Quee Angelfish Odd Issues, Please Help

[demariners]

So I had an ich infestation about a week ago and luckily I was able to save most of my fish and get rid of the ich. I have noticed that since I dropped the salinity to 1.10 and also added copper my Queen Angelfish has been acting weird. I must also emphasize she was doing the same thing before the treatment but was eating. Now she is not. During the icy treatment I did not see her for three days straight. She was hiding behind a rock throughout the day. Now she swims day and night all over the place. I am noticing however that she bumps into things constantly like she was blind. I do not see any issues with her eyes however from bumping into things she has a white mouth. I had attached a picture I got. I have no idea what is wrong with her or what to diagnose. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[sandwi54]

Copper CANNOT be combined with hyposalinity. The low salinity turns copper deadly! The angel is being poisoned to death right now. Please do a 50% water change with 1.010 water immediately and put cuprisorb or activated carbon to remove the rest of the copper.

In the future please be careful with medications. with ich treatment, perform either hyposalinity nor copper, but not both. for medications, more is not better and dosage has to be monitored closely to prevent overdosage.

also, you have not rid your tank of ich yet. copper treatment requires 3 weeks, while hypo typically lasts months. please read the ich stickies in this forum to understand the life cycle of ich and how treatment kills them at which stage, etc.

 

[demariners]

Hmm, I never heard of such a thing. I am using something called Copper Power. It is a formula that I am told is less harmful to the fish. I am not sure what it is exactly. On the bottle it says it contains 1.26% copper sulfate. I do not have the water to do a change but I will try my best to get some if I need to raise it. I have 4 other fish in the tank who seem to be doing quite well and no longer have ich and are eating well.

 

[sandwi54]

it's a well known fact that copper cannot be combined with hypo. you can only pick one method to treat. both would kill ich so why combine them in the first place??

as i stated, please read the ich stickies in this forum to understand the life cycles of ich. the cysts have just fallen off the fish to reproduce so that's why you don't see the white spots and that gives you the illusion that ich is gone. it's in the system reproducing now and that could take up to 28 days to complete. you must follow through with the recommended treatment duration to 100% eradicate ich.

i'm not sure what the copper powder is. can you give me the brand name? it may be the right medication but it has to be used to normal salinity seawater. Hyposaline water turns normal copper into a much more toxic form. your queen angel sounds like it turned blind from the copper poisoning, and that could be temporary or it could be permanent. you need to remove that copper right away. your other fish may seem ok right now, but they are still being poisoned and it's a matter of time before permanent damage is done (just like what happened to the angel).

 

[demariners]

I just checked the salinity and it is at .11. I use Copper POWER. It is made by Endich, Inc out of NJ. Everyone uses it here in AZ. It is a blue liquid in a bottle.

 

[demariners]

http://www.google.com/products/cata...tKCL4To2QWSybCrAw&ved=0CIYBEPMCMAA#ps-sellers

 

[demariners]

I have about a 260g a tank. I have about 50ga worth of salt and about 10 gallons of RODI water to use. I typically do not maintain this tank. I have someone who comes and does water changes since it is so large of a tank. Can I slowly add salt to the main tank? I am not sure what to do here but as I said the rest of the fish look ok.

 

[geaux xman]

It is Copper Power, i think its really similar to CopperSafe. I have a bottle, but have never used it. a couple of my LFS uses it in their fish only system.

Raising your salinity will take several days and a lot of SW, while your queen continue to be exposed to the toxic water.

You might consider making a new batch of 1.009 SW and relocate the fish into that new bath of 1.009 SW.

 

[demariners]

I could set up a hospital tank? I have a 10 and a 20 ga I could convert into one. Would that be helpful?

 

[geaux xman]

I've tested the salinity of my LFS before and it has been as low as 1.015 and he uses copper power in his system.

If I understand this right, you are hypo+copper your 260g DT? What other fish do you have in there?

I really dont know what test kit works well with Copper Power. It would be hard to dose and measure in the DT since the rock will absorb out some of the copper.

