Should I use hyposalinity PLUS copper?

[kelso1980]

I'm treating 2 fish with ich and I thought I could use hypo and copper, but the more I read I can only use one or the other, right? Copper is a definite in the QT tank, but should I drop the salinity too? Thanks!

 

[Conesus_Kid]

No. Choose one. Watch your ammonia in QT. Do you have an established biological filter on your QT?

 

[kelso1980]

Planning a 1G water change every day. I thought biological filtration in QT was bad and copper would kill it anyways. I think i'll go with copper.

 

[Conesus_Kid]

You may want to run an inexpensive air-driven sponge filter. Copper won't impact the bacteria population. It'll take a while for it to get established in your QT, so you'll definitely want to test for ammonia daily.

You could seed the sponge filter by running it in your sump or display for several days before moving it to the QT.

Hands-down, more fish die in QT from ammonia than from any diseases.

Are these fish in your display with others? The reason I ask is that if you have other fish left in the display other than the two you're treating, they also have ich, even if they're not outwardly displaying symptoms. It would be very frustrating to treat your two fish for several weeks, get them healthy, then return them to the display only to be reinfected.

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[kelso1980]

all of the other fish died unfortunately. It's not my tank, its for my aunt that I set a tank up for. I have never really kept fish, I mostly do corals so I'm not all that helpful when it comes to fish.
Tomorrow I'm going to help her set up her QT and we are both going to learn about ich and quaranteening fish together (yaaaaaaay)

 

[kelso1980]

So we set up the QT tank this morning, Her coral beauty didn't make it through the night so the Foxface is the only one in the QT. He doesn't look good though. He actually didn't act like anything was bothering him, he was eating and swimming normally but he had a lot of white dots and you could even see that some looked like cysts.
We did a 5 min fresh water dip and into the QT tank he went with copper and SG at 1.025.
I think that if he makes it through the next 24 hours he will be ok.
It's a 10G QT and planning on a 1G water change every day.
Wish us luck!

 

[fpv930]

Good luck with the Foxface. I prefer a hypo salinity myself. Even though you are going to be changing 1g per day I would still test for ammonia every day. Also, you can purchase AmQuesl by Kordon to help reduce the ammonia. Most pet stores sell it.

 

[teamdulski]

This is already been solved but just to add two quick things:

-Hypo-salinity makes copper more lethal
-Although copper won't impact the bacterial population, it will slow down its ability to break down waste

 

[tmz]

Don't use Amquel or other ammonia detoxifiers when using bound copper like Cupramine or copper safe. It will interfere with the bonding releasing more toxic free copper than intended.

Copper sulfate ( Sea Cure ) a free form of copper at therapuetic dose will suppress the bio filter by about 20% for a period of time. This should be much less if at all with a bound copper treatment.