Quarantine questions

[Groovebox303]

Hi,
I just recently have had an outbreak of ich in my 75 gallon aquarium, it was brought on by my 2-3 inch Blue tang that was introduced 2 months ago. I have bought a 38 gallon QT to treat them and have an Aquaclear 70 HOB filter for the QT. I am thinking about treating ich for all the fish in the DT with Seachem's Cupramine and had a few questions.

1) Do I take out the carbon media from the AquaClear filter? I read that carbon will absorb the Copper from QT?

2) Do i use Prime for the water changes? How often do i need to do WC with copper treatment, and im guessing i need to redose after a WC?

3) I have a Flame angel and i have heard they are very sensitive to copper, have also read to gradually raise the copper level in days upto .3ppm instead of the recommended .5ppm and the flame should be able to tolerate this? Is this correct? If not please give an accurate description of treating the flame and other fishes which would not be dangerous for the fish.

4)after 10-14 days since the beginning of the treatment, I read i should phase out the copper from the QT for the next 2 weeks. Whats the best way to do this? Partial water change and not redosing the copper? I have also bought Salifert's copper testing kit.

5) Should i feed the inverts (Shrimp/hermit crabs/snails) in the DT? how often and what? would flakes once every 3-4 days be ok? if not please recommend what and how often to feed.

6) Im hoping the 38 gallon is good enough for the Blue tang, since its so easily stressed, would it be ok in there along with 6 other fish for 8-9 weeks?

Please respond if you have done copper treatment yourself and your results. The amount of opposing opinions about ich treatment is baffling, I appreciate your insight if you have have tried and succeeded at this. thanks again.

[MrTuskfish]

Originally Posted by Groovebox303

Hi,
I just recently have had an outbreak of ich in my 75 gallon aquarium, it was brought on by my 2-3 inch Blue tang that was introduced 2 months ago. I have bought a 38 gallon QT to treat them and have an Aquaclear 70 HOB filter for the QT. I am thinking about treating ich for all the fish in the DT with Seachem's Cupramine and had a few questions.

1) Do I take out the carbon media from the AquaClear filter? I read that carbon will absorb the Copper from QT?

2) Do i use Prime for the water changes? How often do i need to do WC with copper treatment, and im guessing i need to redose after a WC?

3) I have a Flame angel and i have heard they are very sensitive to copper, have also read to gradually raise the copper level in days upto .3ppm instead of the recommended .5ppm and the flame should be able to tolerate this? Is this correct? If not please give an accurate description of treating the flame and other fishes which would not be dangerous for the fish.

4)after 10-14 days since the beginning of the treatment, I read i should phase out the copper from the QT for the next 2 weeks. Whats the best way to do this? Partial water change and not redosing the copper? I have also bought Salifert's copper testing kit.

5) Should i feed the inverts (Shrimp/hermit crabs/snails) in the DT? how often and what? would flakes once every 3-4 days be ok? if not please recommend what and how often to feed.

6) Im hoping the 38 gallon is good enough for the Blue tang, since its so easily stressed, would it be ok in there along with 6 other fish for 8-9 weeks?

Please respond if you have done copper treatment yourself and your results. The amount of opposing opinions about ich treatment is baffling, I appreciate your insight if you have have tried and succeeded at this. thanks again.

1.) Yes, remove the carbon
2.)No. Prime and similar products form deadly compounds when mixed with copper.
3.)I would use a max level of CU of .35-.40. SeaChem is fine with this. Unless fish are in real bad shape; gradually, over several days, add Cu to that level. Flame may have trouble. They are 50/50 with any level of Cu that will kill the ich.
4.)Copper should be at the full dosage (.35-.40) for 4 weeks. After 4 weeks , you can remove it all at once with carbon, WCs, and/or cuprisorb.
5. ) Yes, a pinch of food is fine.
6.) Fish will be fine in that tank, they're only there about 6 weeks. Ammonia will be a problem, unless you have enough well seeded media in the HOB. Have plenty of water made up for WCs. Most ammonia tests don't work with Cu, get a stick-on ammonia alert.

[Groovebox303]

Thanks MrTuskfish for your help and answers. I am very worried as I always try my best to make the animals comfortable, wasnt very sure about removing them all from the DT but I dont want to play games with ich, ughh definately dont want to go through this again, I need a little more detail about the following questions.

2) Ok I wont use Prime, but I use tap water and treat it with prime usually and mix for 24-48 hours before adding it, without prime can i just add the mix for WC? or do i need to go get RO/DI water, I dont have the luxury of installing a unit as of right now. Also once I put all the fish in the tank and start the treatment, how often would I do the WC?

4) I thought Seachem recommends 14 days for the treatment from the beginning to end. Are you suggesting 4 weeks so it guarantees the removal of the parasite? I would definitely want to ensure that but also want to minimize the damage to fish from copper in the long run. Have you run the treatment for 4 weeks at .3-.4ppm? how did it work out for the fish in the long run?

