever bought were shipped and sold in copper treated tanks. If it were not for copper, there would not be a salt water hobby. Before the seventees they did not sell saltwater fish for that reason.
Paul
cowcio
New member
Copper based meds are certainly great for getting rid of ich in fish only systems. However, it is deadly to most inverts (including your corals). With corals in a system, I would not dose with a copper based medication.
You are also right about the importance of copper based meds in our hobby. With distributors it is definitely the best way to provide the most healthy fish possible.
However, this thread is about trying to help mattyice out
It seems as though mattyice is having success of ridding the disease from his tank.
Mattyice, I did notice one thing wrong in your last post. You said that you would only raise your QT tank to 83*.... The disease can still reproduce up to 85*. You will be slowing the disease, but not stopping it. If you've read otherwise, I'm interested in some new reading! Thanks, and good luck!
cowcio
New member
Also... You state that "no other fish in the tank has caught it yet"....
BE CAREFUL! Although a fish may not show signs of the disease, they can be caring it. Humans encounter many diseases that are carried but not reacting negatively. I would treat all of the fish for 6 weeks, but only to be careful.
BE CAREFUL! Although a fish may not show signs of the disease, they can be caring it. Humans encounter many diseases that are carried but not reacting negatively. I would treat all of the fish for 6 weeks, but only to be careful.
Paul B
Premium Member
K-ROK, copper is a cure and it is not necessarily better, it depends on the degree of the infection. Sometimes ich will kill a fish in two days, if you use hypo, garlic or something else the fish will die before the cure is effective. I don't think of copper as a poison I think of it as a tonic. Of course as I said all medications are poison, even aspirin will kill you if you take too much and we are trying to "kill" paracites not just make them feel bad. Luckily for us and the fish it is more toxic to paracites than to fish. Copper also will not damage a fishes stomach, liver or anything else as I have kept fish in it for years with no ill effects. As I said, most fish you see in stores are in tanks with copper and if they tell you differently, they are probably lying. In a store with new fish being added all the time there is almost no chance of a fish living long enough to be sold without the use of copper. Wholesalers do not use hypo, garlic or shrimp because they want the fish cured now. Cleaner shrimp although may eat some paracites will not clean the paracites from the inside of the gills of a small fish where there would be thousands of them. The ich paracites on the scales of a fish will not harm the fish, it is the ones in the gills that interfere with respiration and slowly suffocate the fish.
The original question was "how to cure fish in a hospital tank besides using HYPO." Not a coral reef or even a fish only but a hospital tank. He asked for alternatives, I think I gave him one. For another alternative there is Quinicrine hydrosulfate. It is a malaria medication. Malaria is a paracite similar to ich. It can even be used with some inverts (but not corals) It is useful because it leaves no lasting chemical in the tank to effect inverts in the future. I discovered in the seventees that if the quinicrine was used in conjunction with copper you will get a cure in about a day. I wrote an article about it many years ago but it is a tough medication to get in the states where we don't have much malaria.
Paul
I just saw this, This statement is also IMO incorrect and this rumor has been circulating for many years. Copper can be used in a tank for as long as you like and it will not effect inverts in the future nor will the silicone turn blue from it. Metheyline blue will discolor silicone but not copper. My tank which is 36 years old ran copper continousely for about ten years when it was a FO. For the last 28 years or so it has been a reef. The silicone looks like the day the tank was new and the corals look fine.
The original question was "how to cure fish in a hospital tank besides using HYPO." Not a coral reef or even a fish only but a hospital tank. He asked for alternatives, I think I gave him one. For another alternative there is Quinicrine hydrosulfate. It is a malaria medication. Malaria is a paracite similar to ich. It can even be used with some inverts (but not corals) It is useful because it leaves no lasting chemical in the tank to effect inverts in the future. I discovered in the seventees that if the quinicrine was used in conjunction with copper you will get a cure in about a day. I wrote an article about it many years ago but it is a tough medication to get in the states where we don't have much malaria.
Paul
I just saw this, This statement is also IMO incorrect and this rumor has been circulating for many years. Copper can be used in a tank for as long as you like and it will not effect inverts in the future nor will the silicone turn blue from it. Metheyline blue will discolor silicone but not copper. My tank which is 36 years old ran copper continousely for about ten years when it was a FO. For the last 28 years or so it has been a reef. The silicone looks like the day the tank was new and the corals look fine.
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scottfarcuz
New member
Paul,
As always I love hearing your input on reef related subjects because few members of RC have your level of experience. I'd like to add my $.02 worth...All in friendly debate which I feel is the backbone of not only this forum, but reef keeping progress in general.
You agree meth blue absorbs into silicone. From personal FW experience I know malachite green does also. Would this lead us to the conclusion that copper, or other meds do also?
I think tank volume, age, and husbandry could add up to a lot of variables in the outcome of using an old QT tank for a reef. I know anytime I had a problem with the tank in the future I would be asking myself if it could possibly be contamination...
