Cupramine Treatment in Process Questions / or HELP

cshutchinson

cshutchinson

New member
My 55 G quarantine tank has been running for 3 weeks now and after all those major water changes to manage the ammonia, it has finally cycled. The ammonia alert badge is solid yellow now, and has stayed there for the last week.

Over the past 4 days I have bringing my cupramine level up to .5 mg/L and test multiple times per day to make sure it is staying there as I do have one piece of live rock in there for shelter for the fish. This live rock will stay in the tank and is not going to be used anywhere else. It did absorb copper fast at first, but seems to have slowed.

All during the cycle all the fish ate like pigs... 3 feedings per day. rods, pe mysis, and flake. Nori for the tang every day.

Will cupramine levels at .5 for several days now, it is almost like the fish are showing more symptoms of ich.

For the first time the hippo tang (tiny) has started flashing. The three ignitus anthias have stopped eating and two of them hang head down. They look fine, but they hang all day.

The other fish in the QT seem fine, but it seems the ich is taking its course slowly on all the inhabitants.

My question... how long does it take for cupramine at these levels to really DO something. I realize it is not instant, but when do I start to worry that I am losing the battle.

I was so happy to make it through the cycle with them all alive, and now it seems the ich is winning....

Advice? Thank you in advance.
 
as long as the concentration is kept at its therapeutic level the copper should destroy the ich in its free floating stage. If i were you i would replace the live rock with pvc, particularly if you have some type of sponge filter that has colonized bacteria.
 
I do have some PVC in the tank, maybe not enough. I will pull the one piece of live rock out.

Do I have to stop the copper, remove it, and treat with something else since it appears the ich is beyond the free floating stage?
 
At therapeutic levels (.35 or >), fish will start to obtain relief from the ich in about 2-3 days. Treat at full strength for a minimum of 3 weeks. The clock does not start until you reach a steady .5.
 
just keep with the copper up until you notice no signs of ich, this is when the 3 week clock starts, i usually keep it up for a month if everything seems fine.
 
cshutchinson said:
I do have some PVC in the tank, maybe not enough. I will pull the one piece of live rock out.

Do I have to stop the copper, remove it, and treat with something else since it appears the ich is beyond the free floating stage?
Click to expand...

Do NOT pull out the rock at this point. This appears to be be your only biological filter in quarantine. If you do, you will have a massive ammonia spike and all of your fish may die. You do not not need to alter your treatment b/c the copper will take care of the ich. The ich goes through three stages -- one of which is free swimming. The copper only kills the ich in the free swimming stage. Therefore, you have to wait until all of the ich parasites fall off the fish into cysts and all the cysts hatch before the parasites can be killed by the copper while free swimming. Stay on top of your ammonia and do regular water changes where you re-add appropriate amounts of cupramine to compensate for the removed water so as to maintain a steady .5 for 3 weeks. Also, feed very lightly in quarantine and remove all uneaten food to further avoid ammonia problems.
 
Stuart60611 said:
Do NOT pull out the rock at this point. This appears to be be your only biological filter in quarantine. If you do, you will have a massive ammonia spike and all of your fish may die. You do not not need to alter your treatment b/c the copper will take care of the ich. The ich goes through three stages -- one of which is free swimming. The copper only kills the ich in the free swimming stage. Therefore, you have to wait until all of the ich parasites fall off the fish into cysts and all the cysts hatch before the parasites can be killed bu tje copper while free swimming. Stay on top of your ammonia and do regular water changes where you re-add appopriate amounts of cupramine to compensate for the removed water so as to maintain a steady .5 for 3 weeks. Also, feed very lightly in quarantine and remove all uneaten food to further avoid ammonia problems.
Click to expand...

I do have a HOB that has been running for 3 weeks on the QT with a floss type filter (no carbon) and some old zeovit (rocks) media. These two options along with the one piece of live rock I used for the cycle jump start.

So still keep the once piece of live rock?
 
cshutchinson said:
I do have a HOB that has been running for 3 weeks on the QT with a floss type filter (no carbon) and some old zeovit (rocks) media. These two options along with the one piece of live rock I used for the cycle jump start.

So still keep the once piece of live rock?
Click to expand...


Yes, at this point, I would keep the rock in quarantine. It has already been satuarated with cupramine so the damage to the rock has been done. I would do nothing to upset the biological filter in the quarantine tank. Most people loose fish in quarantine to ammonia problems. The rock will reach full cupramine absorption, and once saturated, you will have no difficulties keeping a steady cupramine level.
 
