Cupramine Dosing Formula / Calculator

[wakerider017]

(.381) * (strength of dose) * (gallons being treated) = mL of Cupramine to dose

Example: (.381) * (.5mg/L) * (10.5 gallons) = 2mL of Cupramine to dose

It is advised by Cupramine that you bring up the levels slowly & not dose all at once.

I think this formula takes some of the guess work out of trying to figure out how much to dose. Especially when using a syringe.

Good luck!

[coral_lagoon]

Yeah I like using a syringe from one of my Salifert test kits, and go off ML's too.. I slowly ramp up the Cupramine dosage by doing 1/2 ML every 24 hours until therapeutic levels are reached..

[sleepydoc]

+1 on going slow and testing after you have given 1/3-1/2 the dose. Note that this equation is just re-writing the dosing guidelines that are on the bottle. IME, they are on the aggressive side; The first time I used curpramine in QT I followed Seachem's instructions and killed my diamond goby with the first dose. I have 2 fish in QT with cupramine right now. By seachem's dosing, I should have used 5.5 ml, however my Cu concentration was at 0.55~0.6 after 4.5 ml.

[wakerider017]

Correct Sleepy Doc. This is just a rewrite of the instructions on the cupramine bottle.

I've simplified their equation down to a unit of one, which they should have done in the first place.

2mL in 10.5 gallons at .5mg/L is hardly helpful to someone trying to dose .35mg/L in 15 gallons of water.

This equations allows you to plug in your numbers and 'play'.

[HumbleFish]

What you guys are saying is exactly why Velvet is almost always fatal when treating with copper. If the fast spreading, aggressive parasite doesn't kill the fish; raising the copper too quickly does. It's a no-win situation. IME, prophylactic treatment and/or catching the symptoms very early on is your only hope.

[wakerider017]

Humble, did you mean to post in another forum?

I agree that fish should be preventively treated in a QT before being introduced to a community tank, but that is not the subject of this thread.

I was just talking about figuring how much cupramine you should add based on the size of your QT and the level at which you wish to dose. (It seems .3mg/L - .4mg/L is recommended by most).

After talking to several experts, my fish spend 10 weeks in QT with copper at .35mg/L. During that time they also get two separate doses of prazi.

[H.reidi.MN]

Thanks for that equation because I'm using a 20 gallon tank and wanted a lower dose say .35 or .4 this has helped me with how many ml of cupramine to dose.

[homegrowncichli]

So lets see, I think I put in 11 drops for 5 gallons to get to ~.25 mg/L. I have such a hard time reading the blue shades on the test kit, so... yep, the math adds up, since there are about 20 drops per mL.

[fixingstill]

I wrote this to Seachem tech support. Maybe you can answer before they will.

I understand cupramine remains in solution (like salt then) and I should ramp up the dosage slowly (2 step?) to reach the final concentration of 0.5mg/L and keep it there for 14 days. Your instructions says 1mL per 10.5G on day 1. What concentration does that give us? According to a thread on RC (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2284605), it is 0.25mg/L. Please confirm.
Then it says wait 48 hrs and repeat. That will double up the concentration to 0.50mg/L, right? Then, assuming we do not do any water change (but we have to), we just leave it for 14 days, right?
Instructions then says "Do not redose without testing (MultiTest™: Copper). " Why would anyone redose if it remains in solution? Maybe you should explain how we should handle it when we do water change?

If we do water change when the QT is already in final concentration of 0.50mg/L, then for every 10.5G water we take out, we add 2mL (40 drops) to the new SW, right?

The way you use mL, mg/L, and 20 drops (and sometimes 16 drops on some old bottles) could really confuse so many people. I for one had to spend an hr online to research.

Now, my BIG question:
I have a newly setup 10G QT but it is filled up to about 7G of freshly mixed salt water. The tank has NO filtration at all.
I added 14 drops per instructions (20 /10.5 * 7 = 13.33) and I waited for 30 mins and did a copper test (using your kit) - it is now 0.5 mg/L - already the final concentration. Why?

[fixingstill]

Please ignore. I meant to start a new post (and I could not delete it).

[scooter31707]

Cooper is dangerous for fish and very stressful to the user of cooper as proof this discussion just started. Over 0.5ppm can become toxic to the fish and under 0.5ppm can be ineffective. Cooper can mask other diseases/parasites. So basically, once in your DT, those parasites will show their ugly face and your DT is now infected. There are other safer options and guaranteed treatments for fish.

Formalin can be used as a preventative bath/dip
1. Ich- Tank Transfer Method (TTM)
2. Flukes- Prazi-Pro
3. Velvet- Chloroquine phosphate (CP)

[Jdub968]

Humble, did you mean to post in another forum?

I agree that fish should be preventively treated in a QT before being introduced to a community tank, but that is not the subject of this thread.

I was just talking about figuring how much cupramine you should add based on the size of your QT and the level at which you wish to dose. (It seems .3mg/L - .4mg/L is recommended by most).

After talking to several experts, my fish spend 10 weeks in QT with copper at .35mg/L. During that time they also get two separate doses of prazi.

So at this dose is this why you treat for 10 weeks? Does it take 10 weeks to kill ich at 0.35mg/l ? Or is there some time included in the 10 weeks due to the prazipro ? Cus I'm assuming your not using Prazipro and copper at the same time

[fixingstill]

"Copper can mask diseases/parasites"??
If I keep a tang in QT with 0.5mg/L copper for, say, 4 weeks, the parasites in the skin will still survive and somehow drop off from the skin and continue its life cycle once fish is placed in DT?

It seems everyday I read something that completely changes my understanding.

[Jdub968]

"Copper can mask diseases/parasites"??
If I keep a tang in QT with 0.5mg/L copper for, say, 4 weeks, the parasites in the skin will still survive and somehow drop off from the skin and continue its life cycle once fish is placed in DT?

It seems everyday I read something that completely changes my understanding.

Ick and velvet are the two parasites really in question here and neither will remain on your fish for 4 weeks the trophont stage lasts approximately 3-5 days I think I recall one study mentioned up to 7 days then the trophont drops of the fish. What I was wondering is wakerider017 mentioned treating for 10 weeks at .35 mg/l and at this level was he treating for 10 weeks because it takes longer to kill the parasites but after posting and thinking about his comment I believe he's treating 10 weeks because one study found some tomonts could stay encysted for 72 days (granted this was in a lab with low temp water)

[fixingstill]

Wholesaler and LFS keep fish in low dose copper and that should be long enough to kill ICH and velvet on their skin. Now I don't understand how fish can get sick when they come to us and why do we even have to QT fish.

[Jdub968]

Wholesaler and LFS keep fish in low dose copper and that should be long enough to kill ICH and velvet on their skin. Now I don't understand how fish can get sick when they come to us and why do we even have to QT fish.

Man I wish you were correct about that it would make our lives so much easier( no offense) some wholesalers do indeed and some Lfs also but the Lfs at a much lower %. We're the problem comes from, are they keeping a therapeutic level for a proper amount of time all it takes is the level of copper to drop below this level (which seachem on cupramine says .2) for one day and a hatching tomites can reinfest a fish in that tank. And keep in mind a lot if not more Lfs tank systems run inline with each other so ick in one tank =ick in all tanks. We as the end handler of the fish have more control because we are doing the treatment on a smaller scale and we are testing and monitoring water concentration daily. Here's a little info on wholesalers and Lfs a lot run there SG at the low end and don't feed very often to keep cost down and maintenance down, so can you really expect them to run copper heck they don't even feed the fish