QT with copper?

IronMan72

IronMan72

New member
I finished setting up a 10G quarantine tank last night and plan to bring home a new addition on Monday. Merry Christmas to me!:D It will go into quarantine for four to six weeks. I always have a filter pad for my small HOB filter tucked in a corner in my sump for just such an event so I should have a decent bacteria colony to minimize the cycle. It is bare bottom and I use a couple 2" PVC fittings for hiding places. I will be running a small 9W UV sterilizer on the QT as always but need to pick up a new bulb for it.

I've never run copper before but am considering doing so while it is in QT. Looking for some advice on copper use for QT. Any drawbacks? Any other alternatives? I always sterilize everything in the QT with bleach after a QT followed by a rigorous dechlorination process including dechlor and several rinses. Is there any concern with copper leaching from my filter media (it's actually a sponge from a fluval canister filter) when I put it back into my sump after sterilizing it? Is there some other treatment I need to consider for it or should I just chuck it and consider it part of the cost of adding new fish.
 
Always play it safe with copper, keep items separated from QT and display. Buy another filter pad to re-seed in your sump, its cheaper than replacing livestock.

Coppersafe has been great for me, I just make sure to drip acclimate and scoop and drop fish into the display so I do not get any in the display.
 
I'm a big fan of seachem cupramine, it's not nearly as rough on the fish as other copper medications. Make sure you also have a good copper test kit.
 
I've run copper in my hospital tanks and actually just started a new round last night. I use cupramine and test with a seachem test kit. I follow the instructions on the bottle and find it hard to read the exact level with the seachem test kit. I've read salifert makes a good test kit. The last time I ran copper, I was somewhere between 0.35 and 0.50 (can't remember the units) and maintained that level for 3 or 4 weeks. Per the instructions on the bottle, I should have been close to 0.50.

Typically, when I get new fish, I'll wait up to a week to ensure they are eating well before treating. I then treat 2 rounds of prazipro, give a week off and then either hypo or copper the tank. The first time I used copper, I suspected my emperor was showing signs of velvet. The treatment cleared him up and my 4 multicolors which were in the same tank did fine too. None of the fish lost their appetite throughout the treatment. Last night, a potter's angel started showing signs of velvet. I've had him for 10 days and was in the middle of the prazipro treatment, so I did a 33% H2O change and then started with cupramine. Assuming all goes well, I'll treat the tank for 3 or 4 weeks again.

Here are a couple of things I do which you may find helpful:

1. Calculate your actual water volume of or QT or hospital tank (L"xW"xH"/231). Using a marker, mark different water level volumes on the outside of the tank. On my 55gal tank, it actually only holds ~48 gallons. I put lines at every 5 gallon increments. This is extremely useful when I comes time for water changes. You may want to increment every 2 gallons.

2. Maintain a separate reservoir at the proper salinity, temp and copper level as your hospital tank. When I treated the first time, I changed 25% every 3 or 4 days. It makes it extremely easy when everything is ready to go. I've almost lost an entire QT tank because of being lax with the H2O changes and I'll never let that happen again.

What do you plan on bringing home?
 
Some say angels are copper sensitive. In any case, I used to treat preventatively with copper. Tank transfer employing 2 /10 gallon tanks is quicker, 12days, med free and pretty easy. Just 4 3 day stays in clean tanks and any ich is left behind.
I acclimate the tank ,ie match it to the bag water, rather than drip acclimation in the bag.
 
tmz said:
Some say angels are copper sensitive. In any case, I used to treat preventatively with copper. Tank transfer employing 2 /10 gallon tanks is quicker, 12days, med free and pretty easy. Just 4 3 day stays in clean tanks and any ich is left behind.
I acclimate the tank ,ie match it to the bag water, rather than drip acclimation in the bag.
Click to expand...

Thank you for chiming in TMZ. I forgot about this method and I've read your posts regarding it numerous times. I have another 10G tank laying around that I can clean up for this purpose. Do you use hyposalinity with this method? Any benefit to prazipro or copper? Possibly a decrease in the dosage each swap or just skip it all together? I've been fortunate to never see any of the common fish ailments in person but because of this inexperience I am concerned that I may have a hard time identifying them if they were present.
 
