Cupramine not working?

[VeL]

Hi there. I have been treating ICH infection with Cupramine for the past 14 days but for some reason I keep getting ich cycles over and over and my concentration is 0.5 constantly. The hospital tank is a 30g. I am testing copper with seachem and salifert tests.
The Seachem test says that you should compare the color within 15 seconds of adding last reagent but this way I hardly get any blue tint, so I downloaded the manual from their site and now the instruction is to wait at least 4 minutes. Waiting 4 minutes I get a color that corresponds to 0.5 - 0.55 ppm.
The Salifert test also shows 0.5 - 0.6 ppm.
The hospital tank is barebottom with sponge filter. I test the copper daily but for 2 weeks the concentration doesn't change at all - steady 0.5 (I adjust the WC water to 0.5 as well - 32 drops per 40 liters of waiter)
However white spots keep showing over and over, especially on the blue tang. I do not get how is that possible as I test with 2 different copper tests and confirm that I have at least 0.5 ppm copper. I know that Cupramine cannot go bad or expire, I also know that there is no such thing as copper resistant strain of Ich, so what the hell is going on :headwally:
I also tested a fresh made water for water change with the exact amount of Cupramine added / 8 Cupramine drops per 10 litres / and the color corresponds for what I get when testing my hospital tank - 0.5 ppm. So I suppose the test kits are good too.
Please advice. Is it normal to see ich cysts on fish after 2 weeks of 0.5 ppm copper treatement.

 

[alprazo]

I would recommend chloroquine.

 

[VeL]

I would recommend chloroquine.

Unfortunately I cannot find it here so copper is the only way to go (besides hypo which I do not trust). Cupramine is supposed to work like a charm at 0.5ppm, but it is not. Any ideas why is that? Maybe it "needs time" :headwallblue:? :sad1:

 

[b0bab0ey]

I would wait at least 30 days before hitting the panic button.

 

[VeL]

I would wait at least 30 days before hitting the panic button.

From all the threads of Cupramine treatement I've read, everywhere people get lack of syptoms within 3-4 days of 0.5 ppm concentration reached. With me where this parasite thrives at 0.55 ppm I get the feeling something is not normal. The chances that 3 of the test kits all together (1 seachem and 2 salifert) are faulty are very slim. The next possible thing is that I might be fighting a parasite that is not a Marine Ich but some kind of worm/fluke that looks similar.
My good camera is broken so I cannot make a good macro pics at the moment with my pocket camera. But I observe something with this parasite that makes me think it is not exactly Ich. Let me explain:
The white cysts on the body are not really like salt sprinkles, they are bigger and what is more strange the more they stay on body they "grow" and become "longer" - the older cysts stick at 1-2mm above the skin and look like small sharp teeth /\, thorn like, and when the fish is laying down on its side on the bottom of the tank it looks like pieces of fiber sticking out of the skin. It is really hard to explain without a proper picture. For the first time I am fighting parasites and i can't really be 100% sure if it is marine ich or not, but from the pictures seen on the net - I think what I got looks a bit different than ich. The cysts are bigger and longer, thorn like and if my copper concentration is right, I suppose they are not affected by copper.
What do you think guys, have you met something similar?
If it some type of Flukes, I may use PraziPro, however can I use it safely with Cupramine. I've read different opinions about the cupramine/prazi combo so I am not sure if it is risky or not.

 

[MrTuskfish]

I don't think you have ich, but some type of parasitic worm. I've seen pictures of similar parasites on this forum recently. You can use PP with Cu; but the PP isn't as effective.

 

[dunc101]

Yes, you can use PraziPro with cupramine. I've done it before and so have several others.

 

[MrTuskfish]

Yes, you can use PraziPro with cupramine. I've done it before and so have several others.

Yes, PP is safe to use with Cu. But the mfg of PP suggests not to combine the two because the PP is not as effective. A proper QT regimen should allow plenty of time for both meds to be used separately. Why cut down on the effectiveness of a med if you don't have to?

 

[geaux xman]

I think thats just a general disclaimer as with most medication. Of course they will say not to mix medications, especially with copper. I dont think anyone knows for sure if it really does cut down effectiveness.

I even do a stronger dose than the directions. I run 29g QT and would dose for a 40g.

 

[b0bab0ey]

I've noticed whenever I treat with just Prazi there's no noticeable effect on the fishes behavior & appetite. However, when used in conjunction w/copper the fish seem to be a lot more lethargic, just hiding out in their PVC caves all day. Appetite also seems suppressed. My PB Tang won't even touch her nori when I'm treating with both copper & Prazi. This has happened with both Cupramine and CopperSafe.

 

[VeL]

Yes, PP is safe to use with Cu. But the mfg of PP suggests not to combine the two because the PP is not as effective. A proper QT regimen should allow plenty of time for both meds to be used separately. Why cut down on the effectiveness of a med if you don't have to?

I wouldn't mix if it wasn't killing my fish. I am almost two weeks into copper treatement and I do not want to drain all copper and then start over after the PP. I will dose PP tomorrow into the copper loaded QT and see how it goes.
I just observed a new thorn-like white spot on my yellow tang's fin and this time I can clearly see a small tail on it that looks like a piece of string sticking out of the white spot. Now I am 99% sure it is some type of parasitic worm as I have not seen similar "marine ich" on a picture. However I've noticed that my clowns are scratching on the pvc pipes in the QT and they do not have any visible signs of spots, but maybe that's marine ICH in the gills.... or Flukes in the gills.

 

[flameangel88]

One quick way to find out if it's flukes or not is to perform a 1-2 minute fresh water bath (assuming you can easily catch the fish). If it is flukes it will start to fall off the fish about a minute into the bath.

 

[sandwi54]

I want to chime in on this as I had a similar experience in the past.

I bought a puffer and it broke out with ich (yes, it was ich). Given that it was a puffer I performed hyposalinity at 1.008. Three weeks into the treatment the ich still persisted, so I figured maybe I should just do cupramine instead since copper is a stronger treatment than hyposalinity. I raised the salinity back to 1.020 and started cupramine at 0.4ppm. The copper treatment went on for 28 days; however, during the treatment I still noticed that ich was able to infect the fish a couple of times. The puffer responded well to the treatment but I did not want to do copper for more than 28 days to prevent poisoning the fish. As soon as I removed the copper, as expected the ich came back. I was a little annoyed and didn't know what to do, so I didn't do anything for a week. Then the infection got worse and the puffer was stressed out, so I had no choice but to start hyposalinity again. A week into the second hypo treatment, the symptoms disappeared completely (no more white spots and breathe rate returned to normal), and I continued hypo for an additional month. At the end of the second hypo treatment, I brought the salinity back and observed for another month, and never saw ich symptoms again.

I have treated many fish successfully with both hyposalinity and cupramine prior to this incidence, so I knew how to perform them correctly. However, it took me two rounds of hypo and one round of copper (and almost four months of total treatment time) to kill this ich. This made me believe that there are certain "tough" strains of ich that can withstand hypo and cupramine better, and continued treatments are needed to gradually weaken them, and eventually they'd succumb. Of course, this "continued" treatment should be hypo, not copper.