e55MD
Member
As many of you on this forum are aware, last year I had a major ich outbreak in my 400 gallon FOWLR tank. At that time, I set up a HT, removed 550lbs of LR and drained my DT in order to catch my fish and transfer them to the HT for Cupramine treatment. It was a very huge and unpleasant undertaking.
My DT was fallowed with the LR for 8 weeks before my cured fish were reintroduced.
About 6 weeks ago the ich came back. I was not willing to go
through the whole exercise again. I kept reading over and over again never to add medications to your DT. I removed about 200 lbs of LR (leaving 350lb in the DT), my urchins, and anemone and added cupramine to the DT.
I am now a week into this. The fish are starting to look much better and they are eating well. I never had any significant ammonia spikes or other water chemistry problems. In order to keep my copper levels between 0.25-0.5ppm I am having to dose a lot of Cupramine. In fact, I have used about 300ml so far. I check the copper level twice a day and dose accordingly. So it is true that a lot is absorbed into the LR and substrate.
I plan on a full 28 day course of Cupramine. At that point I plan on running carbon/cuprisorb for several months to remove as much copper as I possibly can. My UV sterilizers will be turned back on after there is no detectable copper. The LR I removed will be returned to my DT after 2 months to ensure (hopefully) full ich die off. I will be returning some inverts back to my tank at some point in the future and I have a hunch I will be successful.
The point of this story is that there are so many "absolute truths" you read about in this hobby. Either my success with treating my DT is an exception or it can be done ( of course there are many confounding variables for example tank size, age of system, filtration etc).
I am not advocating that other people add copper or hypo their DT's for ich. However, I feel it is a reasonable option. I would probably never have done it if my system were not so big.
I will post my progress in the future. I am sure a lot of people will tell me what a horrible idea it was.
My DT was fallowed with the LR for 8 weeks before my cured fish were reintroduced.
About 6 weeks ago the ich came back. I was not willing to go
through the whole exercise again. I kept reading over and over again never to add medications to your DT. I removed about 200 lbs of LR (leaving 350lb in the DT), my urchins, and anemone and added cupramine to the DT.
I am now a week into this. The fish are starting to look much better and they are eating well. I never had any significant ammonia spikes or other water chemistry problems. In order to keep my copper levels between 0.25-0.5ppm I am having to dose a lot of Cupramine. In fact, I have used about 300ml so far. I check the copper level twice a day and dose accordingly. So it is true that a lot is absorbed into the LR and substrate.
I plan on a full 28 day course of Cupramine. At that point I plan on running carbon/cuprisorb for several months to remove as much copper as I possibly can. My UV sterilizers will be turned back on after there is no detectable copper. The LR I removed will be returned to my DT after 2 months to ensure (hopefully) full ich die off. I will be returning some inverts back to my tank at some point in the future and I have a hunch I will be successful.
The point of this story is that there are so many "absolute truths" you read about in this hobby. Either my success with treating my DT is an exception or it can be done ( of course there are many confounding variables for example tank size, age of system, filtration etc).
I am not advocating that other people add copper or hypo their DT's for ich. However, I feel it is a reasonable option. I would probably never have done it if my system were not so big.
I will post my progress in the future. I am sure a lot of people will tell me what a horrible idea it was.