As always I love hearing your input on reef related subjects because few members of RC have your level of experience. I'd like to add my $.02 worth...All in friendly debate which I feel is the backbone of not only this forum, but reef keeping progress in general.
You agree meth blue absorbs into silicone. From personal FW experience I know malachite green does also. Would this lead us to the conclusion that copper, or other meds do also?
I think tank volume, age, and husbandry could add up to a lot of variables in the outcome of using an old QT tank for a reef. I know anytime I had a problem with the tank in the future I would be asking myself if it could possibly be contamination...
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K-ROK
New member
In my case its a bit different - I would not let a fish die from ich in two days because I keep a very watchful eye out for any kind of disease. In my experience, ich starts with just a couple spots, disapears, then comes back 10x as bad. (ich life cycle). I understand that not everyone can keep a close eye out and may not notice the fish has ich, but for myself a combination of QT'ing, feeding with garlic, and having cleaner shrimp works. I thank you for your informative posts and understand that there are many paths that lead to the same result. We simply choose different paths when it comes to ich.
Paul B
Premium Member
Scottfarcuz, there has been an ongoing debate on the question of using a tank that was treated with copper. I can only go by my personal experience. As I said my 100 gallon reef which was set up in 1971 had copper in it many times. The quarintine tank that I have is many times used to hold corals that I am either giving away or for some reason keeping them apart is five gallons. In the 40 years or so that I have that tank there has been copper used in there many times. The last time was last week) The silicone is clear and I have no problems keeping corals or anemones in there. Malachite green or metheline blue will discolor anything and the only thing that will get that out is bleach. Copper is a very light blue and it is not a dye like metheline blue.
Also if you use copper in a tank at the proper dose which will be about one drop a gallon then empty the tank and rinse it there will theoretically be maybe a few drops of copper contaminated
water left in the space where the silicone meets the tank. If you then fill the tank with water thereby dilluting those few drops of copper contaminated water, there will still be many times less copper in there than there is in NSW. Copper is a trace element that fish and inverts need to survive. It is included in some salt mixes. We are not talking about toxic waste here. I ran my tank with tap water for years before they made small RO units and all of my house plumbing is copper, I know because I installed it.
If we are talking about copper contaminated coral rock that is a different story because that is porous and it absorbs copper but even that over years will disapate as it did in my reef. If you put copper contaminated rock in water the copper will gradually come out of the rock, it may take years for it all to be removed but eventually there will be no more copper in the rock. If the copper never comes out of the rock then whats the problem? As long as it's not in the water everything is fine. There is a theory that if the pH drops the copper will come out of the rock and contaminate your tank, I guess theoritically that could happen, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
K-ROK, as I have been at this for fifty years I could tell you if a fish has ich from across the room. It is a good thing that you watch your fish closely as you should. I am sure you take very good care of your animals.
I am very informed about ich because when this hobby started almost all of our animals died from ich. Liquid copper was not readily available and test kits were unheard of neither was quarintining. Most people got out of the hobby almost before it got started. Now luckily my fish do not get ich and haven't had it in about 20 years but I used to get called many times to cure it in wholesalers or stores. The very best quickest cure is as I said quinicrine hydrocloride and copper.
Have a great day.
Paul
Copper doesen't seem to be affecting anything
Also if you use copper in a tank at the proper dose which will be about one drop a gallon then empty the tank and rinse it there will theoretically be maybe a few drops of copper contaminated
water left in the space where the silicone meets the tank. If you then fill the tank with water thereby dilluting those few drops of copper contaminated water, there will still be many times less copper in there than there is in NSW. Copper is a trace element that fish and inverts need to survive. It is included in some salt mixes. We are not talking about toxic waste here. I ran my tank with tap water for years before they made small RO units and all of my house plumbing is copper, I know because I installed it.
If we are talking about copper contaminated coral rock that is a different story because that is porous and it absorbs copper but even that over years will disapate as it did in my reef. If you put copper contaminated rock in water the copper will gradually come out of the rock, it may take years for it all to be removed but eventually there will be no more copper in the rock. If the copper never comes out of the rock then whats the problem? As long as it's not in the water everything is fine. There is a theory that if the pH drops the copper will come out of the rock and contaminate your tank, I guess theoritically that could happen, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
K-ROK, as I have been at this for fifty years I could tell you if a fish has ich from across the room. It is a good thing that you watch your fish closely as you should. I am sure you take very good care of your animals.
I am very informed about ich because when this hobby started almost all of our animals died from ich. Liquid copper was not readily available and test kits were unheard of neither was quarintining. Most people got out of the hobby almost before it got started. Now luckily my fish do not get ich and haven't had it in about 20 years but I used to get called many times to cure it in wholesalers or stores. The very best quickest cure is as I said quinicrine hydrocloride and copper.
Have a great day.
Paul
Copper doesen't seem to be affecting anything