Stuart60611 said:
Yes, at this point, I would keep the rock in quarantine. It has already been satuarated with cupramine so the damage to the rock has been done. I would do nothing to upset the biological filter in the quarantine tank. Most people loose fish in quarantine to ammonia problems. The rock will reach full cupramine absorption, and once saturated, you will have no difficulties keeping a steady cupramine level.
Click to expand...

I have so much spare live rock, the intention was to never use this live rock again (it has been in a cured curing tank for months now) It was intended to stay in this QT. Which will run permanently from now on with at least one fish.

Yes, I saw the rock finally saturate during my many tests I believe. It stopped soaking up the copper.

Yes, i battled ammonia pretty hard with water changes. To the tune of nearly 200 gallons in water changes, finally the tank cycled.
 
I am not sure how bad this QT stuff can get...the fish with ich are getting much better. But now the anthias appear to have flukes.... This is heart breaking. They have come full circle in just 10 days from healthy to barely hanging on.

The tails of the anthias are tattered now. I fresh water dipped for the flukes twice now and many many fell off. Their tails literally look like they have blood stains now :(

I feel like I have failed them, but I am doing everything I can!

The Prazipro will be in via overnight tomorrow morning, but then I have to make the decision of whether to dose this with the cupramine already in the water. Opinions are mixed. I will just have to make up my mind. These fish are barely hanging on so I have to make the decision. A days or so more with no relief and they aren't going to survive.

This is so distressing...funny how you can become so attached to these fish.
 
My powder brown just up and died out of nowhere last night. :( He had been the eating machine of the QT tank for thirty days now. The ammonia alert badge is clearly normal and cupramine is dead on .5 compared to the reference solution. I am distraught to say the least.

It's just so sad, he was my friend already after such short time.
 
I completely understand what your going thru. This morning I awoke to a tank full of dead fish, snails and an urchin!

My black domino damsel looked as though he went blind and was meek when he used to be the tough fish in tank. then I noticed this last Friday my Koran Angel's side was a lil whiter than normal - I thought he was changing as Juvinile's do when they are turning into adults then I noticed him twicthing, then he was rubbing across a shell on the bottom of tank. I said oh no we have ich, so I have Cupermine stuff and dropped 20 drops in waited til Sun eve did it again and my Purple Pusuade was dead next day. Then fish looked like they were laboring in breathing, manwhile the Domino was getting worse, then I called my local pet shop told him the situation he told me to do another full treatment and - bam! This morning my whole tank - GONE!!! Suprisingly though when I shut off the light and turned off the pumps/filters my strong willed Yellow Tang woke up and came to front of tank, I pulled him out (he had a white coating on him???) Dipped in fresh water then set up a bucket with correct temp and salt water levels and he died an hour and a half later from when I found him.

Can anyone tell me what the heck happened - where did I go wrong?????? I'm very sad today....

Thanks in advanced - Serena
 
niqiri said:
chutchinson- I have heard of many people using both Cupramine and Prazipro at the same time without any negative side effects. At this point, flukes is probably what's killing your fish so I would go ahead and start the treatment immediately.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I decided yesterday to do what you said. Things seemed to have improved overnight. The ignitus anthias are missing most of their tails, but they look better and two of the three look like they might move around again soon.

Maybe this will all work out.
 
Two of the three ignitus anthias are still alive. I am not sure how long they can survive without eating.

The PraziPro treatment is complete and the copper (checked every day) is locked on .5 mg/L.

All the other fish are happy and healthy. If nothing else, I should be ending the ich cycle here.

At what point should I start removing the copper from the water? I think the cupramine bottle says 14 days which I have now passed. Is 4 weeks ok? I am not going to move these fish back to the DT until mid december. That will give me 10 weeks fallow in the DT.
 
Since you plan to keep them in QT til December I would do a total of 4-6 weeks with Cupramine just to be safe.
 
Did a 50% water change to dilute the nitrates some this morning. Brought the copper back to .5 mg/L.

One of the ignitus anthias died this morning, so now I am down to one now. He was a fighter and I hated to see him go but it was for the best. He held on as long as he could.

I should euthanize the other ignitus I guess, but I am going to give him a few more days to recover.

That QT tank is much more stable now; no ammonia. I am feeding less and the other fish are happy.

I am going to run copper for about two to three more weeks (November 8th). The second PraziPro treatment will be completed on the October 25th.

December 1st will be 10 weeks that the display has been fallow. So if everything goes well between now and then, I hope to add a few fish per week back to the display tank.
 
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