Need help!

[reneerob03]

I have a quarantine tank with a yellow tang and a baby regal tang. Have had the yellow for a month and the blue for 1.5 weeks. Have been treating with cupramine prophylactically. Blue tang started scratching about 5 days ago however no sign of ich whatsoever. Both appear very healthy and happy with great appetites but blue tang is still scratching. As a result have been doing 50% water changes daily. Have been maintaining cupramine levels at about 0.4. Not sure what to do, continue to treat as an outbreak?
Temp 79-80
Ammonia 0.25
Nitrates 0
Salinity 1.021

 

[ThRoewer]

Copper as a prophylactic is not a good idea as it impairs the fish's immune system and by that may open the door for more dangerous things than Cryptocaryon.
Also, copper only works reliably against Cryptocaryon which can be treated easily with better methods like TTM.

Copper may or may not work against Amyloodinium but will for sure mask and keep it under wrap long enough until the fish finally goes into the display to cause an outbreak there.
Again other medications or methods are more effective:
- TTM with formalin baths as prophylaxis
- Chloroquine Phosphate if it is a confirmed Amyloodinium outbreak.

Copper is completely ineffective against Brooklynella or Uronema.

Copper as an immune suppressant is also likely to trigger Lymphocystis outbreaks if the fish carries the virus.

 

[ThRoewer]

Forgot one important thing:
Do not transfer the fish directly out of the copper bath into the display tank!
They will need to stay another 6 to 8 weeks for observation in the QT to make sure they didn't came with a nasty surprise.

 

[reneerob03]

What does TTM stand for?

 

[ThRoewer]

Tank Transfer Method: the fish are moved to a new ich free tank every 3 days for 2 weeks (12 days to be precise). This will clean them from ich.
To prophylactically treat against velvet, brook and uronema you add 30 to 45 minute formalin baths when transferring the fish from one tank to the next.

 

[reneerob03]

When we did our water change yesterday, we lowered the salinity from 1.023 to 1.021, we also added an air pump. Have been watching very closely and we haven't seen the blue tang scratch since prior to the water change. Would really like to start diluting the copper as I am starting to worry about the long term effects especially if the only signs the blue tang has shown of ich is scratching. Could there be other causes for the scratching such as the ammonia being 0.25? I have no intention of adding either fish to the main tank for 6-8 weeks but I'm really not sure if the copper is needed at this time. Not sure what to do!

 

[jraker]

any ammonia in the tank is bad. do large water changes.