Copper or Hypo or Both for Ich?

[Kengar]

For treatment in separate, bare treatment tank, which is preferred? Is one more effective than other, or are they equally effective if done properly? What about using both simultaneously?

Note that I plan to have treatment tank running for six or seven weeks with all fish removed from the reef and in the treatment tank so that ich in the reef dies off.

Thanks for input.

Ken

[paulamrein]

Your doing it all right! In my opinion the safest way is hypo. There is alot of factors and products in copper, some are more dangerous and effective than another where there is only 1 very simple factor of hypo. keep it at that level. Copper to be effective has to kill *duh* but that is the dangerous part, one miscalculation and poof go all the fish. Hypo there is a little play with it in that, as long as you have a good refractometer, you can't go wrong. Worst case scenerio you have the SG too high and it's ineffective. But atleast you still have the fish to retry. To answer the second question, it is uncertain the effects of using both, there is a good chance depending on which copper treatment you use that you negate the effects because it will react differently in the lower SG. That, and always treat fish with one method at a time so you know which is effective and which one isn't.

[Kengar]

actually, after posting, i found this thrread (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4890) to be helpful.

Also, i found a cautionary post re not using copper with tangs. Given that I have a couple tangs (hippo and desjardini), I'll go with the hypo.

[LargeAngels]

Just make sure it is ich and not velvet. Hypo doesn't kill velvet. I use Cupramine which is not like the other copper treatments out there. It can be used with even copper sensitive fish, such as angels and tangs with no ill affects and it has a very wide range of affectiveness so it is much easier to administer and keep affective.

If it is ich then, Yes, hypo is the best method.

[Kengar]

It's clearly ich. Very distinct outcroppings, like grains of salt.

[karlyhui]

I jsut want to add I use cupramine for 2 weeks and it doesn't seem to be to harsh on the fish. As my 3 clowns swim and ate fine while in cupramine (make sure to test the copper).