copper and nitrifying bacteria ????

[wolf pup]

Ok - I'm sorry but I am totally confused now - LFS and a few various threads say "can't have a biological filter and copper at the same time - copper kills the bacteria" - other threads here say "always treat fish in a cycled tank"

Soooo which would it be?

I've on day 12 of copper and hypo (fish looks better and is eating better than it ever did!) and I've been doing water changes 1-2 x per day because lfs said I shouldn't bother trying to get any cycle in place. Since my display has 48 days to remain fallow I really would like to get the isolation/hospital tank a little more stable for my fishie.

Ideas?

 

[Redfish]

It kind of depends on which type of copper you are using, but in general, you can have bacterial colonies while using copper.

I sounds like you are being successful in your treatment. I would suggest that you begin to ease up on the hyposalinity. Copper is very effective at treatment. At two weeks you have probably successfully treated for parasites. There is really no reason to continue the extreme low salinity. After a couple of more days there is no reason to continue the copper treatment. You can keep the salinity lower than normal to ease stress, but get out of the extreme range.

 

[lildraken]

I always thought that copper wasn't used to treat bacterial infections so why would it kill nitrifying bacteria?

Copper does however affect the nitrogen cycle IMO, because it kills almost all invertebrates, snails, tiny pods and crustaceans, even my chaetomorpha! The killing off of small animals that we don't notice causes the nitrogen cycle to lag behind until more bacteria is produced to catch up with the ammonia spike. I suppose that's why one would quarantine in a bare tank.

since copper kills some macro algaes you couldn't have a biological filter in that sense.

i'm not a biologist or anything but that's just what i've gathered from all my reading.

 

[wooden_reefer]

Re: copper and nitrifying bacteria ????

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10842658#post10842658 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wolf pup
Ok - I'm sorry but I am totally confused now - LFS and a few various threads say "can't have a biological filter and copper at the same time - copper kills the bacteria" - other threads here say "always treat fish in a cycled tank"

Soooo which would it be?

I've on day 12 of copper and hypo (fish looks better and is eating better than it ever did!) and I've been doing water changes 1-2 x per day because lfs said I shouldn't bother trying to get any cycle in place. Since my display has 48 days to remain fallow I really would like to get the isolation/hospital tank a little more stable for my fishie.

Ideas?

Straight copper at concentration to kill ich on fish has almost no impact of nitrification bacteria.

 

[wolf pup]

Thank you all for helping me out with this. I used some "instant-cycle" from my LFS last night and will see what happens over the next few days. I had kept my ammonia at or below .5 with 20-30% water changes once or twice daily but that was chewing up my copper tests like crazy. Today is his 14th copper day so I'm going to just do normalish water changes and let the salinity come back up and the copper work its way out. I'll probably start running some carbon also. If he shows any new signs of parasites I'll just bring the copper back up for another 14 days and leave everything else alone. I am a bit worried that I didn't hold a steady copper concentration because of all of the water changes.

 

[wooden_reefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10856322#post10856322 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wolf pup
Thank you all for helping me out with this. I used some "instant-cycle" from my LFS last night and will see what happens over the next few days. I had kept my ammonia at or below .5 with 20-30% water changes once or twice daily but that was chewing up my copper tests like crazy. Today is his 14th copper day so I'm going to just do normalish water changes and let the salinity come back up and the copper work its way out. I'll probably start running some carbon also. If he shows any new signs of parasites I'll just bring the copper back up for another 14 days and leave everything else alone. I am a bit worried that I didn't hold a steady copper concentration because of all of the water changes.

Why are you using instant cycle?

Did you actually put in live fish at once?

What you are doing is not a good idea.

Thoroughly cycle using bacteria seed and food decay for ammonia so that nitrification capacity is very high.

Then eradicate ich by six to eight weeks of continuous active treatment. Do not pause and wait and see. There is nothing to observe. Ich is in the gills, or too small to be seen.

 

[wolf pup]

wooden_reefer - The fish (singular) went into a non-cycled QT on the advice of the LFS and the realization that if I waited to "thoroughly cycle" my QT there would be no need since the fish would be dead. I am left with the situation I have now, not a situation I would like. I am curious why you say 6-8 weeks of continious active treatment when the brochure with the "SeaCure" and the well refrenced sticky post in this fourm have indicated that 14-21 days will cure ich on fish when using copper. The QT time as opposed to the Treatment time is to observe the fish. I am very thankful for your opinion as by listening to everyone's advice I am hopefully able to make informed decisions but when it comes to placing poison in my tank I'm gonna go with the references.

"Copper can retard or inhibit nitrification.." Bower and Turner (1982) - This is why it is important to have very high nitrification capacity and why, in an ideal world, I would have had a foam block, etc. ready to set up in a QT tank in my sump ready to go. This was not the case and since my primary biological in my tank is LR I don't have a great deal of options. Again, I do appreciate your experience but this is not a situation that allows me to "Thoroughly cycle using bacteria seed and food decay"