Ich on Coral Beauty (Cupramine not working)?

I bought the Cupramine with the Seachem copper tester. After following the directions on the cupramine bottle (dosing the tank with 1ml of copper and repeating it once more after 48 hours) the copper tester is showing zero copper? I dont understand why it is doing that. I am following the exact instructions. :(
 
Do you have your coral beauty in a QT tank, Substrate and other things in the tank can obsorb and slowly release it later.
 
Cupramine is a very safe kind of copper to use. It isn't chelated by the technical sense. It is complexed with organics.

If you followed directions on the quantity to add for each gallon of water and your Seachem Copper Test Kit is not reading what you expect then there can be a few things going wrong:

1. Your test kit is not working right. With your Seachem test kit came a copper sample with a known quantity of copper in it. What reading do you get with the copper sample they provide? If that isn't reading what is expected, then your test kit is not working properly (or the sample has gone bad!). Seachem provides that sample, unlike most other test kit companies, just for this purpose.

2. If the copper sample reads properly from the test kit, the chances are the test kit is okay. This situation leads to a few other possibilities:
- You didn't add the right amount of Cupramine per gallon
- You didn't estimate the water volume correctly
- You didn't mix the medication well enough before using it
- You are using outdated medication
- The copper is being absorbed/removed from the water

Copper/medication loss in the water is to be expected, but this medication has little of that affect. Other losses occur by using absorbents (carbon, resins, chemical filter pads, etc.). Another loss can occur if you are running a protein skimmer. Lastly, if that rock is made of carbonate materials (or some other), it is likely absorbing the complexed copper out of solution. You can test this latter case by removing the rock and adding the Cupramine again (after you've verified the test kit is working properly).

Check all these things out and get back to us with what you've found. To be on the safe side, I would have an extra test kit on hand anyway, and a spare small bottle of Cupramine medicine. Me: I have three of each standing by. But. . .that's me!

Good luck! :rollface:
 
Hello Leebca, thanks for all the info. I did try the reference to see if the tester was good and it was. So according to what you believe the problem is most likely the rock. I am going to take the rock out and put in some PVC piping into the tank so the fish wont get too stressed. I will then test the water again, then re-dose the tank with copper.

Hopefully this resolves the issue.

Another question I have is we donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t believe the fish to have ick but it does have these white dots on tip of its dorsal (looks like very small cotton balls). Do you have any idea of what they are and how to treat them?
 
Lymphocystis is often described as cotton balls or cauliflower-like clumps.

No known cure if it is Lymphocystis, but Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve known the Neon Blue Goby (Elacatinus oceanops) to actually eat it off of some fishes. Remove as much stress from the fish as you can and be sure to be feeding it properly. See this post on nutrition:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=785228

Photos of fish with Lymphocystis
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/viraldislymph.htm

Short Thread on ID and handling Lymph:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=768459

If this is what your fish has, then it has been stressed to the point of not resisting what would be a common cold to humans. Usually not fatal, but you must remove as much stress as possible and provide the best foods/nutrition. Include beta glucan in its food during recovery.

:)
 
Thanks Leebca, should I still continue the Copper treatment? Soaking the food in garlic extreme and selcon is also good for the fish?

How long should I keep him in the q-tank after the lymph is gone?
 
I tired to use that same copper test and it did not work for me. So I bought a different test kit from a different company and it showed copper in the tank..IMO the cupramine test kits sucks
 
If you're sure it's Lymph then keeping it in quarantine for that is kind of optional.

Like the common cold, it doesn't always spread to other fish. So a fish with Lymph may not infect other fish that are healthy. On the other hand, if you put a fish with Lymph in a tank where fish are stressed and perhaps not feeding well, the Lymph may spread to them.

Most people don't purposely hold the fish in quarantine for this condition. BUT, best to be sure your tank and the fishes' diet are right.

If you are sure the problem with the fish is Lymph, no need to continue the copper treatment. Copper does nothing for this condition.

The disease isn't ever "gone" as far as we know. Like the human common cold it seems to always be in the fish's system, waiting for an opportunity to gain a foothold. So the quarantine/cure process doesn't do much to eradicate this virus. But once you see the outward signs go away, another week in quarantine should suffice.

For food, vitamin, and fat supplement guidance, I gave up writing about it and did one large post:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=785228

Garlic has some benefits and doesn't hurt IF it is not overdosed. I only use it to try and stimulate a fish's appetite.
 
But if its stress that caused the problem, then if there is ick in the tank then he would have ick also but he doesnt seem to have it. I guess my concern is what if i stop the copper treat the lymph and then put him in my tank and then have an ick outbreak. Would you just continue the copper to be on the safe side or could that hurt the lymp treatment? And if I contineu the copper what should the level be at and for how long do you recommend?
 
Let's see. . .

I was under the impression you decided it wasn't Marine Ich.

If you believe there is Marine Ich in the tank, it doesn't matter "that much" whether the fish is stressed or not. The obligate parasite will attack a healthy or weak/stressed fish.

You have to decide what the problem is. Marine Ich. Lymp. Both. or, I don't know.