Thanks a lot again!!!

[wooden_reefer]

Originally Posted by MrTuskfish

1.) Yes, remove the carbon
2.)No. Prime and similar products form deadly compounds when mixed with copper.
3.)I would use a max level of CU of .35-.40. SeaChem is fine with this. Unless fish are in real bad shape; gradually, over several days, add Cu to that level. Flame may have trouble. They are 50/50 with any level of Cu that will kill the ich.
4.)Copper should be at the full dosage (.35-.40) for 4 weeks. After 4 weeks , you can remove it all at once with carbon, WCs, and/or cuprisorb.
5. ) Yes, a pinch of food is fine.
6.) Fish will be fine in that tank, they're only there about 6 weeks. Ammonia will be a problem, unless you have enough well seeded media in the HOB. Have plenty of water made up for WCs. Most ammonia tests don't work with Cu, get a stick-on ammonia alert.

I want to comment on "seeded media".

It is only a word but "seed" really should be food for thoughts.

If you take only a part of the filtration medium from a balanced situation, where ammonia and nitrite from livestock support just the corresponding among of nitrification bacteria, and you use this portion to support all or most of the bioload, what will happen?

You had a balanced situation and now you have more bioload than nitrification bacteria. How much harm this imbalance will cause depends also the bioload and nitrification bacteria allotment. The upset may be small or may be large. (This is actually the same reason as the "new tank syndrone")

A medium is not "seeded" or "cycled" or not, a medium has to have enough nitrification in total, both nitrosonomas and nitrobacter, not just the balance bewteen the two. You have to augment the nitrification activity in this "seeded" medium, otherwise it will be inadequate. You made it process enough ammonia separately in advance.

[MrTuskfish]

Originally Posted by Groovebox303

Thanks MrTuskfish for your help and answers. I am very worried as I always try my best to make the animals comfortable, wasnt very sure about removing them all from the DT but I dont want to play games with ich, ughh definately dont want to go through this again, I need a little more detail about the following questions.

2) Ok I wont use Prime, but I use tap water and treat it with prime usually and mix for 24-48 hours before adding it, without prime can i just add the mix for WC? or do i need to go get RO/DI water, I dont have the luxury of installing a unit as of right now. Also once I put all the fish in the tank and start the treatment, how often would I do the WC?

4) I thought Seachem recommends 14 days for the treatment from the beginning to end. Are you suggesting 4 weeks so it guarantees the removal of the parasite? I would definitely want to ensure that but also want to minimize the damage to fish from copper in the long run. Have you run the treatment for 4 weeks at .3-.4ppm? how did it work out for the fish in the long run?

Thanks a lot again!!!

I assume you're using tap water and Prime to remove chlorine? Chlorine is a gas and will dissipate within the 48 hrs you are circulating it. However, if your water has chloramamine (or anything else that Prime helps), I don't know how to handle it. SeaChem's instructions do say to use Cupramine at .5ppm for two weeks. However, many folks (me included, run it it at .35-40 for four weeks. Two weeks doesn't even catch all of one ich life-cycle. Several folks on this forum have talked to SeaChem tech support and they seem to agree that this works. I have heard that SeaChem is labeling new Cupramine bottles to reflect this. I would call SeaChem's tech support for help with the Prime question, I think they'll be happy to help confirm Cupramine info too. . 1-888-seachem (I think.) here's all the poop on Cupramine:http://www.seachem.com/Products/prod...Cupramine.html

[wooden_reefer]

Originally Posted by MrTuskfish

I assume you're using tap water and Prime to remove chlorine? Chlorine is a gas and will dissipate within the 48 hrs you are circulating it. However, if your water has chloramamine (or anything else that Prime helps), I don't know how to handle it. SeaChem's instructions do say to use Cupramine at .5ppm for two weeks. However, many folks (me included, run it it at .35-40 for four weeks. Two weeks doesn't even catch all of one ich life-cycle. Several folks on this forum have talked to SeaChem tech support and they seem to agree that this works. I have heard that SeaChem is labeling new Cupramine bottles to reflect this. I would call SeaChem's tech support for help with the Prime question, I think they'll be happy to help confirm Cupramine info too. . 1-888-seachem (I think.) here's all the poop on Cupramine:http://www.seachem.com/Products/prod...Cupramine.html

Generally, only the larger cities will use chloramamine instead of chlorine. Ask your city.

Chloramaine on decomposition will yield ammonia. The conditioner that you use to neutralize chloramaine has to pick up the ammonia generated.

[wooden_reefer]

Conditioners like Prime and Amquel that is good for chloramine can possibly interfere with drugs. You have to be careful if your city uses chloramine and when you are using a drug.