The use of copper

[sky]

I've been feeding my fishes w/ garlic guard, I did try to give them a fresh water bath, and I don't have a hospital tank running. I thought copper isn't a chemical but just a natural element which even exists in our tap water but in a very low level. Since I'm not adding chemical/medication to contaminate the water, I don't see how bad it does to the rocks beside killing the worms or those tiny creatures living on them and once the copper is diluted, it should be fine to the system because it's natural, isn't it? The reason I intend to add copper into my tank directly b/c like I said I soaked the rocks into a freshwater bin w/ copper for almost 2 months, but disappointed enough to see the ich are still on some fishes...so I suspect they may hide in the gravel, somewhere in the tank or filter beside in the rocks. I'm so fed up and my ultimate goal is to get rid of all those ich that are hurting/killing my fishes and my only concern is whether if copper will harm the nitrifying bacteria and break the biological cycle in my filter, can anyone tell me? and I heard some stores leave copper in their systems to prevent the outbreak of disease so I wonder if I can leave copper at a safe level in my tank as well?

Anyway, thank you all for the quick responses, valuable info. and advices.

[BlueWorldAquatic]

How old is your tank? how long has it been established?

Ken - BWA

[tang daddy]

if you soaked your rock in copper then it has killed everything off, the reason why you still have ich is because you added new fish and your system is under stress.

The live rock was you filtration but now it's just a decor in your tank and has no filtration benifits.

The ich that keeps popping up in your tank is because the fish are stressed out!

I had this same problem when I had a 90g Fish only system. No matter what others said I thought that it was my tank and I would do what I wanted.

in doing so I killed alot of fish, make sure your tank is not overstocked do lots of waterchanges when there are no traces of copper buy alittle more lr to seed the dead rock!

feed less
I now feed my fish once every 3 days, unfortunately if you have big fish you would have to feed them daily, again if you feed heavy do 2 50% water changes weekly

True story I had a 90g with 140lbs of rock 9 angels from the 3in to 7in range, fed 3 times a day, had ich every time I added new fish, overstocked by 10x, I would do 75% WC weekly, every month I would shake all the rock in a garbage bin filled with tank water, it would look like the nile river couldn't see your hand in 2in of water.....

conclusion: it costed me alot in salt and alot of time doing maintanence, not even considering the cost of food so I shut it down!

if you want more tips pm me!

[DEAD_BY_DAWN]

You might want to check out these articles
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-1...ture/index.php