Fish dying in QT

[Kactai]

My quarantine and fish treatment experience is not going well. I’ve lost a tail spot blenny and a yellowflanked fairy wrasse in treatment so far with my Swiss guard basslet barely clinging to life as we speak. I made some mistakes and now my fish are paying the price with their lives.

Here is what I think I did wrong.

1. Did a 1 hr paraguard bath before adding all fish to hospital tanks and only waited 1 day before starting copper treatments. I didn’t even wait to make sure the fish were eating.

2. I started with a 1/4 dose of a chelated copper product and added a second 1/4 dose the next day. Way too much copper too fast. 1/2 dose in two days.

3. I did not test my copper levels after adding a 1/4 dose or after adding the second 1/4 dose.

It was after the second dose that my wrasse and blenny died. My Swiss guard basslet looked super rough so I pulled him out of the hospital tank and put him in a bucket of saltwater with a heater and air stone. I doubt he will recover.

I feel like I suck at this and I’m letting my fish down.

My PBT and my pair of midnight clowns are not looking great either. I’ve done so much research and I thought I was ready for this but some lessons are really hard to swallow.

Anyone have advice? Should I pull the PBT and clowns out of the copper and start fresh once they start eating. What would you do? I’m down from 7 fish to 4 (probably 3 by the morning) in this tank and I’m getting quite discouraged. I know I need to exercise more patience in the future but that does not help me in the immediate future. Any advice is appreciated.

Oh the reason for treatment is of course that the powder blue tang I added to my tank way too soon got ich.

 

[Humblefish]

What copper product are you using and which test kit?

 

[Kactai]

Hi Humblefish!

Thanks for the reply!
I think we may have discussed it in the quarantine Do’s and Don’ts thread. This thread may be a repeat of what we discussed in that thread and it’s mostly a cautionary tale for others. But here goes:

I’m using a chelated copper product supplied by a local quarantine guru made for him by a chemist. I’m using the API test kit for copper also provided by said guru.

My GF was able to do a water change last night on each of the hospital tanks to lower the copper concentrations and the fish look much better. My PBT actually ate a few bites of food and the fish that was looking really bad actually looks much better today. So it’s not all gloom and doom just yet.

 

[Big G]

The API Copper Test Kit is very unreliable. The color range indicator is, well, horrible. Suggest you look into getting a Hanna High Level Copper Checker. I almost lost a wrasse a couple of weeks ago. The API color looked good suggesting 2.0 ppm of Coppersafe. But my wrasse in QT was starting to act odd and not eating. My new Hanna Checker showed up and it turned out the level was actually 2.8 ppm. So I started lowering the copper concentration using the Hanna. Testing as I removed copper, you can actually "dial in" the level you want. Very cool. Within 24 hrs the fish was eating and swimming. Highly recommend the Hanna.

 

[Kactai]

Actually I was talking to Hotrocks in the other thread! Maybe you can add another perspective.

Here is a little more info:

Day 1 - pulled all 6 fish (tail spot blennie, yellowflanked fairy wrasse, PBT, Swiss guard basslet and pair of midnight clowns). Gave 1 hr paraguard bath and placed into QT tanks(wrasse and tang together in one 20g. The rest in another 20g) qt’s Swedes with média from the display and seachem stability.

Day 2- dosed 1/4 of the recommended dosing (5ml/4g) for the chelated copper product supplied to each tank (5ml each tank) 20g tanks hold about 16g. Fish seemed fine and ate that day. Dosed stability

Day 3 - dosed 1/4 of the recommended dose again-5 ml to each tank. As I was only at 1/2 recommended dosing And fish seemed fine I did not test for copper. Dosed stability.

Day 4 - wrasse dead. no ammonia indicated on ammonia badges. 20% water change on tang QT tank. All other fish seemed fine.Dosed stability. Left home for my work rotation (8days away-6 days home) leaving some premixed saltwater with full dose copper and instructions for dosing and water changes with my GF

Day 5 - tail spot blennie dead. Noncopper dosing. Clowns and basslet pulled to bucket of display water with air stone and heater.

