Newbie Battling Ich with Copper Treatment - NEED HELP!

[angelstar0204]

Hi Everyone! I'm new to the forums so I'm not sure if I need to post this in this section or the Fish Disease section. Admins, please delete the post in whichever one isn't right!

I'm a newbie with a 110 FOWLR tank. I'm currently battling an ich problem and desperately need some help. I am working to research all of this, but in the meantime I am so worried about my fish! If anyone can give me a little guidance and the reasoning behind their advice I would appreciate it sooo much.

This is what has been going on:

I noticed a pretty advanced ich spread on my Narrow Lined Puffer and Yellow Tang. I've never dealt with ich before and, even though this is a 6 month "established" tank it's new to me (got it from someone). I had a "consultant" come to advise me/"treat" my problem. He ended up dosing my DT with Copper Power (even after I questioned him about having read that wasn't a very popular choice) with my LR and LS (now I'm assuming dead rock and dead sand). He also changed out my filters that run in my sump, which includes a carbon filter, and left those in after dosing. This was about 2 weeks ago.

I am under the impression Copper Power is a chelated copper. I followed his follow up dosing instructions, but went and got a Copper Test kit. The Copper Power bottle says use at 2.5ppm copper. This is the therapeutic range for it then, right? Can that be right, it seems so high. I used the API Test kit and it is only at .25 ppm!

Today my puffer shows signs of ich again (which, obviously he would if I'm understanding that I am so far out of treatment range!) so I am starting over.

I am debating on how to approach this and would love some feedback (with questions for each option):

1. Continue to treat in the DT since it's ruined anyway and I am stuck with this always being a FOWLR tank now. If so, I should remove the carbon filter and protein skimmer, right? Should I remove the LR even though I can't remove the LS? I've heard both of these absorb/interfere with keeping a therapeutic level...

B. Set up a sort of QT. I don't have any actual tanks for QTs, but I have large tupperware bins. If treatment isn't effective with my now dead rock and dead sand, is this an option that might be successful? I have my puffer, my tang and a snowflake eel that I would need to do this with.

Basically, I am feeling overwhelmed and frustrated because I think my consultant just gave me more of a problem than a solution. I am trying to catch up and get a handle on things, but it seems so time sensitive!!!

Here are the answers to the questions I just found about posting in this forum:

1. How old is this aquarium? 7 months total, only in my possession 1 month

2. If less than six months old, what is ammonia level? 0

3. What is SG of this aquarium? How measured? 1.021, Hydrometer

4. When was the last fish added to this aquarium? Unsure, I haven't added any

5. Was it quarantined? If so, how? And how long? Was it prophylactically treated? How? N/A

6. If you are using a copper based medication, which one? How often do you measure level? When? Copper Power, still working on a system for this as I figure things out.

7. If you are using hyposalinity, how did you calibrate your refractometer? N/A

8. Please describe in detail, the appearance of the fish? If there is one or more pimples, are they lumpy? What color? Small white bumps, they almost look like sand granules on the puffers belly.

9. Please describe the behavior of the fish as best you can. Is it acting reclusive? Is it always up towards the top of the aquarium? Is it avoiding light? How active is the fish? Acting fine, tail flared open, active, eating extremely well. At top of tank often, but swims throughout the day. Does not avoid light.

10. Is the fish eating? What? Both fish eating a blend of krill, mysis, marine cuisine and herbivore friendly. Sea veggies green veggies sheet every other day.

[heathlindner25]

What I do know is that puffers do not fair well with copper treatments, hopefully some professionals will help chime in to help you.

[angelstar0204]

Thank you! I hope so too.

[GimpyFin]

Sorry to hear about your fish (And your consultant.) Your consultant really did you a disservice by treating your display with copper (Even if you don't have corals or inverts.) Second, he double-duped you if he dosed copper and then gave you fresh carbon to leave in while treating (Carbon will counteract the copper.) I know some chelated formulations like Coppersafe won't screw up your biofilter, but I'm not overly familiar with Copper power.

