My Powder Blue has ich

cidermaster

New member
Big shock I know!! Whats going on is Im quaranting him in a 75 gallon tank he was doing fine until yesterday morning I noticed ich on him. Hes eating like a hog and swimming around fine. Im gonna start dosing Quick Cure for 3 days that my lfs gave me and then was gonna do a water change then start hyposalinty.Is this recommended? Also i know this Quick Cure kills off the LR thats in the hospital tank and that is fine but what about equipment? Right now I have a vortech mp40 on the hospital tank will that be able to go back to dt after?
 
i treated my heavily infested PB with copper for couple weeks.. worked well and fish was super healthy.. i cant comment on success with any other method..
 
That's a lot of "stuff" to be doing. For tangs, copper has been the easiest for me, set the initial concentration, and then test daily, add copper as necessary to keep the concentration stable in the effective range. Hypo is effective, however it requires a few days / weeks of salt addition or water changes to bring the salinity back up to 35ppt, with copper the salinity can stay the same as the display and you put the fish back into the display after a short acclimation - provided the display has been fallow long enough to allow the parasite to run it's course...
 
Sorry in advance for the hijack but Im in the same boat. Which works faster hypo or copper?
 
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Copper seems to be far more popular. Easier to keep parameters in check. Just need the meds and a copper test kit. With hypo it is tougher to keep low salinity, and PH control becomes critical. It is all about stability. Then.. it takes time to raise salinity back up once treatment is through. It cannot be done quickly.

If it were me, I'd try copper first. If the fish has an adverse reaction... go hypo. Some fish can apparently take copper, others can't. Consider a third option. Sometimes just leaving the fish be in quarantine for a good long while with a quality fortified diet can help kick an infestation.. but it really depends on how bad off things are to begin with.
 
Copper I dont have great luck with Hypo also I would use cupramine and if getting a test kit get salifert.....Easiest to read and a seachem ammonia badge to test for free ammonia
Daily water changes with the correct dose added back in with each W/C
If using cupramine I would do 1/2 the recommended dosage until you reach your target (if u have time to play) depending on the fishes condition.
Im treating a very sensitive long nosed butterfly in cupramine as we speak and he's doing great but again I went very slowly 1/2 ml's first 2 days then waited 48 hours and finished with the 1/2 ml's to get to my target.
Hope this helps :) good luck!
 
cidermaster, I dosed Cupramine yesterday at half the recommended dose watch my PBT for several hours then dosed the second half of recommended dose after seeing no negative reaction. Today his color looks better and he's not breathing as rapidly. Directions say to wait 48 hours before repeating to I will update you tomorrow.

Just to be clear my first dose brought the copper level to 0.125 and the second to 0.25 and tomorrow I will dose half of the recommended dosage at first to bring the copper level to 0.375 and if all goes well later that day I will repeat to bring it to 0.5.
 
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