Going to a Copper Sulfate Tank

[dkermitb]

I tried not to do it, but I keep getting ich in my aquarium. My new fish that I got on Friday is starting to show small signs of ich. I closely watched the temperature this time and there was no temperature change! So it must have been the water quality that is causing the stress. I only have one fish in it (that's all that I've put in it in about four months), but I eventually want to keep other fish in there as well, since it is so cheap to get the fish here in Okinawa. I will probably be on the island less than a year and it's time to get something useful out of my aquarium.

I have also thought about minimizing the rocks in the aquarium and I don't have sand at the bottom of my aquarium. This will make it easier to get rid of the copper in the aquarium if I choose to take the copper out later on.

Before I pour in the Copper Sulfate, I will remove the invertebrates (nothing fancy, just stuff from the tide pools) tonight. I think I will have to destroy the invertes (sea urchins, brittle star, hermit crabs, snails) simply because I don't want to put a disease into the ocean and see an eco system in Okinawa suffer.

I'm sure the Copper Sulfate will put a shock on my aquarium, but it will also get rid of the parasites attacking my fish.

Yes, it hurts to post this, but I want to do something before I throw the whole damn aquarium away.

1. Looking for your thoughts on what to do for easing the shock on the aquarium when I go to Copper Sulfate.

2. If I minimize the rocks in my aquarium, can I leave just a protein skimmer in there and only have about four rocks in to act as a biological filter with only fish in the aquarium?

Appreciate your thoughts and advice. Thanks.

Kermit

 

[Lionel]

Dont do it. once the copper is in your tank, you arent going to get rid of it. The stuff will permeate your rock and substrate, and just leech right back into the water and kill everything you re-add to the tank. If you watch the selling forums.. people wont even buy a tank that's had copper used in it.. for good reason.

I've got two spare tanks, a 20 gallon and a 29 gallon, that you can use as a quarantine / medicating tank. If you want to borrow one of them its yours.

 

[Sango-chu]

I had ick before and I heated the **** out of the water and areated the s**t out of it as well. Only becauase the hotter the water the less oxygen content it will hold. Before adding anything to it I'd try that for about 1~2 weeks. Feed lightly and go 50% on the lighting. Some of your pieces might bleach out of the shock but this and some hard semi-wet skimming just might do the trick.. Get a cleaner fish or two as well. They are known to eat the parasites and the cleaner shrimp, though the shrimp may not be able to take the heat...

 

[Sango-chu]

Just read in the desease forum that a guy used this and dropped the salinity of the water and it was all gone in 4 weeks. Didn't take out anything to include his SPS...its organic...if that matters.

 

[Sango-chu]

Just read in the desease forum that a guy used this and dropped the salinity of the water and it was all gone in 4 weeks. Didn't take out anything to include his SPS...its organic...if that matters.

 

[Sango-chu]

Just read in the desease forum that a guy used this and dropped the salinity of the water and it was all gone in 4 weeks. Didn't take out anything to include his SPS...its organic...if that matters.

 

[magrath]

I agree you dont want to add copper to your display tank, you will never get it all out! Just set up a quarantine tank and treat that, just make sure you quarantine and treat all your fish. You can also use a large rubbermaid container as a quarantine tank. All you need is a powerhead to keep the water moving and do frequent water changes just use local NSW.

 

[bethnjeremy]

go to makemon and buy a lil 1500 yen tank. Use it for when you get new fish. Go to Pet box and ask for the medicine for ich. It will change your water blue. Ask them how much to dose for the size tank.......Quarentine quarentine quarentine! I can't stress that enough. All my fish get treated in quarentine and then if they show signs of mouth rot or anything of that sort I have this yellow powder I got from aquaplanning that will cure that. After about a week in the medicated water then I add them. Since i have done this I have had none that has had ich. This is my fast version, hyposalinity also works but takes awhile since you have to bring slowly back to NSW levels or you definitely will shock them and may kill them! I prefer using a tank besides a rubbermaid tub so i can inspect them multiple times a day to make sure if they are showing ill signs that i treat them accordingly. Good luck and don't use copper in your main tank!!!!

 

[Lionel]

the 'blue' medicine is called methylene blue.. here's a copy/paste from wikipedia on it.. I used to use the stuff extensively when i was breeding discus and other FW fishes.. it's great to prevent egg fungus.

""Methylene blue is used in aquaculture and by tropical fish hobbyists as a treatment for fungal infections. It can also be effective in treating fish infected with ich, the parasitic protozoa Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. It is usually used to protect newly laid fish eggs from being infected by fungus or bacteria. This is useful when the hobbyist wants to artificially hatch the fish eggs. Methylene Blue is also very effective when used as part of a "medicated fish bath" for treatment of ammonia, nitrite, and cyanide poisoning as well as for topical and internal treatment of injured or sick fish as a "first response""

 

[dkermitb]

Well, my fish is doing better than I thought. The two spots that I thought were ich have not developed much more. If he has ich, it's very small still and they have not grown out of control. I will hold off on treating with ich, and I have since put in a cleaner shrimp to keep anything the fish has under control. I raised the salenity to slow down any parasites. Now I'm giving it time and letting him get better instead of using copper.

 

[magrath]

What kind of fish has the ich?

