Treating ICH with Cupramine
- Thread starter spieszak
- Start date
tidenknox
New member
Yeah its a real pain in the ***.
steelhead77
New member
Then DON'T treat your fish!!!!! At least not right now. Your fish are eating like horses etc....!!!! Just keep an eye on them. Despite what all the "experts" here tell you, why would you treat a fish with a poison in order to "save" it from something it might or might not have? Good grief, look at this with a little common sense. Do you treat your child for lice, or whatever, if there are no symptoms just because they "might" get it?
I just don't understand why some people advocate this course of action, especially when there are no symptoms - despite being exposed. Being exposed does not equal being infected. Even if if it did, just relax and see how things go. Why poison and potentially kill your fish when you have no concrete reason to?
steelhead77
New member
Actually, you probably lost your Trigger due to reasons other than ich itself. It may have been a contributor, but not likely the sole cause. Ich is not the scourge most people here will have you believe.
jcw
Active member
No, but we immunize children all the time for deadly and not so deadly diseases.
People get flu shots.
If it weren't for the length of treatment in hypo, I,d consider it a great way to prevent introducing ich with new fish.
steelhead77
New member
I have been admonished many times in this forum for comparing ich to the flu, cancer and whatnot. People tell me ich is not like the flu, that's why I used the lice analogy. Hypo is one thing, copper is a completely different thing altogether. You wouldn't treat your child with chemo, because they have the flu (at least I wouldn't). Especially when they show no symptoms.
I'd like to respond to this with my thinking process on why i'm treating, so that maybe sometime in the future someone else might see it an it will help to speed up their thinking process.
1) Comparing the fish to a child is a moot point. Even if we feel that way about them, the amount of research time and money spent on understanding childhood disease far out weighs what anyone has looked at as far as my fish. This is proven by the fact that there is no reef safe ich treatment. We all know there is something out there that isn't so poisonous, its a matter of time, money and research to find it, and I'm personally kind of glad that that money is being spent on things deemed more important.
2) Treating these fish puts them in harms way. Not treating them puts every other fish I might ever have in harms way, possibly to die a slow painful death while I rip the tank apart and try to catch them to treat them. If fish can "carry" ich without showing signs, and these fish never show signs, then I can't move them back to the DT without doing hard to any new inhabitant. The tank is no where near fully stocked.
3) And most importantly to me.
The fish look happy and healthy now. If I were to "wait and see", what we're actually saying there is wait until the fish is sick and weak and has little chance of surviving treatment. The highest chance I can think of for survival of the treatment is to get these guys while they are healthy and eating. Treatment sucks and I don't want to put them through that, but slow painful death being eaten away and drained of your strength and will to live by a murderous parasite sucks more.
I am in no way proposing that I'm "right", just explaining my thinking.
steelhead77
New member
Even if your fish come down with ich, they are not sentenced to die a "slow painful death". Fish recover from ich everyday. Take a look at my Purple Tang I've posted in other threads. If any fish should have died, it was him. Again, ich is NOT the plague some people here on RC make it out to be. Yes it is bad, but I contend that as long as your fish is otherwise healthy and your water params are good, and the fish is kept as stress free as possible, it can and will recover. I believe that most people who lose fish to "ich" probably have other things going on that they are not aware of.
Lately there have been many posts where people have wound up killing their fish trying to save it. To advocate treatment with a poison on a fish that shows no signs of disease is wrong. IMHO, of course. If you must treat, hypo is far safer for the fish and less likely to harm it in the long term.
Good Luck.
Lately there have been many posts where people have wound up killing their fish trying to save it. To advocate treatment with a poison on a fish that shows no signs of disease is wrong. IMHO, of course. If you must treat, hypo is far safer for the fish and less likely to harm it in the long term.
Good Luck.
MrTuskfish
Team RC
Copper is used routinely by collectors, shippers, wholesalers, public aquariums online dealers, many LFS, and many hobbyists as a preventative measure. I've treated every new fish, in QT, with Cupramine, for many years. I don't push its use, because it can be controversial, but this method sure works for me. I think it would be tough to find a fish anywhere that hadn't been treated with copper at somewhere along the line.
geaux xman
New member
hypo treats ich, but not other external parasites, worms, flukes, etc. thats where the use of copper is extremely useful. when keeping fish like angels, QT-ing with copper is almost a must since they are common carriers of these parasites and worms.
steelhead77
New member
I agree with you 100%. The issue we see almost everyday on this site is where newbies have been told that they MUST remove their fish and treat otherwise their fish will die a "slow and painful" death. How many posts have we read lately where a newbie has killed his fish because of dosing incorrectly? I just wish people would not panic because they see a couple "white spots". And in this particular thread the OP is being told to treat their fish despite "showing no signs of ich". I don't get that.
Hypo on a 20 gallon HT tank with no ATO has little chance of working from what i've read, where as the copper treatment is not known to be absolutely lethal until it reaches 4X recommended levels. I'm checking twice daily, levels are holding, and the fish are still eating like horses.
Hypo is by far safer but only if your are sure you can maintain a level that will kill off the ich, and on that small a tank for that long a time, copper seems the only valid treatment to me.
As far as not treating, the OP. (Me) asked several times in the forums on several threads and was always advised to treat. I don't accept the 'ich is always present and can be treated with diet' theory, mostly because one small lapse in tank params can be enough to stress the fish, cause an outbreak, cause the loss of fish that may or may not be able to be retrieved from the DT, leading to worse params, more stress, and a cycle of death.
Knowing is safer than not knowing, and the only way I can know is to treat...
Just explaining my thinking (again), its too bad that this discussion is happening now, rather than in the numerous other posts, as it would have at least given me another perspective.
Hypo is by far safer but only if your are sure you can maintain a level that will kill off the ich, and on that small a tank for that long a time, copper seems the only valid treatment to me.
As far as not treating, the OP. (Me) asked several times in the forums on several threads and was always advised to treat. I don't accept the 'ich is always present and can be treated with diet' theory, mostly because one small lapse in tank params can be enough to stress the fish, cause an outbreak, cause the loss of fish that may or may not be able to be retrieved from the DT, leading to worse params, more stress, and a cycle of death.
Knowing is safer than not knowing, and the only way I can know is to treat...
Just explaining my thinking (again), its too bad that this discussion is happening now, rather than in the numerous other posts, as it would have at least given me another perspective.
steelhead77
New member
Well, at least it sounds like you're on top of it and not just dosing because someone said to. I agree that treatment with copper (if done correctly) can be an effective way to treat an outbreak of ich (as well as other things). However, I still don't think it's warranted in your particular case at this point. But at least you made a relatively informed decision.
Good Luck. Let us know how it turns out.
Good Luck. Let us know how it turns out.
MrTuskfish
Team RC
steelhead77. But at least you made a relatively informed decision. Good Luck. Let us know how it turns out.[/QUOTE said:
TellyFish
New member
Personally, if a fish comes down with Ich in my display, that means all the fish come out for 6 weeks and are all treated with copper. This also means that all incoming fish are QT for 6 weeks to observe for signs of disease.
The only time I have ever had Ich in my display tank is when I failed to follow this policy. I now maintain a MANDATORY QT and have not seen Ich in my display in ages. To each their own, but I do not believe that Ich is 'always' present. Like anything, it has to be introduced to the aquarium somehow.
The only time I have ever had Ich in my display tank is when I failed to follow this policy. I now maintain a MANDATORY QT and have not seen Ich in my display in ages. To each their own, but I do not believe that Ich is 'always' present. Like anything, it has to be introduced to the aquarium somehow.
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