Copper in quarantine?

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by howdy20012002

hey there
sorry about that..I answered in a hurry and on my Iphone
what I meant to say is....
I personally like the salifert Copper test and I find it to be the most accurate
I have gone through 3 API testkits and I have yet to get any reading that even looks close to what the reference cards shows.
I have used seachem and still do, but have had issues with a couple where they weren't showing what they were supposed to show.
I can't really comment on the others because I haven't used them.
so, salifert would be my first choice
seachem second
however, with any of them, if you do get a reading is not enough close enough to what you think, definitely retest.
I would personally buy 2 tests kits and test with both just to make sure.
copper, although very effective at killing parasites, can be just as effective killing your fish if the dose is too high.
let me know if you have any more questions.

I think the reason API kits are such garbage when testing cupramine is because the copper in them isn't really either 'free' or chelated. The copper is bound up in an organic amine complex, which makes it invisible to some tests, like API. It's also why you need to be really careful about dosing reducing agents like Prime or anything designed to make ammonia non-toxic, because they also reduce the copper in cupramine which can make Seachem's recommended copper level of 0.5ppm lethally toxic. For that reason, I wouldn't use cupramine in a system that wasn't 100% cycled, because it's so dangerous to dose water conditioners with it, and the most commonly available test kits for ammonia are salycilate tests (like APIs), which can break apart the amine complex and give a false reading of ammonia.

Also, I wouldn't necessarily agree that copper is that great at killing the parasite. It's totally ineffective against 2 out of the 4 main stages of the parasites life cycle, and one of those stages, the encysted tomont, is perfectly capable of staying in it's bulletproof little cyst for way longer than any fish could tolerate exposure to copper. In some instances, a two week course of cupramine (as recommended by Seachem) will be enough to clear a QT system of the parasite completely, but there are going to be just as many cases in which a tomont sits patiently in the QT system for 3 or 4 weeks, hatches after the aquarist has halted the copper treatment, and re-infects the whole system, leaving the aquarist to scratch their head and wonder what the hell is going on.

In all my reading and communicating with people who have made careers out of studying marine parasites, the only treatment method that has been shown to be 100% effective in eradicating the parasite from fish completely is the tank transfer method, or a hybrid method that functionally does the same thing, which is remove tomonts from the system and destroy them. The only things that are known to kill C. irritans tomonts in-situ will also kill all your fish.

[howdy20012002]

if you are going to keep this system going after the fact, I would just leave the copper in it for your next purchase
if testing for ammonia, you will get a positive reading because some with bind with the copper - should typically show less some ammonia when tested but I found it to be less than lowest point on the API test - so it will test positve for ammonia but not by much.
as asylum mentions, don't use any other medications because they can bind with the ammonia and kill the fish and use the bare minimum of prime
Neal

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by howdy20012002

if you are going to keep this system going after the fact, I would just leave the copper in it for your next purchase
if testing for ammonia, you will get a positive reading because some with bind with the copper - should typically show less some ammonia when tested but I found it to be less than lowest point on the API test - so it will test positve for ammonia but not by much.
as asylum mentions, don't use any other medications because they can bind with the ammonia and kill the fish and use the bare minimum of prime
Neal

If you do that, you'll be adding your new additions straight to full strength copper solution. Seachem recommends a 3 day acclimation process to get to 0.5ppm copper. The last time I used Cupramine I was using a Seachem test kit that was almost out of the powdered reagent so the test was underestimating the amount in solution. I accidentally brought the copper to 0.5-0.6ppm on the first day. 3 of 5 fish were dead the next morning. Even when the instructions are followed regarding acclimation, copper medications (including cupramine) still kill fish all the time, so IMO I would be even more conservative with how quickly you raise the copper levels than the instructions suggest. I can see running the system with copper when there's no fish in it so that the nitrogen cycle is totally adapted to it, but you should still bring the copper concentration down to 0 before you add any new fish, then acclimate those fish to therapeutic levels as recommended.

[Reef Pilot]

If it is just ich you're battling, why not use hyposalinity? Much simpler, and safer for your fish. Plus you won't have everything contaminated with Copper.

I have used hypo a few times now in QT with new fish, with 100% success.