Day 6- today 50%water changes being completed on clown/blennie tank in progress. Fish in bucket seem better and PBT eating small pieces fish in bucket to be returned to qt once water change completed.

 

[Kactai]

The API Copper Test Kit is very unreliable. The color range indicator is, well, horrible. Suggest you look into getting a Hanna High Level Copper Checker. I almost lost a wrasse a couple of weeks ago. The API color looked good suggesting 2.0 ppm of Coppersafe. But my wrasse in QT was starting to act odd and not eating. My new Hanna Checker showed up and it turned out the level was actually 2.8 ppm. So I started lowering the copper concentration using the Hanna. Testing as I removed copper, you can actually "dial in" the level you want. Very cool. Within 24 hrs the fish was eating and swimming. Highly recommend the Hanna.

Those Hanna checkers are hard to get in Canada. Apparently they are on back order everywhere. I was told by the supplier of the copper product to look for 1.5 ppm on the API kit as my goal. I’m going to go straight to the Hanna instruments web site and see if I can’t get one.

 

[Big G]

Some fish do not respond well to rapid dosing of copper. If dosing for velvet you have no choice but to rapidly ramp up the copper levels. But for all other cases, taking 7-8 days to reach therapeutic levels has greatly decreased losses. Plus you can observe the fish for copper sensitivity without heavily overdosing it first.

 

[Big G]

I was told by the supplier of the copper product to look for 1.5 ppm on the API kit as my goal.

Well that's cutting it a bit close. If it is a chelated copper, the therapeutic range is 1.5-2.0 ppm. Not a whole lot of "wiggle room" if you are trying to hit right on at 1.5 ppm. You could, especially with the API kit, under dose and not hit the therapeutic range.

 

[Kactai]

Nobody has the Hanna high range copper checker in stock. It’s all pre-order. Sheesh I can’t get it until the end of the month.

 

[HotRocks]

@Kyl can you add any insight here? I know you are in Canada and were on the thread about the checkers alot!

 

[Kyl]

Hanna directed me to Hanna Canada, whom then directed me to Hoskin Scientific for the Vancouver area when I was looking for the new DKH labeled alkalinity checker and none of the LFS had it in 2016. Hoskin doesn't stock any of the checkers or reagents though, it's all order in at 1-2 weeks waiting.

Maybe they can do something better, Paula Vicente is still listed as the sales contact on http://www.hannacan.com/contacts_en.htm

Unless @Kactai is in the GVRD of B.C. there's nothing I can help with. I ordered my checker on March 21st, it came in April 12th. Reagents didn't come in until April 30th.

 

[Kactai]

That’s awesome! Thanks Kyl.

I’m actually in ontario.

Great user name Btw... my name is Kyle

 

[HotRocks]

That’s awesome! Thanks Kyl.

I’m actually in ontario.

Great user name Btw... my name is Kyle

My name is Kyle too! That's funny!

 

[Kyl]

Three's a crowd

 

[vinny110]

That’s awesome! Thanks Kyl.

I’m actually in ontario.

Great user name Btw... my name is Kyle

Hometown--Scarborough, ONT here

 

[Kactai]

Paula from Hanna canada just wrote me back saying that the copper checker is not suitable for salt water applications....

Did anyone know this?

 

[Kactai]

Sudbury ON here!

 

[Kyl]

Paula from Hanna canada just wrote me back saying that the copper checker is not suitable for salt water applications....

Did anyone know this?

I would take what @Hanna Instruments has stated on this post versus what the Canadian operation is saying. I'm not sure if they're actually a division of the Hanna parent or not.

 

[JoshKReef]

Just tell him you want it anyway, Hanna just recently approved it for saltwater, maybe their web site / team isn't up to date yet.

 

[Kyl]

Just tell him you want it anyway, Hanna just recently approved it for saltwater, maybe their web site / team isn't up to date yet.

The Canadian site looks like something from early 2000's. I only gave him that contact as that's whom Hanna US steered me to for finding a source in Canada a couple years ago.