Marine Ich. Keep on treating until it is killed and you observe the fish MI free for 4 weeks or more;
Lymph. Copper treatment is not needed. Keep in QT or put back in display.
Both. Keep copper treating and improve fish's conditions (remove stress and upgrade nutrition/foods).
I don't know. Perform another diagnosis.

What you're wrestling with is a proper diagnosis. Diagnosis is the first and very important step at helping the fish with a problem.

Many people who think they have MI actually do have a small outbreak of Lymph. Some that think they always have MI in their tank actually are seeing Lymph come and go. Some aquarists who think they have 'cured' MI with improving their fish's diet or by the use of garlic, have actually just cured their fish of Lymph.

:rollface:
 
Carefull of the Cupramine test kit. Even having the referance sample test OK doesn't mean the test kit is OK. They have had a rasch of quality control problems with their test kits. After going back and forth with Seachem and receiving 3 new sample kits I just gave up and I can't trust that product.

Use the RedSea Copper test kit for Cupramine. If you search under the Seachem vendor forum here you will find numerous people with the same problem.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6968426#post6968426 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LargeAngels
Carefull of the Cupramine test kit. Even having the referance sample test OK doesn't mean the test kit is OK. They have had a rasch of quality control problems with their test kits. After going back and forth with Seachem and receiving 3 new sample kits I just gave up and I can't trust that product.

Use the RedSea Copper test kit for Cupramine. If you search under the Seachem vendor forum here you will find numerous people with the same problem.
i have the red sea test kit but it only goes up to .04 the lfs said to use between.2-.25 anybody tried this? be careful with angles i have a flame in hypo and he stopped veating i found the reason was that i fed tank every day, and the levels went up, he was ****ed, plus i always though angles were copper sensative,
 
a t,

IF you are using Cupramine, then 0.2 to 0.25 is too low. Cupramine has been found to be effective as low at 0.30, but the preferred copper level is 0.50 ppm.

If you're unhappy with the Seachem Copper test kit, then you can use the Salifert Copper Test Kit. It has a comparative color chart, but it goes from 0.5ppm to 1.0ppm on the next color. You can't easily differentiate between anything in between 0.5ppm and 1.0ppm. But, it should be good enough to verify you are at least at 0.5ppm and below 1.0ppm.

:rollface:
 
Copper has been use in aquaculture for decades. Like aspirin for humans has been buffered, so copper has evolved into other forms to improve its stability, effectiveness to target the microbe, and leave the fish healthy.

Copper additions in the early years was precipitated out from salt water by carbonates that make up the alkalinity. The aquaculture industry needed a more stable copper that would stay in soluble form and thus keep a more or less constant concentration. The industry didn't want to do copper measurements and additions every few hours.

This was just the beginning. Along came home aquarists with tank decorations and other contents. These coppers were also removed from the water by carbonate substrates, rocks and other calcareous deposits. In the home aquarium, such coppers were held in even less constant concentrations. Not only were they coming out of solution, but a certain quantity comes out of solution at a specific pH such that, as the pH goes down, less is precipitated. As a converse, as the pH goes down, the copper that was precipitated at the higher pH would re-disslove. This, you can imagine could release a lot copper and raise its level much too high for the fishes.

Copper treatments had and have to be done in a quarantine tank. Because no matter how much we have stabilized the copper, the pH controls to some extent how much copper stays in solution.

The next generation of coppers evolved a kind of protected copper. The easiest was found to chelate (pronounced KEYlate) the copper. This isn't a chemical bond. This is more like a loose tie or shield by a large molecule over the relatively small copper ion.

These chelated copper medications then were widely distributed and sold as a much more stable form of administering copper. And they were. Still, though, the copper ion was free to do its job at making life miserable for the microbe. Unfortunately, it was still free to poison our fishes. The concentration of these chelated coppers had to be controlled closely since the copper ion was very much assessable to complex with hemoglobin and other fish chemistries and cause stress and even death to the fish.

Because of this, copper compounds and even chelated copper compounds were not recommended for use on what were considered fishes sensitive to copper. They included tangs and many angelfishes.

Another generation of copper meds slowly evolved to increase the stability of the copper concentration, and at the same time, not allow the copper to be as readily accessible to the fish, yet still do its thing with the microbe. These compounds of copper are not chelated. The copper is chemically bonded to another molecule that keeps the copper at arm's length from the fish and still puts it 'in the face' of the microbe. One such medication is Cupramine.

This kind of compound is much safer for marine fishes and has successfully been used on even the most sensitive of marine fishes, and even marine creatures that should not come in contact with copper at all. It needs only be used in low concentrations; has a good effective concentration range so the aquarist doesn't have to be paranoid about checking the copper hourly to keep it in the lethal-to-the-microbe range; and is effective.

That's about the best I can do without getting chemical on you! :D
 
I didn't see or wasn't informed of your post!

Anyway, I treat all tangs in quarantine with Cupramine, whether they show signs of Marine Ich or not. This is because I believe that the probability of tangs coming through the hobby system of having either Marine Ich or Marine Velvet is high enough to warrant this process whether the disease(s) is evident or not. Copper is the only cure for BOTH Marine Ich and Marine Velvet.

Other than the above exception, no. :)
 
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