[howdy20012002]

I totally agree with the use of hyposalinity
if you can wait the 6 weeks, that is by far the best and safest treatment of ich.
what I do, empty out just over half the tank and fill it back up with fresh water...this should put you at about 1.010 which is where you want to be.
I have done this numerous times and there is no reason to bring the fish down slowly..just back up slowly over a 2 or 3 day period.

asylumdown
I will respectfully have to disagree.
I plunk fish into copper systems every time I bring fish in with little effect on 200 fish in them..with very little deaths.
it is the bringing the copper level up to the therapeutic level that is the dangerous part which is why I think seachem says do it over 48 hours..that is so you don't poison the fish with too much copper.
I totally agree that copper will kill fish..but as long as you keep it within the guidelines of seachem you should have little problems.
and adding cupramine will not effect the bacteria to where it will affect their ability to do their job..it is any live critters dying off within the live rock that may cause a small ammonia spike.

[Baldy]

Sorry, just re-read some of your other posts. Seems the tank transfer method is what you might recommend?

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by TheNewGuy

Sorry, just re-read some of your other posts. Seems the tank transfer method is what you might recommend?

So far it's the only method that's 100% effective against the parasite. There's no question over whether it will work because it directly attacks the stage of the parasite that all the other treatments are so horrible at dealing with.

Once a pro-tomont encysts, it turns into this horrible little wild card. Nothing out there that we know of reliably kills it with 100% effectiveness that won't also kill your fish. The treatments for ich that are out there are designed to work on stages of the parasite that are more vulnerable, and they're pretty effective against those stages, but the tomonts - ugh. They're almost beautiful in how good they are at preserving the species.

Once a theront detaches from the fish, it becomes a 'pro-tomont' that spends on average 18 hours crawling around on the substrate. It sheds most of it's cilia, and changes shape. Then it encysts, and is basically bullet proof. The vast, overwhelming majority of tomonts will excyst and release their tomites within 10 days, which means that any system with ich in it that is either fishless, or undergoing treatment that can kill a free swimming tomite, the vast majority of the infestation will be cleared about 11-12 days after the last theront drops off the fish. The most current research has shown, however, that a certain percentage of tomonts can simply stop developing, for weeks or months. The longest recorded time encysted was 72 days, which is a crazy extreme, but considering that each study captures just a tiny fraction of the behaviour of an entire species, it indicates that as a whole, the bell curve of 'possible times encysted' for this parasite is huge. I can't remember if it was Colorni, or Colorni & Burgess who said it, but they stated that this extreme asynchrony seems so adaptive it can't be considered anything but a survival strategy.

So, you might have a system in which one or two tomonts are going to shut down for the long haul, or you might not. If you don't, then the chemical or salinity treatments will probably work as expected. If you do, you'll end up very confused when weeks after you thought you were clear and haven't added anything new to your tank, ich comes back.

The tank transfer method takes the wild card out of the equation. It directly and acutely destroys the tomonts as they drop off the fish. It only takes 12 days, and basically uses the life cycle of the parasite against it. THe main system still needs to be fallowed though.

It's way more labour intensive, and the timing is critical, but it's easier than it sounds.

Again, this is all opinion, but so far I've tried hypo (it failed, but I sucked at the protocol, so don't count that as diagnostic for the method), and I lost fish because of it. I've tried copper, and I lost heaps of fish to that. I now use tank transfer method, and I've so far not lost a fish, and it's been 100% effective.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by howdy20012002

asylumdown
I will respectfully have to disagree.
I plunk fish into copper systems every time I bring fish in with little effect on 200 fish in them..with very little deaths.
it is the bringing the copper level up to the therapeutic level that is the dangerous part which is why I think seachem says do it over 48 hours..that is so you don't poison the fish with too much copper.
I totally agree that copper will kill fish..but as long as you keep it within the guidelines of seachem you should have little problems.
and adding cupramine will not effect the bacteria to where it will affect their ability to do their job..it is any live critters dying off within the live rock that may cause a small ammonia spike.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean? Are you suggesting that dropping a fish from copper free water in to water with 0.5ppm copper is any different physiologically for the fish then adding enough copper to bring the water they are already in to 0.5ppm in one go?

I'm pretty sure the reason the acclimation period is stressful for fish is because copper is a poison to them, and their kidneys and liver need time to adapt to the increased work they need to do to prevent the poison from killing them. You say you've had very little deaths with that method, which to me sounds like you have experienced fish mortality as a result of dropping fish directly in to full strength copper water. When the fish you're talking about can sometimes cost north of 200 bucks, I don't know if I would be willing to take that risk.

Also, it's not a good idea to have live rock, or any calcareous materials in a system where copper is being dosed. Copper reacts with it and falls out of solution.