Once dosed with Coppersafe, must it remain forever?

[barrysalt]

Because of an Amyloodinium (marine velvet) outbreak, dosed a large (1500 gal):sad2: FOWLR tank with Coppersafe. Defeated the parasite, but was told by a public aquarium curator that I had to maintain proper level of copper forever--due to mutated amyloodinium now in the rocks, pvc pipes etc. Also, that skimming has to be reduced to keep copper solution at proper level.
I need some input on this problem! Help!

[bertoni]

I am not sure why the curator believes that you will need to continue to dose copper. That doesn't make sense to me. It's possible, but I don't think it's very likely. If you're sure the parasite is gone, I'd stop the dosing and see what happens. The difficulty is knowing whether the parasite is gone. I'd probably wait for at least a week with no symptoms. What guidelines are you using?

[barrysalt]

His advice doesn't fly with me either...but that's why I'm questioning in this forum. I keep copper level at 2.0, and under 3. So far, several weeks now, no outbreak. Thanks for the response...
Barry

[bertoni]

You're welcome! Good luck! Please let us know if your tank has any problems when you stop the copper!

[shermanator]

The concern might be that the rock has adsorbed copper (it probably has to some extent) and that you will have very low levels of copper for a while now (as it leaches off the rock). With very low levels of copper, it's possible you could get resistance emerge (and not necessarily with the current/past parasite, another parasite could be introduced with a new fish and be asymptomatic while acquiring resistance and then emerge as an outbreak). That said, the chance of that happening is very, very unlikely. Either way, you could do more harm by continual copper dosing (risk of overdose, etc). Best solution to this would be to fully QT all incoming fish.

[rt67ghy]

I wouldn't continue dosing copper after your treatment period is up. You can easily resume treatment if there's a re-emergence of the disease in the future.

[barrysalt]

I'm leaning in the direction you are suggesting. It seems a continual dosing of copper over a long period of time (as in forever) would be counter-productive. Thanks all, for your comments and advice. Much appreciated.