Ich surviving cupramine treatment?

[mikeintosh]

I'm just about a month through a cupramine treatment in my hospital tank because of a slight ich infestation. The hospital contains only a bunch of pvc piping, a sponge filter and salinity lowered to about 1.018. The copper has been kept at a steady .25 throughout.

The process seemed to be doing its job, but just recently I've noticed that the blue hippo has ich again. The other fish don't seem to show any signs, though. And they're all still eating voraciously and swim around pretty normally.

My question is... isn't cupramine supposed to be deadly to parasites? How can they still be hosting in that environment? The only thing that changed since day one was that last week I started raising the salinity a little to acclimate the fish back to the original levels.

I WAS planning on introducing the fish back into the display last week but won't with this new discovery. I'd like to wrap up the quarantine asap. Is there anyone that can shed any light on what's going on?

Thanks.

 

[biger]

cupramine is supposed to be kept at .5

 

[biger]

From seachem web site:

Directions

Remove all invertebrates. Turn off UV sterilizer; remove chemical filtration. If the bottle has a dropper cap, use 16 drops (1 mL) per 40 L (10.5 gallons*) the first day, wait 48 hours, then repeat. On non-dropper caps, each inner ring is 1 mL. In freshwater use half dose. Final copper concentration is 0.5 mg/L (0.25 mg/L in freshwater). Leave at this concentration for 14 days. Do not redose without testing (MultiTest: Copperâ"žÂ¢). Do not use in conjunction with any other medication. If tank has ever been treated with an ionic copper (e.g. copper chloride, sulfate or citrate), test copper level after initial dosing. Although most fish tolerate Cupramineâ"žÂ¢ to 0.8 mg/L, it is not advisable to exceed 0.6 mg/L copper. Remove with carbon or CupriSorbâ"žÂ¢.

 

[biger]

Most will continue treatment for 21 days at .5 mg/L to be sure.