Treating With Cupramine

[LJLKRL05]

Once the desired level of copper is reached with cupramine, will the level stay constant for the 14 day treatment period or will more need to be added?
I have a fish in QT I want to start treating, but I will be going out of town for a few days and don't want my son to have to test water and add medicine.

 

[GHsaltie]

The copper levels will remain the same, however you will need to treat any replacement water for water changes. Also the treatment time is 30 days .

 

[LJLKRL05]

The copper levels will remain the same, however you will need to treat any replacement water for water changes. Also the treatment time is 30 days .

Ok thanks. The SeaChem website says treatment period is 14 days, but if it takes 30 that is what I will do.
Does RODI topoff water need to be treated or just the water change water?

 

[Mark Derail]

I'm doing daily WC in the QT tank, so not worrying over evaporation and RODI top-off.

Consider - I got up to near 0.25, and the fish were going nuts, not eating, lost a baby clown.
I was increasing the dose slowly, day by day, as per instructions on the bottle.
So I stopped, reduced with WC gradually. Now at about 0.10.
(No more white spots for some 2 days now)

I won't be putting the fish in the main until 4 weeks from now, to starve out anything in the reef tank that could affect the fish.
Assuming said fish to show new signs of Ich/Velvet in the next 4 weeks, which would reset the timer.

Also since I don't see Ich/Velvet anymore, I've stopped adding Cupramine to the fresh WC. I want a way to add new fish to replace the ones I lost. So the QT tanks needs to have very low / near-zero traces of copper.

 

[GHsaltie]

Ok thanks. The SeaChem website says treatment period is 14 days, but if it takes 30 that is what I will do.
Does RODI topoff water need to be treated or just the water change water?

I’m assuming you are treating for ich or velvet? Or at least prophylactically treating? I have never understood why they say 14 days, but yes I’m order to fully eradicate ich or velvet treatment needs to last 30 days. In theory you can transfer the fish to a new sterile tank a minimum of 10ft away after 12 days (I think it’s 12, I don’t remember off the top of my head) but I haven’t tried it myself. And no you don’t need to treat top off water, because the copper doesn’t evaporate with it, only when you do water changes.

 

[Maritimer]

You can do a 14-day treatment for ich / velvet ...

BUT . . .

You must then move the fish to a clean quarantine tank at least ten feet away, transferring _only_ the fish - no equipment from the other tank. After seven days, the fish should be clean of ich and velvet. Fourteen days is insurance on that. There will still be tomonts encysted on wet surfaces of the treatment tank though, and the copper has had no serious effect on them yet. If you were to remove copper from the water in the treatment tank, those tomonts can hatch and reinfect your fish. By 30 days out, the copper has begun to penetrate those encysted tomonts, and the risk of removing it from the water goes down. (Reinfection remains a statistical possibility - though rare - out to 72 days.)

~Bruce

 

[Mark Derail]

I think what is common - that we hate ich / velvet with a passion! I've reduce the copper in my QT just to not stress out the fish. At about half concentration.
Waiting for main display to be 100% free of anything before putting these fish back in. Like a whole month. Two more weeks to go!

I'm using this thread as my calendar
My first post was on Oct 26. Last visible signs a week later.

One thought I had - before putting fish back in my display - is to do a full Flatworm Exit treatment in the display. Cuz catching fish is a PITA.

 

[GHsaltie]

@Mark Derail I don’t know when you put your fish in QT but fallow period is 6 weeks for velvet, 76 days for ich. It sounds like you may be a week or two short of that? Also did you lower the copper level below therapeutic before the 30 days was up? If so you will be right back to square one. If anything it will make it worse because sub-therapeutic levels only suppresses ich/velvet and that will make you comfortable into thinking it’s gone. And lastly flatworm exit will not do anything for you, unless you have a flatworm problem.

 

[Mark Derail]

@Mark Derail I don’t know when you put your fish in QT but fallow period is 6 weeks for velvet, 76 days for ich. It sounds like you may be a week or two short of that? Also did you lower the copper level below therapeutic before the 30 days was up? If so you will be right back to square one. If anything it will make it worse because sub-therapeutic levels only suppresses ich/velvet and that will make you comfortable into thinking it’s gone. And lastly flatworm exit will not do anything for you, unless you have a flatworm problem.

I started QT a bit before Oct 26th. I was planning on mid-December to reintroduce - based on four (4) consecutive weeks of no visible Ich.
The copper is at 0.2-ish not 0.5 right now, due to WCs where I didn't do all the drops in the new water. Just because the fish are not happy and not eating at 0.5 ppm. They are not adults.

All visible signs were gone after one week, including fin rot, and now all the fins and flukes are all grown back, they are eating fine.
Also one of my aims was to make sure the display tank be fish-free for nearly two months.

As for flatworms - I've seen one only in the last two months, on the glass and I killed it. Other critters like the millipede-looking bugs.
I thought the flatworm exit would be a good preventive measure.
Then again, why treat if no problem. I haven't ordered any.