 

[demariners]

All the other fish seem great after the treatment. I had 5 fish died due to ich because I did not know it was ich. I am still a beginner. I have a blue tang, hal tusk, chysris angel, snowflake eel, and the queen angel. All the other fish lost their spots (who had it, the tang and the tusk). After about 3 days of the treatment. I do have difficulty measuring the copper power. It is below the recommended dose though after I tested it today because something must have absorbed it. What does DT mean? I have a fish only tank with fake corals and non-live rock. I had a professional I have been using for 6 years on my fish tank do the water change to get the salinity low and he informed me to also put the copper power. Based on what I have read is it is quite safe compared to standard copper. However I do want to mention before the treatment the angel was acting weird like this. Thanks for any help.

 

[geaux xman]

is your non-live rock, dry base rock? it will absorb A LOT of the copper. you might have to dose as much as twice or more to get to therapeutic range. Which is kind of dangerous to do if you dont get an accurate reading and might end up overdosing the tank.

 

[demariners]

I am sorry, I do not understand your statement.

Personally, I would set up the 20g. Make 1.013 Saltwater and acclimate the queen over to it. Then the next day, increase the salinity to 1.016. Then the next day raise it to 1.018 and restart the copper treatment.

I can not exactly restart my copper treatment in the main tank with other fish in there. I do not think I have enough room for all my fish in a 20 QT tank. I also am not familiar with the set up and maintenance of one.

 

[geaux xman]

sorry i'm at work and it took awhile to send the message thru. at the time i sent that i didnt know what all fish you had.

Check with your guy(make sure he is competent) to see if hes ever used copper power+hypo. Typically, copper+hypo is very dangerous and toxic to fish.

how many days now has the copper been in the water when the salinity was 1.010.

DT = Display tank.

 

[grouper25]

I have had the same blindness issue with my large Scribbled after an ICK infestation. She went blind before I ever removed her from the tank and treated her with Cupramine, Furan 2 and Prazi Pro. Only yesterday, some 15 days after being in a QT, did my Scribbled start eating and her sight appears to be returning.
Until this happened I never thought ICK could cause blindness yet it did. Check out my thread here. Good Luck

 

[MrTuskfish]

As if you didn't have enough problems. SG of 1.010 isn't low enough to kill ich. What are you using to measure SG; A swing-arm hydrometer or a well-calibrated hydrometer?. Only the latter is accurate enough for hypo. IMO, your ich problems are just starting. Ich typically takes a little quiet period, then returns X 100. I'd strongly suggest you decide if you're going to treat this tank with copper OR hypo, learn all you can, and proceed. If you first spotted the ich a week ago, you still have a very ich infested tank, regardless of treatment method or fish symptoms. Again, please read the stickies on this subject. We just can't help unless you are somewhat informed on the subject.
Also: did your maintenance company introduce all the livestock to your tank, or did you? Someone is responsible for adding ich infested fish without proper quarantine. Ich just doesn't just "happen". If it was the maintenance company; shouldn't they cure the problem?

 

[sandwi54]

^^^ Echoing MrTusk. I continue to stress on the fact that you need to read the ich stickies on this forum. It explains well what it is, its life cycles, and how it reproduces and what not. You have to understand this parasite well enough before you start treatment.

Also do extensive research on the treatment you're going to use and make sure you know exactly how to perform it, what can and cannot go with it, etc. more fish are killed by improper treatments rather than actual diseases.

i still suggest that you start removing that copper since it's already in the toxic form and poisoning the fish right now. if you have no means of doing a large water change on the 260g display, go buy lots of carbon and cuprisorb and leave them in the sump where the water flow occurs, and they will suck out the copper over time.

since you're doing the treatment in DT with live rocks/sand, i recommend that you continue with hyposalinity and not copper. As others have stated, live rocks/sand absorb copper over time and make the treatment difficult. if you're already at 1.010 SG, just continue to lower it to 1.008 with a REFRACTOMETER calibrated with a calibration solution (like the american pinpoint). hold the fish in there for 4 weeks after the LAST spot is seen. Then raise the salinity slowly at no more than 0.002 per day back to normal salinity.

 

[MrTuskfish]

^^^^^Good advice^^^^^
The ''4 weeks after last spot is seen" is vital.........and run the cooper/ Cuprisorb indefinably because copper will continue to leach from substrate/LR.. Cuprisorb can be re-charged and if its in a high-flow area system will remove copper faster than you'd think.