Emperor angel died in coppersafe qt

[Tarun21tp]

Hi, I am Tarun from India. 4 days back I put a lunar wrasse, a queen coris wrasse and an emperor angel in a qt tank. I took those 4 days to slowly ramp up my coppersafe dose to 1.64 ppm (checked with a hanna HR checker). Though the emperor was eating at the lfs, yet in my qt I did not see him eating. Today morning I found the emperor dead but the other 2 wrasses are fine. Is it something wrong that I'm doing here? Earlier I had a cherub angel who too died post dosing coppersafe. Should I switch to cupramine in the future with angels only and treat others with coppersafe? Are angels not compatible with coppersafe? My qt has strong aeration and is at 27ppt salinity.

 

[HankstankXXL750 Verified Sponsor]

Is the tank cycled? What are your ammonia and nitrate levels?

 

[Sharkbait19]

Check your params? 1.64 ppm is not high enough for ich or velvet, so it’s likely that the fish was infected and died of illness.
Coppersafe is all around better than cupramine for fish, especially more sensitive ones.

 

[Tarun21tp]

Check your params? 1.64 ppm is not high enough for ich or velvet, so it’s likely that the fish was infected and died of illness.
Coppersafe is all around better than cupramine for fish, especially more sensitive ones.

It's a very old qt with an Eheim hob and airtube. Have successfully quarantined tangs, clowns and blennies through the same qt and moved to my dt in the past. All seem to do well. It's just the angels I always have a problem with. Don't know why. This time too, the wrasses are okay and eating fine.

 

[Tarun21tp]

Is the tank cycled? What are your ammonia and nitrate levels?

Yes very old qt. Have successfully moved chocolate tang, midas blenny etc through it to a dt. All seem to fare well except the angels who find coppersafe difficult it seems.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi, I am Tarun from India. 4 days back I put a lunar wrasse, a queen coris wrasse and an emperor angel in a qt tank. I took those 4 days to slowly ramp up my coppersafe dose to 1.64 ppm (checked with a hanna HR checker). Though the emperor was eating at the lfs, yet in my qt I did not see him eating. Today morning I found the emperor dead but the other 2 wrasses are fine. Is it something wrong that I'm doing here? Earlier I had a cherub angel who too died post dosing coppersafe. Should I switch to cupramine in the future with angels only and treat others with coppersafe? Are angels not compatible with coppersafe? My qt has strong aeration and is at 27ppt salinity.

A few issues I see already is:
- Ramping is a No-no. You want to get to level with 24-36 hours as LFS place fish in full copper level right away.
- Coppersafe therapuetic level is 2.25 and you never even got close.
-27ppt salinity is too low and did not help but was not cause

How were you testing copper levels?
Are you using RODI water or tap water from faucet ?
What is your ammonia-nitrate and PH and how are you testing these levels?

 

[HankstankXXL750 Verified Sponsor]

A few issues I see already is:
- Ramping is a No-no. You want to get to level with 24-36 hours as LFS place fish in full copper level right away.
- Coppersafe therapuetic level is 2.25 and you never even got close.
-27ppt salinity is elevated and did not help but was not cause

How were you testing copper levels?
Are you using RODI water or tap water from faucet ?
What is your ammonia-nitrate and PH and how are you testing these levels?

27ppt is hypo about 1.019

 

[HankstankXXL750 Verified Sponsor]

Yes very old qt. Have successfully moved chocolate tang, midas blenny etc through it to a dt. All seem to fare well except the angels who find coppersafe difficult it seems.

Do you keep the bacteria fed? Denitrifiers can weaken without a food source. Angels IMO are very susceptible to water quality issues. What size of emperor? Juvenile or larger?

What size tank for qt?

And are you testing ammonia. I put two bigger angels in a well cycled 40 breeder and they overwhelmed the bio-filter.

 

[LPS Bum]

A few issues I see already is:
- Ramping is a No-no. You want to get to level with 24-36 hours as LFS place fish in full copper level right away.
- Coppersafe therapuetic level is 2.25 and you never even got close.
-27ppt salinity is elevated and did not help but was not cause

How were you testing copper levels?
Are you using RODI water or tap water from faucet ?
What is your ammonia-nitrate and PH and how are you testing these levels?

27 PPT salinity is NOT elevated. It’s quite low.

And most experts will tell you that ramping up copper levels slowly is a good idea (unless your fish is already heavily infested). It gives the fish a bit of time to adjust to the poison (yes copper is a poison to fish too).You’d have no way to know if his LFS even used copper, let alone what their levels were.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with some of your assertions here.

 

[vetteguy53081]

27 PPT salinity is NOT elevated. It’s quite low.

And most experts will tell you that ramping up copper levels slowly is a good idea (unless your fish is already heavily infested). It gives the fish a bit of time to adjust to the poison (yes copper is a poison to fish too).You’d have no way to know if his LFS even used copper, let alone what their levels were.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with some of your assertions here.

