Straight into medication from LFS, do you?

[AquaKnight]

Wondering if you purchase fish from the LFS and they use copper in their fish systems, when you bring the fish home what do you guys do in QT? A full copper treatment from where their copper levels are, or from where the copper levels are and work your back to normal, or just straight into a normal water and observe?

 

[95accord]

i would say it would depend if the fish is showing any symptoms or not......if he seems fine....he's probably been cured of whatever they were trating him for...IMO....but im no expert

if he still oooks sick/streesed...maybe the mdeicated environment would be good.

 

[Sk8r]

I'm not keen on buying from a fish store that uses copper whether or not the fish have a disease. It is poisonous, it does affect internal organs [I believe I am accurate in that] and I don't want them damaging a fish I hope will live for a decade or more.

If they have correctly diagnosed disease in their tank, why hasn't it cured it?
If they're buying from suppliers with disease in their tanks, why haven't they changed suppliers?
If their fish are sick, why don't they at least withdraw them to the back room and sell them out of a 'clean' tank once they are cured---warning their customers that the fish has once been exposed to copper?

I just would not buy any fish or invert from this store. I don't treat 'well' fish, and I won't buy one that has been treated.

 

[AquaKnight]

If I'm not mistaken, even LA's Diver Den fish see a copper treatment...

To combat common bacterial infections such as Vibrio, therapeutic baths containing antibiotics such as kanamycin, nitrofurazone, Neomycin and other commercial antibiotics are given. Open wounds on fish are treated and healed with a special topical treatment. In addition to the baths, all quarantined fish are treated with copper sulfate and a 37% formaldehyde solution (Formalin) to combat Amyloodinium ocellatum and Cryptocaryon irritans.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=425

Just on a side note, this is the one store I have yet to see dead fish at. I thought copper only becomes a problems for most fish when you can't measure it correctly (i.e. have sand/LR in your tank) and it grows to dangerous levels. I would ask test the water myself before I purchased a fish, but I'm pretty sure they don't keep the water at full strength.