 

[bethnjeremy]

if you are going to do hyposalinity i hope you don't have any invertabrates as in clams or corals. They won't survive. If you choose to do hyposalinity you must do it for at least 4 weeks to give the time for the ich in the tank to die off. Then after that, slowly and I mean slowly raise the salinity to keep your fish from going into shock.

 

[dkermitb]

My fish never got to the full blown stage of ich. He had what I believed to be the early stages of ich, as I had seen in my other fish six months earlier when they died of ich. Thank you for your inputs and stopping me from jumping to fast to my back-up plan of copper.

He had a couple of small white dots on him that looked like ich and they have since gone away with no external signs of a parasite. Additionally, he is more active, eats real well, and gets around the rocks like a "fish ninja".

I'm still sure he had some kind of parasite working on him, cause last night he was scratching himself a little on a rock.

I wanted to post that he was clear of ich last night, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to turn. Now, the fish appears totally cured of any kind of ich without ever using copper sulfate. I will also continue to let him adapt to the tank with minimal changes and hopefully he will be able to thrive more.

Some of the things that I would like to think helped were:
1. A cleaner shrimp.
2. Raising the salinity from 1.021 up to 1.023.
3. Minimal changes to the tank. No matter how bad I wanted to do a water change or move things to see if he was doing alright, I just left it go.
4. A constant temperature. I bought a fan for $15 from the BX before I got the tang. I set the fan on my timer with my lights and it blows a lot of air past the T-1 lights, giving the water a constant 76 degrees.

This forum has also given me serious consideration for getting a plastic tub and creating a hospital tank for new fish. I can safely treat that tub with copper before introducing them to my show tank.

Thanks for everyone's inputs!

Kermit

 

[Lionel]

Dont go buy a container.. like i said before I've got a 20 gallon tank you can have for quarantine.. I've even got one of those (shitty!) bio wheel filters for it...

 

[bethnjeremy]

what fish are we talking about is showing signs of ich? It isn't a hippo tang by any chance is it? Some fish you seriously need to pay attention to, like the hippo tang. I had a 5 inch one and a 4 inch Powder Brown Tang. I love that Powder brown! He had such a personality on him. Anyways I had a Maroon Clownfish before he had to go b/c I couldn't even clean the tank without him attacking me no matter where in the tank I was cleaning. Well he harassed the Hippo and it ran ich. I monitored the hippo and the spots never went away after a couple days. I got it out and put it in my sick tank. Well when the hippo was all better and i reintroduced it back in the main tank I noticed when i got off deployment the hippo had ich along with the other tang and a couple more fish. Well the two tangs did not survive the hyposalinity in the sick tank. I was ****ed! Well that is just my experience. Best of luck!

 

[dkermitb]

Lionel,

I'll take you up on the offer to borrow your tank. I wanna give it at least a week or so before I introduce any fish into the aquarium. This will give him a chance to grow stronger, before the stress of another fish.

Bethnjeremy,

You guessed it right, I have a 4-5" hippo tang. I gave the tank plenty of time to cycle and then introduced a hippo tang instead of starting with other fish on purpose. Years ago, I had a nice reef tank and had all kinds of fish in with my corals. I introduced a hippo tang ($110) and he got some kind of bacterial disease and killed off all of my fish. I thought this time I would start with the hippo tang since he is the hardest to keep and it wouldn't hurt anything else.

I cringe to say that I started out with a Hippo tang, since they are one of the harder ones I've found to keep. But I also was looking at going to copper as a plan--which I've learned is really like putting the turnicate on the wound instead of bandaging it first. Thanks folks for the inputs in this forum.

Bottom line, from now on I'm using an isolation tank before introducing any fish to my aquarium! Lionel, you busy this weekend? I'll give you a call and borrow the smaller aquarium. Thanks again.

 

[bethnjeremy]

also it is highly not recomended to use copper on them or on mandarins. Well they require alot of special care for their feeding. What do you feed the tang? Are you feeding it alot of spurilina and vitamin enriched foods. You could try using the new immunstabil theat zeovit released for fish. Also selcon helps and garlic. Well how are your water parameters in your tank? What kind of filtration are you using? I have noticed the cleaner the water the better my fish look? ARe you using a skimmer? Do you have any pics of your set up? Exactly what do you have in your tank. If you are going to put a tank in a small tank i would use that medication and get the tang back into a larger tank. With my experience with tangs they don't do well staying in a small tank long just IME. What are you using for flow in your tank? Did you order anything, I know you were talking about maxijets.

 

[magrath]

I have had hippo tangs for a long time and found that a daily feeding of nori is a must. I usually put it on the clip twice a day. It keeps the fish fat and healthy.

 

[tylersdad]

I have heard a lot of stories about how difficult mandarins are to keep but I have not had any trouble at all with the one I have. I feed freeze dried krill once a day and flakes once a day, I also have a huge ball of chaeto in my sump with a lot of rotifers. The only other things I put in my tank are goldfish for the lion and trace elements/purple up. Anyone else have mandarins? Anyone need any cheato?

 

[Sango-chu]

I'll take you up on the Chaeto...Im in the middle of doing massive water changes to lower my Phosphates so I need as much natural nutrient suckers as I can get...my chaeto is coming along nicely from a just a few strands to a small soccer ball but this is still dwarfed in my 78 gal sump. just let me know the best time to pick some up. I live on Kishaba housing Camp Foster.