Treating with Copper...

[Reefer2727]

I am going to treat a couple of clowns with copper for ich. I have had the clowns in hypo for about 6 weeks and they looked great until I noticed what looks like a couple more spots the other day. I figure I will bring the salinity back up and treat them with copper before I return them to the DT. I have read that there are certain strains of ich that are hypo resistant so to be safe I will try copper.

The 2 copper meds that I have are Mardel Coppersafe and Seachem Cupramine. I am wondering which one I should use. I have a copper test kit to keep a close eye on the copper level.

My QT tank is a 20 gallon. I also have a 5 gallon tank kicking around. Would that tank be too small to treat 2 Black and White clowns in? I just thought it may be easier and I would use less chemical. I dont plan on using my 20 gallon QT for anything other than that, so if 5 gallon tank is a bad idea just let me know.

Thanks

[sedor]

Maintaining clean water in a 5G is going to be a little more difficult. I would just stick with the 20 that they are used to. I think either of those meds should work...

[jenglish]

I hear some say cupramine is gentler and has a wider range of effectiveness. I would be hesitant to try it in a 5 gallon personally.

[dygaar]

I used Cupramine for ick on a yellow tang. It worked fine and didn't further stress the fish.

[wooden_reefer]

Some fish will not eat if the tank or container that it is in is too small.

Other than that, the size of the QT has little to do with successful QT.

This is true both with or without nitrification in QT, for different obvious reasons.

[Reefer2727]

I am going to slowly bring up the salinity from 1.009 to a normal level of 1.025. Any suggestions on a good way to do this?

Obviously doing it slow is the key. My question is how will I know how much water to take out and add? I have a batch of water ready at 1.024 or so. The QT tank is 20 gallons. Should I just take out a few gallons and add the 1.024? Or should the water I am adding after the water change be a lower salinity? I will test using my refractometer after of course, just wondering how others do it.

Thanks

[jenglish]

SOme folks will merely top off w/ SW... this takes a while to move the salinty much. I would take out a few cups of water and add SW... measure how much it moved. I don't like to change salinity more than .002 at a time and even with that no more than 2 of those changes a day. I may be overly cautious though.

[Reefer2727]

Thanks Jeremy,

That sounds like a good plan. I will take out a few cups and add a few and see where I am at. I will move around 0.002 to 0.003 per day. That will have me back to normal in about 5 days. Then I will start with the cupramine treatment.