Longnose Butterfly - Copper Dilema

[Tyson]

So, I decided to give a YLN butterfly another try, after losing one in QT last year.

I had issues with cupramine the first time around: Old Thread

I bought this one on 6/10 after watching it at my LFS for 10 days. Looked great and was eating well. I had it in my QT for a few days and then did 2 rounds of prazipro, no problems at all. I usually feed it twice a day. On 6/22 I started copper treatment (coppersafe), but this time around I have my Hanna checker. I ramped up slowly over 5 days, and on 6/26 I reached 1.55ppm. Yesterday morning when I went to feed it looked completed dazed/lethargic and had no interest in eating. Very similar to the experience I had last year with cupramine. Yesterday evening I did a 50% water change and starting running carbon and a polyfilter. It should be back down to about .75ppm now. I woke up this morning and it looked considerably more normal, and ate aggressively again!

So, now what to do?? I've been bitten by velvet before and have proactively treated everything since. My LFS doesn't run copper, so combing the time I watched at the store and through prazi, it was in a copperless system for at least 22 days. I would have seen symptoms at that point, right? I've never considered CP, as it seems like it's some work to get it. I'm thinking maybe just do a long extended QT with no copper? What would you do?

 

[HotRocks]

Did you do a 100% WC between copper and prazi to make sure prazi was out of the system?

How much oxygenation do you have?
Using the Hanna checker I have not come across any fish that were copper sensitive using copper power at 1.75ppm.

Do you have a wavemaker breaking the surface of the water?

 

[Tyson]

I've got an AC70 running and a powerhead pointing at the surface. I did a 25% water change and ran carbon for a day or 2 after the 2nd round of prazipro. Maybe that wasn't enough though? You probably have a good point. Now that I think about it, I kind of noticed a bit of haze in the water 2 days ago, maybe a bit of bacterial bloom? It was hard to tell, but I think it may have been breathing a bit heavy yesterday too... I would have thought I had enough aeration, but maybe not. I'm thinking I'll let things be for a couple days, make sure it's still eating well, then give it another go at slowly ramping up copper again?

 

[Humblefish]

As finicky/delicate as they can be sometimes, I’ve never had a problem moving a CBB or LNB through chelated copper provided the specimen was already eating well.

 

[Tyson]

Ok, thanks all, I'm thinking maybe it really was more of an oxygenation issue.

 

[HotRocks]

That is my guess at this point that it was a bacterial bloom starting and or the meds in combo consuming the O2.

 

[kwan8911]

I have a CBB in display tank refuse to eat anything (live clam, Black worm, shrimp ...)for more than 1 month. And my tank is experiencing an ich outbreak.

So I remove all fish to QT tank, planning to let the DT run fallow for 76 days while treating all fish with cooper power. At that time, I have given up on my CBB thinking there is no chance he will recover. Surprisingly, my CBB begins to eat when cooper reach 2ppm. And now he is still eating like a pig.