Im afraid of using cupramine.... help

PCguy21

In Memoriam
I'll be honest here guys, im having an ich problem in my two reef tanks, they are newer tanks at 7 months old so the corals arent huge but im battling ich or velvet or both..

Its odd, because only the tangs/foxface and angelfish get it. I never notice white spots or any disease in any other type of fish, including a lawnmower scooter blenny, flame hawk, i have 5 dfifferent types of damsels between the two tanks including 3 stripe, yellow tail, azure, talbots and green chromis. None of them get it. I have a orchid dottyback who never gets it either, same with a bangaii cardinal.

But anything i get that tang i want it comes up with white spots. I actually have only lost 1 tang from it, the other 2 tangs got stuck in rocks "both yellow tangs" and essentually killed themselves when the lights went off and they went to hide, ive had discus do this before so i dont get yellow tangs anymore. I have had a kole tang die but i was on vacation and my friend was watching my fish for the 8 days i was gone and on day 5 i had 5 fish die the next morning.. so something happend and i dont think it was ich.

Right now i have a Yellow Mimic tang in my 75g, and a kole tang and foxface in my 135g and the kole and fox get ich.. but only on the fins in the morning then they fall off during the day, maybe a spot or two on the body but thats it. They both seem pretty active and healthy.

I have actually been dosing herbtana for 6 days in the tank and i noticed a significant reduction in white spots using it.. So im sure ill catch flak saying it doesnt work but i have actually noticed it working. The tank i didnt use it in was the 75g and the mimic tang will get tiny white dots all over him.. then its gone in a few hours.. then it comes back and so forth im not sure what it is ich or velvet.. Im worried its velvet..

Dealing with this for months, i finally got a 20 long gallon i cant afford a bigger tank nore can i fit one. I'll be honest here i dont think i should take 20 fish from the two tanks and put them into a 20 long tank.. Its just too many fish, and the kole tang only eats algae on the rocks and glass he doesnt touch normal food so i worry hell starve to death if i move him.

So i was thinking just take the corals, as much rock and sand out as i can put it in the 20 gallon, and dose both tanks allowing the fish to be in a familiar surrounding and not be stressed from a quarantine tank that will undoubtably get ammonia and crammed problems, and the damsels im sure will tear eachother apart as well if i mix that many of them together.

I honestly dont mind tossing my sand and rock after treatment.. "well after 72 days when the corals are going fallow in the 20L" its not expensive to buy rock and sand, and the rocks i put in the 20L i can put back in the tanks not to mention my filters so the tank will still have a cycle.

Anyway, sorry for a long post. I am very worried about using curpamine, ive read up on copper and dosing and how much to dose and so forth and i keep reading copper burning the fish, damaging organs, and killing the fish as well. I read it can cause the fish to stop eating, and lets be honest here 20-30 days of not eating if it happens is a death sentence to a fish, ive seen first hand what discus turn into when they stop eating, they turn into the walking dead..

I read the bottle says 20 drops per 10 gallons, but i read to do 10 drops then 10 drops then 10 drops to slowely build it up so the fish can acclimate to it.

I'll be honest here.. im scared of using this stuff, and im almost thinking of just continuing to use Herbtana if i notice any major outbreaks as i have seen this stuff "control" it in a way. And just keeping my fish as stress free as possible.

The only fish i worry about though is the mimic tang.. when the spots show up he turns paleish and wobbles slightly, then a few hours later i dont see the spots anymore and hes fine.. its wierd... I worry if i dont use cupramine he will die.. The fox and kole tang they seem ok

What should I do here.... Sigh...

I was thinking maybe do hyposalinity instead, but ive read that doesnt always work... and it can completetly kill the cycle causing ammonia spikes, but i suppose with hypo i can actually just use ammonia chips to take the ammonia out of the water.. But if i do hypo how do i calibrate my refractometer properly so it reads salinity at 1.08 ?
 
and it seem hypo doesnt work for velvet.. if it is velvet.. so it seems i have to use cupramine... can anyone give me some advice on how to dose it very slowely and what is the minimum i can keep it at to kill ich and velvet.. but not hurt my fish.

Ive mentioned all the fish i have in the other post
 
General in tank treatments DO NOT work, your just delaying death.

If you showed a pic, maybe we could confirm the parasite.

