How long for Cupramine treatment

smorrow5773

New member
I need to rid my FOWLR of ich for good. My plan is to cycle the fish through Cupramine using my hospital tank, and put the fish in a holding tank until all fish have been treated. I will then remove all liverock and quarantine the rock for 8 weeks in a separate tank. The sand will be removed, tank scrubbed, new sand and all fish put back in. Obviously I will be going through a lot of water changes during all of this and will use a large hob biowheel that I put on the reef tank to seed the FOWLR once I get it going again. My dilema...how long do I need to leave each group of fish in the copper assuming 50% water change daily and keeping copper at .5, sg 1.017? Please understand that I am seeking "experienced advice" on this subject, please no pointless posts, I am not a noob. This has just been a very minor problem since I first set up this tank. My tang only show a few spots a couple of times a year, I just want it completely out of the system so I can connect the plumbing to my big system.
 
S.G. should be at full strength using Cupramine, not down at 1.017. I do 4 weeks in Cupramine, not 2 weeks. I know they recommend 2 weeks, but most literature states that the life cycle of parasites can be as much as 30 days.
 
Perhaps I should treat the display since I will be removing the rock anyway for 8 weeks, what if I removed the sand and treated bare bottomed? Does cupramine bond to the glass/ silicone(their website claims it doesn't) I would be worried about future snails/crabs....I just don't have a big enough to treat all my fish at once, especially if they need to be in for a month!! Any thoughts?
 
Cupramine seems to bind/bond the least with anything else. I actually have calcerous rocks and sand in my quarentine tanks (to give the fish a more relaxed atmosphere) and I hardly have to add more to keep the concentration up.

Removing rock and sand you should be just fine. Heavy carbon will remove the copper.
 
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