Trying to get things straight

[daplatapus]

Ok, as some of you might remember I posted on here last week about a couple fish I have in QT. As a refresher they were a yellow eye kole tang, a lemon peel angel and a yellow long nose butterfly fish. The butterfly came down with ich after a week and a half in QT but never seemed in any distress. They are all in the same QT tank, no aggression has been noted yet. All are eating really well.
After reading here I had started to drop my salinity and was around 1.015 when I was encouraged to not do hypo but rather the tank transfer method. I believe the same day I noticed my pH start dropping like a rock. Thankfully, because of the advice I was given here, I was ready for it and was able to stop it from getting too low and decided I better switch tactics. Over the last week I've brought my salinity back up and have done my first tank transfer. I haven't been able to find any cupramine locally or prazipro. I did however find some Mardel copper safe. It says the ingredients is chelated copper sulfate. I'm hoping this is similar and have treated the first tank with this yesterday morning. This morning everyone stills seems fine. I've sterilized everything from the first tank and will be transferring everyone back again tomorrow morning.
So to my questions:

1) Despite some of the controversy, I do believe prophylactic treatment makes sense to ensure I do everything possible to keep my DT disease/parasite free. Does anyone see any problems with continuing with this copper safe product I'm using?

2) Can this be used in conjunction with prazipro? (adding both to the QT at the same time)

3) Unrelated question: Is black ich treated the same way as white ich? I have a clown fish in my DT that has a couple of mysterious small black dots on her.

Any help is greatly appreciated as is the help I've already received, Thanks!

[MrTuskfish]

Don't use copper and tank transfer at the same time. Testing and adjusting Cu is vital and will drive you nuts. I've never heard of anyone using Cu and TT together. I sure wouldn't---too much room for error. If you already have Cu in the 1st TT tank, you can remove it with carbon in a filter. Tank transfer will take care of ich, but not similar parasites. Ich is, by far, the most common; but not the most deadly. If you want to treat with copper after the TT, that's up to you. I wouldn't treat with Cu after TT unless you see signs of velvet, etc.
Wait with the PP until you are done treating with other methods. Mixing meds and treatments is never a good idea. Black ich is a worm and PP often cures it. Unless it spreads, I wouldn't worry about it; unless you're positive its BI. Watch the spots, some clownfish often have these and if this is BI, they will increase.

[daplatapus]

Well, not sure what the heck happened but all three fish were dead this morning. :(

Last night the butterfly fish was covered in spots and listless and all 3 weren't eating which was highly unusual for them up to this point. I thought maybe it had something to do with the copper safe I had used. I double checked all the instructions and had followed them to a "T". But I thought to be safe I'd set up the 2nd tank for transfer to get them out of it, got the salinity and temp identical, and moved them over. Checked on them a couple times throughout the evening and lastly at 11:00 last night. Went and checked on them this morning and they were done.
I have no idea why. There's NO way I overdosed the copper safe, I'd been doing 2 - 15 to 20 cup water changes a day in a 20 gal, so there's no way ammonia built up to any appreciable degree. I'm stumped and the wind has been totally kicked out of my sails. Not sure where to go from here.

[MrTuskfish]

Sorry you lost them. I'm not sure what your SG is now; you seemed to have hypo & copper going at the same time. I don't know for sure how copper acts with a low SG; but many forms of copper can become deadly when used with other chemicals and, very possibly, a low SG. If a fish is covered with ich, I'd bet the other fish had plenty in their gills too; they can't stand that for long. Unless you actually tested ammonia and copper; you really can't rule it out. Unless you have a cycled filter; 3 decent size fish could create an ammonia problem in very little time in a 20 gal tank. Your QT needed very aggressive WCs, unless it had a cycled filter. You only changer about 10% of the water daily, this may not have been enough. By any chance; did you use a ammonia reducer, like Prime or Am-Quel? they can be deadly when mixed with copper.

[sandwi54]

+1 to everything MrTusk said.

One comment from me, when you transferred the fish to tank #2, did you acclimate them? Unless you made sure the pH of the two tanks were very close (within 0.05), you would have to acclimate them to prevent shocks. If a fish is healthy, it should be able to recover a sudden, small change of pH (say 8.1 to 8.2). However, in your case, the fish were stressed already and a pH shock might have contributed to their deaths.

It's almost always an acclimation issue when all of the fish die from being moved to a new environment, assuming the new tank's water parameters are ok.

[daplatapus]

Well, it turns out it was me, damn it! I had brought my SG back up and both tanks were at 1.024. I did check the pH of the tank the fish were in because it was the one I had tried hypo in and it was back up to 8.2, but I did not check the new one as I had no reason to think it was significantly different as it was 24 hr old new SW. Temp and SG were identical.
The copper I was using is Mardel Coppersafe. The directions are to put in 5 ml per 4 gallons of water. I put in 20 ml in the 20 gal tank. According to the directions that is good to treat the tank for 1 month. It says, "No water changes, pH or temp changes necessary. Maintain normal filtration. Remove invertebrates without an exoskeleton."
That's it, no other cautions. No mention of tracking copper levels or anything.
Well, yesterday afternoon, after 36 hrs or so of them being in there I thought maybe I should put some Amquel in there just in case for the ammonia. I didn't know that you couldn't use the 2 together.

Crap!!!

[sandwi54]

I'm sorry for your loss. Many people make this mistake and in my opinion, it's really the manufacturer's fault for not stating this clearly on the bottles.

[MrTuskfish]

I'm sorry for your loss. Many people make this mistake and in my opinion, it's really the manufacturer's fault for not stating this clearly on the bottles.

+1 I've become very comfortable with copper; but if I relied on the Mfg and package---I would kill everything. Copper is safe, IF used when armed with a lot of info, but it is very toxic stuff. SeaChem has a Cupramine copper crash course, the FAQ have a lot of vital info..http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Cupramine.html

[MrTuskfish]

+1 I've become very comfortable with copper; but if I relied on the Mfg and package---I would kill everything. Copper is safe, IF used when armed with a lot of info, but it is very toxic stuff. SeaChem has a Cupramine copper crash course, the FAQ have a lot of vital info..http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Cupramine.html

Too late to edit. Cupramine and CopperSafe are different forms of copper, so the SeaChem info on Cupramine may not always apply to CopperSafe. I often call company tech help before using a new med, or anything else that could effect my fish. SeaChem has great tech support and if a company doesn't have good tech help----I don't buy their stuff.