Your description of on fins then falling off during the day could describe either but it's more like 3-5 days, then "fall off" ( to reside in your tank and multiply 100 fold each cycle)

If your fish have velvet, it's the fast killer so fish is dead in 48 hours or so, does sound like velvet.

If your fish had Ick, it's a slow killer so fish have much more time.
With Copper treatments, you must always have the correct dose at all times, too little will not work, too much kills the parasite and fish.

Always follow the manufactures reccommended doseage exactly when using copper.

If you narrow the parasite down to Ick, Hypo is better and does work, using a 1.009 salinity.
Also TTM is a great treatment as well
 
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Can you find an old larger system on craigslist on the cheap? Like a 55 gallon? I see them all the time, people getting out of freshwater usually. Can be scratched and ugly, as long as it holds water. Also, those large Rubbermaid containers can work in a pinch...

With lots of pvc hiding spots I think you could make that work temporarily for all of your fish. I definitely would not put 20 fish in a 20L.


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For the copper dosing: You need to use a Hannah copper checker instead of going by the drops per gallon. That way you know what the levels are. If it's not high enough, it won't work. And as you said, if it's too high, it will harm your fish.

Herbtana is snake oil.

Hypo in the display is another option, if you're dealing with ich. Just watch the ammonia levels daily.
 
I have used cupramine on many dozens of fish/treatments at this point with great success. You are correct on dosing at a slower rate than the bottle recommends to ease the fish into the treatment and not shock them. I had issues at times when following the bottle and once I smoothed the dosing out those issues went away. On my bottle at least it's 16 drops per 10.5 gallons, so maybe they changed it. Either way, instead of dose, 48 hours, dose. Do 1/2 dose, 1/2 dose/ 1/2 dose, 1/2 dose. Or even better, do 1/4 dose morning and night for 4 days.



I won't necessarily recommend this, but I do not dose exactly to the bottle dose. Copper is therapeutic at .4-.5ppm and I believe the cupramine dosing is slightly over .5ppm if done in full. So I usually stop a few drops short to end up in the 95% of recommended dose because I do not test for copper in my QTs. I do the full 30 days of treatment, but you can do less if you transfer the fish to a different QT that is is sterile.

Of note, I only use pvc pipe and sponge filters in my qt tanks. Nothing that can absorb the medication.

I also think a huge key to success is having a biological filter that can handle the fish load in QT. Setting up a fresh QT and trying to control ammonia can work, but is much harder and leaves less room for air. Any ammonia will further stress/poison the fish. So all of my QT tanks are at least 40 gallon breeders and use seeded sponge filters I keep in my sump of my display, so they are fully colonized and capable of handling the fish load in qt immediately.
 
I personally use Copper Power in most instances, but it is difficult to say for sure which is better: Chelated vs. ionic (Cupramine) copper.

No matter which copper product you use, the most important thing is using the Hanna checker to avoid overdosing.
 
Well maybe it isnt vekvet then because my foxface and kole tang hsve hsd it for well over a week now and thr mimic tang i noticed it maybe 3 days ago.

I just checked the mimic tang and 0 spots.. its weird... I almost wonder if im seeing stress spots on him vs ich or velvet because they come and go within hours.

Uhg well my curpsmine and seachesm test kit come today as well as salt so ima just bite ny tongue and do this.

No i tried looking for a cheao tank everyone on craigslist snd facebook msrketolace wants alot of money for their tanks. Even a 55g is over 100$ snd between the 20L medicine and salt and test kit and a board for the 20L to sit on its costed me 100$ for just that.

I di landscaping and itd not quite spring yet so yez. Thats why i was saying to just move ny cirals and rock and sand to the 20 and use the msin tsnk as a hospital tank.. in 72 days itll be well into my season and i dont mind buying a few new peices of rock and sand if i have too.
 
Is this 50$ hanna checker really thst good over color test kits ?

A lot of people are color blind and don't even know it. So, the Hanna checker removes all doubt by spitting out a number (accurate to within 0.05 ppm.)

That being said, Cupramine's dosing instructions are pretty spot on - provided you don't have any rock or something else which might absorb the copper.
 
Well maybe it isnt vekvet then because my foxface and kole tang hsve hsd it for well over a week now and thr mimic tang i noticed it maybe 3 days ago.

I just checked the mimic tang and 0 spots.. its weird... I almost wonder if im seeing stress spots on him vs ich or velvet because they come and go within hours.