Hi Dave,
No , I use just clean water and a thoroughly pre dried tank and equipment at each transfer. Ich is the most common killer and tank transfer takes care of that. I rely on observation during the 12days for the rest.
Not sure if prazi pro can be used safely with an ammonia detoxifier;copper can't. I like to add some of Ammo Lock during tank transfer. Managing ammonia is an issue in small qt tanks, less so in the transfer method since there is new water every 3 day s but I use small amounts of the detoxifier just in case. Don't want to kill or harm fish with ammonia toxicity while trying to prevent a disease.That happens all too frequently from acconts I've read.
A 2 to 3 week qt period in a larger cycled tank perhaps even using prazi pro there after tank transfer for flukes,etc would be an improvement on what I do now and I'm thinking about it for the next specimen..

Some recommend fresh water dips preceding each transfer or even formalin baths for other diseases but now we may be getting into some serious stress issues.

When using copper or prazipro a full therapeutic dose is needed for lethality to the targeted disease. Less will not kill it and may help the pathogens build resistance.
 
tmz said:
A 2 to 3 week qt period in a larger cycled tank perhaps even using prazi pro there after tank transfer for flukes,etc would be an improvement on what I do now and I'm thinking about it for the next specimen..
Click to expand...

2 or 3 weeks total in a larger tank in addition to the 12-day switching routine, or instead of it? Or are you describing something else here?
 
I'm saying after the 12 day 4 transfer protocol ,placing the fish for additional qt period of 2 to 3 weeks in a larger tank ,perhaps with prazi pro treatment ,would be an enhancement. I'm considering it.
 
It's been around for quite awhile as one of the 3 generally accepted methods(copper, hypo, tank transfer). It's often not favored because of overblown(imo) concerns about stress on the fish during capture and transfer and the work involved which isn't really that much ,ime. It also takes a least 2 tanks and a supply of newly mixed, aged aerated overnight salt water.
But given the short stay and 100% water change every 3 days , ammonia is less of an issue even in a small tank and since there are no meds in use a detoxifier can be added if needed. I've used it five times now. I've used the hypo and copper methods too for a long time but this suits me better in terms of ammonia control, time and effectiveness.
 
Transfer is an interesting approach!

A little more on copper I read. Some tangs are adversely affected by copper treatment with a loss of beneficial bacteria and other fauna in their gut that aids in digestion. They can recover these over time in the DT, but it can take take a toll on many species.
 
I've read many accounts regarding perceived copper sensitivities ( most of which were raised by hyposalinity advocates)that may occur for various fish but never really heard of a case of serious copper toxicity except when using an ammonia detoxifier with a chelated or copper.
Regarding,intestininal flora suppression in tangs, I don't recall if that is backed up by a study and may just be just specualation on what might happen. Would like to read up on it again though if you have a reference. I used copper sulfate ,then switched to cupramine for awhile but like th transfer process much better .
 
I just completed my second dose of cupramine last night in my 55 gal QT / hospital tank. Personally, I prefer hypo for ich, but if I see something such as velvet, I'll start copper treatment and take care of the velvet and ich concerns in parallel. This current round, I had a potter's angel, that was doing wonderful for 12 days. I came home on the 12th day and noticed one of its side fins all ragged, belabored respiration and a white sheen on its side. I started cupramine right away, as my smaller 15 gal hospital tank wasn't available. Unfortunately, the potter's didn't make it and died yesterday.

In hindsight, if it was truely velvet and I had my 15gal ready, I would have pulled the fish, given it a methlyene blue/FW dip followed by formalin dip (snorvich has a thread detailing this somewhere) and then put it in the 15gal for observation.

I'll continue the copper treatment as I have several other fish in the same tank and maintain a close watch on the rest of them (majestic angel, fowler's tang and 2 black onyx clowns). They are all eating well, so as long as that remains the case, I'll keep them at current copper levels for 3 weeks or so.
 
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Sorry about the potters.

I prefer copper to hypo for ich and tank transfer over copper.
There is more evidence of hypo restistent strains of marine ich these days. One study suggests they adapt genrationaly and given that their short life cylce it's conceivable some strains could adapt quickly. IME ,after 8 weeks at 1.09sg on sevral occasions the ich came back as I rasied the sg . Perhaps the cysts just slowed down without perishing. I also don't like skating the edge of fish's low end tolerance of 1.08, their internal salinity. The duration of stay in qt for hypo is also a concern in terms of dormant kidney functions and off balance homeostas is.
Tank transfer is not a proven treatment for velvet ( amyloodinium) as it is for ich.,The life cylce of this dinoflagellate is faster than the ich protist crytocaryon irritans. However, transfering the fish will get it away from some of the spores in the vacated tank and any swarmers in the water. So, it should at least mitigate the severity of the attack . A formalin bath at the recommended level for a for 40 minutes in saltwater will remove most if not all of these parasites from the fish. A freshwater dip of about 4 minutes with or without methylene blue should get most of it . Steven Pro in his article on velvet suggests a fresh water dip at each transfer for velvet but acknowledges concern over stress.

