Copper for blennies without scales

Fishbird · May 26, 2020

I just read a passing comment on a thread about cupramine that coppersafe is generally tolerated better by fish *except for scaleless fishes*.

I am getting a couple of scaleless blennies tomorrow. I have cupramine. I haven’t found anything saying that blennies can’t handle cupramine. My plan was to let them settle into my QT for a day, get them eating, and then start ramping up copper. Is cupramine actually a bad idea?

Big G · May 26, 2020

The problem with Cupramine is the very small dosage and because of that the therapeutic range is narrow. If you are using a Hanna HL Copper Checker, it's much easier to meter up to therapeutic and to maintain it. The color matching test kits are very unreliable and it's easy to under dose and especially easy to over dose the Cupramine.
That's probably one reason why there is such a negative vibe about using Cupramine.
The trick to using it is not to follow the directions where they tell you to do two big doses.

First actually measure the QT to find the real gallon capacity including the HOB filter. Most tanks are not the size they claim to be.

Once you know the actual gallon capacity, calculate the number of drops needed to reach therapeutic for your tank.

Spread out the total number of drops needed over 4-5 days to reach therapeutic. Dosing some in the AM and some in the PM. This allows you to watch for a "copper sensitive" fish way better than just dumping two big doses.

Using a Hanna HL Copper Checker, start checking once you are about 1/2 way to therapeutic and then just sneak up onto the therapeutic range which is 0.50 ppm.