Uhg well my curpsmine and seachesm test kit come today as well as salt so ima just bite ny tongue and do this.

No i tried looking for a cheao tank everyone on craigslist snd facebook msrketolace wants alot of money for their tanks. Even a 55g is over 100$ snd between the 20L medicine and salt and test kit and a board for the 20L to sit on its costed me 100$ for just that.

I di landscaping and itd not quite spring yet so yez. Thats why i was saying to just move ny cirals and rock and sand to the 20 and use the msin tsnk as a hospital tank.. in 72 days itll be well into my season and i dont mind buying a few new peices of rock and sand if i have too.

Make sure you have Ick or velvet before treating. Spots, to my extent of knowledge do not appear, then disappear within hours......it should be 3-5 days.

For both, they look somewhat the same and look like a smattering of find salt or sugar, Ick being more oval, velvet being more circular. They would appear on fins, body or both and would stay there for about 3-5 days then disappear. They fall to the bottom, multiply 100-200 fold, become free swimming and attack weakened fish first.

If this is NOT what's happening, it's not Ick or Velvet. Any fish with Velvet has in the range of 48-72 hours before death, velvet quick, Ick slow...
 
Well thrn it isnt velvet because ny foxface has had it for over a week. My royal gramms had it for over a month. The spots im seeing on the mimic tang apear then dissapear in hours. They never get large like ich they stay small and i see tons of them.. but then they jusy go away.

Its weird. I know for a fact the larger tank has ich i can deff tell how big those spots get and it takes 3 days to show up at that size thrn they fall off.

As for live rock i can leaving most of my sand and half of ny rock in the tank when i was going to dose.. mainly to keep my cycle so i dont have to do wated changes abd worry about ammonia. As i said i dont mind replacing the rock n stuff if i have too anyway.

I just worry about killing the fish with copper and not being able to read the kits.

Uhg it just sucks lol looking at this tank.. seeing every fish but two not catching ich.. and the two that do arent really affected by it that much..
 
Ok all my corals and a good chunk of my rocks and some sand are in the 20L tank. Im missing a couple turbo snails so i havent dosed the main tank going to see if they pop up.

The smaller tank i dosed half of the dose they said to do.. So 20 drops per 10g i did 10g drops.. So for a 75g tank i did 70 drops. I just tested the watee after it was circulating for awhile and it looks like its at .1 right now. So if their dodage is to get to .5 and half is .25 then half of .25 is .12 so it seems to be working.

Tomorrow ill do the other half whicj should bring it to .25. Then ill wait 48 hrs and do the other half of the other half which should bring it to .37 or so. Then finish it at .5
 
Well there are alot more on him then what the pic is showing.. but thats a good chunk of it.. he swims so fast its hard to see.
 
Agree on ich.

BTW you don't need to wait 48 hours between 2nd and 3rd dose because you are already spreading the doses out. So you can just dose each day for 4 days to get to the full amount.
 
You sure ? I dont wanna rush things.

I did another set of drops todsy but split them in the morning thrn this early evening.

I checked the copper level using seachem copper kit and it looks to be at .25. Youre gonna laugh but i found going cross eyed a little to blurr my vision so i only see color actually helps alot lol.

And you deff need sunlight.. table lamps actuallyy hide the true color it seems.


Im going to go get some ammonia alert badges though. The water smells weird... not sure if its a metalic smell or ammonia smell im smelling. I know the api ammonia test will be thrown off with curpamine.


I havent dosed my main tank yet i have an ammonia spike in it.. i tjink adding thr ootlite sand over my fiji pink sand the other day b4 i made this thread caused a die off of bb on my sand bed.. It seems to have caused an aenerobic place as the ootlite compacted on top of the fiji... i should hsbe stirred it when i put it in.

So ima wait for a few days to get the ammonia down.


Also it doesnt seem like the copper is being absorbed by the rocks and sand in the other tank.. If it was.. why are my readings at .25 consistsnt with the dosage.. and they arent dropping.

The mimic tang wont come out he keeps hiding in the shade and is brestjing a little heavier today vs grazing on the algae like he used too. I see no visible ich or spots on him.. So i dunno.

Gonna go get the alert badges now to check the ammonia
 
You need to make daily water changes in QT.
I might be more concerned with ammonia than copper.
 
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