coppersafe with liverock is it safe??

[naeemn]

I recently had a very bad outbrake of itch in my tank, i tried itch be gone used the whole bottle, but the itch was still there and i lost 2 fish in the process, the guy at the lfs came by after i called him telling him what had happened , he told me to use cooper safe. I put in the dose he recomended last thursday and the itch is dissapering but i think we killed the live rock i have 60lbs of it. I don't know what to do know i may have ruined my whole tank. Please if someone has some advice let me know cause i think I need all the help i can get.

 

[LoganBear44]

I will start off bt letting you know that I am new to this but I can give you some information since I am currently treating my main tank with Seacure a different type of copper). I also treated my main tank which had live sand. Copper kills live sand , live rock, inverterbrates and can be really sensitive to some fish. I think you should read up on Coopersafe. If that has copper in it, it probably ruined your live rock. If that product contains copper, you have to make sure you completely remove the copper from the tank before you add anything live and I wouldn't get anymore fish until you are back to normal in you tank. I have a quaratine tank right now housing my inverts until I can add them back to my display. What I plan on doing in the future is quaratining my sick fish or my new fish I get (before I put them in the display tank, to catch diseases early). This way I don't affect my display tank again. I'm also not treating with copper anymore. Ich cannot live in a tank when the salinity is 1.009. So you can drop your salinity in the tank , (depending on what you have in your tank fish, coral, zoos....) or you could put them in a quaratine tank and drop the salinity. I've read it's safer and less stressing on the fish. Copper is funny, it has to be kept in a theraputic range. If you don't have enough it won't treat your fishtank for the problem. If you add too much it could be toxic to them. I refuse to do copper again but that's my opinion. This ich thing has not been easy. Good Luck!

 

[Sk8r]

It's worse news than that: if a tank has been treated with copper, it may get into the seams and adhesives, and may create a lasting problem.

I'd advise you go to the Chemistry section of the forum and ask for Randy's help...he's the resident chemist, and he can assess the damage and what to do.

As a general rule never put any treatment of any kind into your display tank or sump. There is one exception I can think of, but it does not involve copper.

 

[alexk3954]

I would set up a Q-tank to dose meds in. I have heard that copper can get into the LR and silicone and continually leech into the system.

Here's a little story that might be valuable to you:

My uncle works for an aquarium servicing company based out of Chicago. Every other week he goes to service the aquarium of a very famous person(who will go unnamed on this thread). One time this guys fish got some disease and I guess the boss dosed some sort of copper based meds in the tank. The wife asked why there was a lot less algae lately. Before thinking, the boss says, "The copper kills the algae". Now they dose copper on a regular basis, just to get rid of the algae. Needless to say, the fish only survive a couple of months, then drop dead. The guy doesn't care, as he can buy fish with his "spare change". He sees the tank more as a piece of furniture than a hobby, so if the algae is gone and it looks nice, he will just replace constantly dyeing fish.

So the moral of the story is: Copper is bad for the fish.:eek1: And as previously mentioned, inverts are extremely sensitive to copper as well.

 

[BadOleRoss]

If the LR is stillin your tank you need to be concerned about an ammonia spike from the LR die off. I recently did the same thing but on a larger scale. I killed off 180lbs of LR in a 220. I was able to clean the copper from the tank using muratic acid and citric acid. I first cleaned and rinsed the tank, then added 2 gallon of muratic acid to 220 gallon of water and scubbed the tank. After draining that I refilled the tank and cleaned it with 3lbs of citric acid to 220 gallon of water. Drained, refilled, drained and refilledagain. Let it run for a few days and tested for copper. Mine has been fine since that experience.