Copper bad for fish?

msweeney1994

New member
I just recently bought a royal gramma and put him in the tank this afternoon. I drip acclimated it slowly to reduce the stress but hours later i see him pretty much lying on the sand bed not breathing fast and not dead. the pet store where i got him is not my preferred store but I have credit there so I'm trying to use that before I dig deeper into my wallet. i know all of the tanks with the exception of the coral tanks are treated with copper i guess to prevent ich? But i was wondering if going from copper water to my regular untreated salt water would cause this fish to freak out like this. My tank has been running for years and I know my parameters are in check. And I also got a mimic tang from there about a month ago and he is doing fine now but had weird behavior not too long ago. When the blues were on in the tank in the morning I could see what looked like ich, then when the lights turned on it was gone. He's acting completely fine now but for a few days he stayed in the upper left hand corner of the tank.
 
The copper at the lfs is too low to kill ich and can actually hide the presence of velvet. this level won't hurt fish. Most fish see plenty of copper used by the collectors, shippers, wholesalers, etc.
 
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