cupramin help

[expo703]

I had velvet in my main display.. Had 14 fish down to 4. They are in my 20 gal long now and are all small fish and none are aggressive.. so should be fine.. My purple tang is covered the rest show now white dots.. I used cupramin dosed twice I have API copper test lfs didn't have seachem..I think i'm @ .5ppm of copper but so hard to read the stupid test...will monitor water parameters since my QT wasn't cycled.. used DT water.

How long should I keep dosing cupramin for 2-6 weeks @ .5 ppm? My DT will be fallow for 6-8 weeks.

Thanks,

 

[A.Astore]

Why did your QT need to cycle? If it is bare bottom with no rock there is no reason it would need to cycle. You will still need to carefully monitor water though and absolutely do NOT use Prime when using Cupramine!

Make sure you keep a close eye on your levels because evaporation and water changes will cause fluctuations in it. I ended up doing a TTM with the Cupramine so that I wasn't trying to mess with water changes through the Cupramine treatment (was also for Velvet but had already planned on the TTM for the new fish).

I would treat for the length the bottle says (which I think is 14 days). That could cause reduced eating as well as effect in other ways so I would not prolong the treatment unless there is a very specific reason to.

Once you are done with the treatment make sure you slowly reduce the copper levels, don't do a crazy water change but smaller ones over a few days.

Good luck with the remaining fish! I had a Royal Gramma that came in with Velvet (thankfully he was in QT) and managed to beat it. Keep us posted.

 

[expo703]

thx - yeah no its not cycled..it was @ one point but I took it down. So far all the fish are eating.. I will monitor so if I do a water change I will obviously have to dose again to get levels back to 0.5ppm and 0.5 is ideal level

 

[Sapelo]

You MUST test cupramin with a seachem test. This is the only way to get an accurate reading and your levels MUST be accurate for the treatment to work.
Having said that, the TTM is much more effective for treating Ich (you said white spots so I assume you are treating ich) and much less damaging to your fish.

 

[scooter31707]

You can also use a Salifert Cu test kit also, not just Seachem. If it is ich, TTM is the best treatment as stated above, but velvet TTM will not work. CP will be the better method of treatment.

 

[expo703]

You MUST test cupramin with a seachem test. This is the only way to get an accurate reading and your levels MUST be accurate for the treatment to work.
Having said that, the TTM is much more effective for treating Ich (you said white spots so I assume you are treating ich) and much less damaging to your fish.

You can also use a Salifert Cu test kit also, not just Seachem. If it is ich, TTM is the best treatment as stated above, but velvet TTM will not work. CP will be the better method of treatment.

I have velvet..and from what I read salifert and API (you have to look down the tube) and will detect level of Cu but very hard just hard to see

 

[A.Astore]

I also did a lot of research the time I used Cupramine and eventually found a reply from one of the two companies that you can use API. It was after I got angry and thought I was wrong for using it; however, I did find that you can use API for Cupramine. Maybe it is something that they have changed more recently due to Cupramine being a popular product? I think their ammonia test does not read ammonia levels properly though when using Cupramine. I realized this after thinking I had CRAZY high ammonia out of nowhere when I in fact didn't according to another ammonia test. Again, this was what I found and was why I didn't comment on the API Copper test being used because I had also read conflicting information on the test vs product.

 

[expo703]

I realized this after thinking I had CRAZY high ammonia out of nowhere when I in fact didn't according to another ammonia test. Again, this was what I found and was why I didn't comment on the API Copper test being used because I had also read conflicting information on the test vs product.

well I bought the ammonia alert + seachem cu test just to be sure!