Copper is a good choice for amylodinium treatment ,imo as it will kill the parasite in the free swimming stage . Hypo won't do anything for it. This disease kills so quickly that by the time you see it ,it is often too late. These parasites go for the gills and quickly clog and damage them. I and others have prophylactically (for flukes, oodinium, and brooklynella) used formalin baths for new fish in the past without ill effect but that's a judgement call and some folks are put off by concerns about the stress formaldehyde may cause.

If a larger qt tank is being used for a long stay a large uv sterilizer might be of some use in reducing the density of any velvet there and the ferocity of any initial attack.. These parasites are smaller than ich and have a lesser cell wall structure making them easier to kill with uv. But only those passing through the uv will be effected .
 
Lots of good info TMZ.

I wondered about the hypo resistant ich too. Two months after the first round of hypo, the tank broke out with it again. From what I've read, salinity should be dropped over a two day period. Maybe that is to minimize the chance for ich to adapt? I took 7-10 days to gradually lower to hypo. This second time, I lowered s.g. over the same time period and was in 1.008/1.009 s.g. range, vs. 1.009 the first time round. About six or seven weeks into treatment, a couple of fish were showing signs of lymphocystis, which I guess isn't totally unexpected at those conditions for a prolonged period of time. If this doesn't work, I'm removing all the fish, treating with cupramine and keeping the main system fallow for 3 months. I hope it doesn't come to that because it will be a major PITA!

Hopefully, some of these exchanges are helping you out Ironman!
 
I think the 2 days or less makes sense to minimize the chances for a hatch and secondary attack.
I personally don't think it matters how fast you go down on sg as long as you don't go below the 1.08 internal sg of the saltwater fish they can't manage that. They are hypotonic ( their intenal sg is lower than their environs)They drink a lot and pass concentrated urine to stay hydrated in normal 1.026 water so at lower sg they just s drink less and work less hard. There is no stress involved except perhaps from a large ph shift. Going up is a problem and should be done slowly (.001 or .002 per day) to avoid osmotic shock ,like severe dehydration. Fresh water fish are the opposite(hypertonic) but their sg is also 1.08 Parasites and other invertebrates can't regulate their internal sg the way fish can ,the water outside difuses into their bodies and out of themto match teh water outside and they have no easy way to adjust their internal sg. They are isotonic. When it goes off all their internal chemsitry goes out of wack and they loose homeostasis and die..However, invertebrates have some ability to regulate internal sg chemicaly and the range of tolerance varies from organism to orgainsm .Strains of ich live in brackish water . One study showed that they adapted some in each generation to lower sg. So every week or two they mutate a bit to cope. i don't think hypo is reliable all of the time.
 
Haffs09 said:
Hopefully, some of these exchanges are helping you out Ironman!
Click to expand...

There is absolutely some great information in these posts. I was concerned that the tank transfer method would work well for ich but not for other parasites.

It seems that a fifth transfer following the initial 12 days of the transfer method into a tank treated with copper for 10 days could be useful for fighting off these other parasites and would still result in a short 3 week qt period. It would provide for a 12 day period to get the fish eating well before treating with copper. This final 10 day period could be considered optional if no parasites were detected during the tank transfer method.

Does this seem like a reasonable modification to the standard tank transfer method?
 
I think velvet will show up in 12 days most of the time if it's there.

Flukes can be lesss obvious with fish doing well for a few weeks and then dropping dead. Flukes are termatodes. flat worms that live on the fish's skin. They have no free swimming stage and most do not credit copper as an effective treatment for them.
Repetitive fresh water dips or formalin baths will get them off the fish but prazipro is more widely used as an in qt tank treatment with success.
Some use prazi pro along with copper as a catch all for ich ,velvet and flukes but I'm not sure that the double med won't overly stress fish.
Brokynella isanother killer andusually showup early formalin is a good treatment for it.

If I set up a fifth transfer , I'd use it for observation or treat with praz pro ,particularly for wrasses, as I've seen more fluke infestations on them than other species in the trade.

Then if I saw velvet or brokklynella I'dreach for the copper or formalin respectively.

This brainstorming is helpful to me asell. .My system has about 490 very healty fishin it so I'm constantly rethinking my preventative protocol.

As of ow
I'm consiering ;tank transfer with a formalin bath before the first transfer and a fifth transfer for 2 weeks to a larger cycledtank dose with prazi.
 
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