I corrected salinity as meant low and ramping is out of the question- been doing this 4 decades and has always been protocol. Coppersafe can be started at 1.5-2.0 but has to reach the 2.5 level to be effective against the 4 stages of ich protozoan. The more therapeutic level is prolonged is the likelihood the tomont and theront stages will survive and reproduce
I ran an LFS for many years and those I know with LFS run holding tanks with copper or partial systems

 

[Tarun21tp]

A few issues I see already is:
- Ramping is a No-no. You want to get to level with 24-36 hours as LFS place fish in full copper level right away.
- Coppersafe therapuetic level is 2.25 and you never even got close.
-27ppt salinity is too low and did not help but was not cause

How were you testing copper levels?
Are you using RODI water or tap water from faucet ?
What is your ammonia-nitrate and PH and how are you testing these levels?

Using salt mixed with RO water. No faucet water. My RO water is 4-5 TDS so I think that is not a problem. It never hits 0.
Also India is an immature market. Lfs generally don't dose copper and only keep fish at hyposalinity, in this particular case it was 27ppt. Hence I too kept it at the same during qt.
I have a Hanna hr checker for copper testing. Ammonia reads 0 today. Nitrate in qt is 20 ppm.

 

[Tarun21tp]

Do you keep the bacteria fed? Denitrifiers can weaken without a food source. Angels IMO are very susceptible to water quality issues. What size of emperor? Juvenile or larger?

What size tank for qt?

And are you testing ammonia. I put two bigger angels in a well cycled 40 breeder and they overwhelmed the bio-filter.

Folks its a 10 gallon qt with hob and air pump. Check attached pic pls. Queen coris wrasse is in the front and lunar hiding behind the pvc with head slightly visible.

 

[Tarun21tp]

Attached a video also for your reference.

 

[Tarun21tp]

Video

 

[HankstankXXL750 Verified Sponsor]

Sorry, I don’t have an answer for you. Four days seems awful fast for the fish to have starved so I don’t think it’s not eating yet was the problem.
I have lost a couple of emperors, but both of know reasons. I haven’t treated with copper as I use TTM most of the time.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Folks its a 10 gallon qt with hob and air pump. Check attached pic pls. Queen coris wrasse is in the front and lunar hiding behind the pvc with head slightly visible.

Copper has slight impact on bacteria
Filtration is minimal why I questioned ammonia and nitrate but numbers seem satisfactory

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi, I am Tarun from India. 4 days back I put a lunar wrasse, a queen coris wrasse and an emperor angel in a qt tank. I took those 4 days to slowly ramp up my coppersafe dose to 1.64 ppm (checked with a hanna HR checker). Though the emperor was eating at the lfs, yet in my qt I did not see him eating. Today morning I found the emperor dead but the other 2 wrasses are fine. Is it something wrong that I'm doing here? Earlier I had a cherub angel who too died post dosing coppersafe. Should I switch to cupramine in the future with angels only and treat others with coppersafe? Are angels not compatible with coppersafe? My qt has strong aeration and is at 27ppt salinity.

Overall, cupramine is more challenging to use on angelfish that coppersafe is. Coppersafe at 1.64 is too low to be effective, you need to be at 2.50 ppm. I can't say why the angel died, but it wasn't from copper toxicity.
What size was the angelfish? Three fish in a ten gallon tank is pretty crowded.

In terms of salinity - 27 ppt is around 1.020 specific gravity units, that is neither full strength seawater, nor is it hyposalinity. Stores do this to "reduce disease" but it really doesn't do anything, just saves them the cost of a bit of salt.


Jay

 

[Tarun21tp]

Overall, cupramine is more challenging to use on angelfish that coppersafe is. Coppersafe at 1.64 is too low to be effective, you need to be at 2.50 ppm. I can't say why the angel died, but it wasn't from copper toxicity.
What size was the angelfish? Three fish in a ten gallon tank is pretty crowded.

In terms of salinity - 27 ppt is around 1.020 specific gravity units, that is neither full strength seawater, nor is it hyposalinity. Stores do this to "reduce disease" but it really doesn't do anything, just saves them the cost of a bit of salt.


Jay

It was a juvenile emperor. About 3 inches.

 

[LPS Bum]

I corrected salinity as meant low and ramping is out of the question- been doing this 4 decades and has always been protocol. Coppersafe can be started at 1.5-2.0 but has to reach the 2.5 level to be effective against the 4 stages of ich protozoan. The more therapeutic level is prolonged is the likelihood the tomont and theront stages will survive and reproduce
I ran an LFS for many years and those I know with LFS run holding tanks with copper or partial systems

Well I've been doing this for 3 decades, and ran an aquarium maintenance and design company for years. So I too have quite a bit of experience in this hobby. I have always ramped up copper slowly and have never lost a fish in QT that way. Not sure why you'd want to go full bore right away with zero acclimation. Copper is only somewhat less toxic to fish than it is to invertebrates, so it's hard on them too.

And even though many fish stores do run copper, not all of them do. For example, my two LFS's do not run copper in any of their systems.

But to each their own I suppose. Different ways to do things.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

It was a juvenile emperor. About 3 inches.

While it shouldn't have killed the fish outright, quarantining a 3" angel in a ten gallon tank with two other fish is really crowded.

It wasn't the coppersafe - you were barely at half a dose. At that point, it isn't even lethal to parasites.
How do the other two fish look today?

Jay