If I were in your shoes, I'd try and get the fish in QT tank(s) and work on treating them there, whatever treatment method you choose. Tupperware bins would work in a pinch (I think Petco might also have their $1/gallon tank sale going on now as well.) At the same time, I'd keep running carbon on your main tank and changing it regularly and testing the copper level. You might be successful at getting a lot of the copper out of the system. (Ideally, if you leave your tank running like this for about 90 days, you can be fairly certain there will be nothing left in the tank to re-infect the fish once they are re-introduced from being treated.) You'll also want to double-check you're tank is cycled and your biofilter is adequate once you are ready to put your fish back in so there's not an ammonia spike that kills everything. Anyway, hope that helps a little.

[xanthurum]

You would be better off doing hypo salinity. Start doing water changes every 4 to 5 hours. Take out 5 gallons and replace with freshwater until you get down to the desired range. Do you have an auto top off? You need to stay on the top offs if not the salinity cannot be allowed to go above 1.009. IMO this is your only option to treat your whole tank since you don't have a way to keep your fish in separate tanks while your display sits for 75 days. Watch your parameters carefully as it can be hard to keep them in check with lower salinity levels.
I seriously doubt the copper you dosed will have any lasting effects on anything since you were using carbon at the same time. Copper can be absorbed by rocks and especially carbon so if you are going to dose you can't have either. Just a glass box with pvc pipes for hiding and some sort of filtration like a hang on the back power filter with just blue filter pad.

[angelstar0204]

Ugh! GimpyFin, I am definitely realizing that there were multiple things that weren't right about all this. He just seemed like he knew so much and I thought, what the heck do I know? He said he'd been doing this since he was a kid with his dad. That is the option I was leaning towards and feel encouraged that I can actually do this. Thanks for letting me know about Petco's deal. I might go get a tank tomorrow and use that instead of the bins. I didn't know that some chelated copper won't ruin my biofilter. Time to jump into some more over-researching! THANK YOU!

Xanthurum, I haven't looked into hyposalinity too much, but I will look into it. I don't have auto-top off, but I work from home so I can stay on top of things pretty well. I should have included in the first post that I have a 55 gallon tank that is running as well (another inherited tank). Based on both your and Gimpyfin's advice I have a possible new plan. Would you both mind giving me feedback on it (and anyone else that wants to chime in!)?

- Buy a 30 gallon tank, move water from 55 gallon plus as much LR I can fit into 30 tank with current inhabitants (2 clown, 1 damsel)
- Drain 55 gallon tank and remove all remaining substrate/LR. Put LR in a tupperware with powerhead to keep it living, thoroughly clean tank
- Fill now empty 55 with water from 110 and only put in PVC pipes and a power filter with blue filter pad as recommended (well, I have a white one, which I'm hoping is the same). Voila new QT!! I think this will be better for yellow tang since anything smaller would be way too small from what I've read. Hopefully a 55 will be ok!
- Xanthurum, if it's isolated from the main tank do you still recommend hyposalinity or should I do copper treatment? I'm assuming hyposalinity AND copper would be too much shock for them, but let me know if people do both. I'd like to treat the yellow tang still for ich since it did have ich a few weeks ago...thoughts?
- Maintain balance for 75-90 days while pulling copper out of 110 tank. Move ALL fish into 110 gallon tank and life will be fantastic!!

Thank you SOOO much for your advice and time! Really, I appreciate it so much. My mind has been spinning and worrying about this non-stop!

[GimpyFin]

Yes, just take your time and you should be ok. There's a lot of good information both here and elsewhere on the web. If you do chose to do hyposalinity for treatment, you don't want to do copper at the same time. Keeping your fish in QT for 10-12 weeks will allow you to get them healthy and get everything with your main tank settled. This hobby can be a little aggravating because success is built on a fairly slow process, but in the end you will be much happier.

[xanthurum]

Sounds good, and yes choose only 1 treatment option.

[Hal]

For a simple step by step explanation of how to do hypo salinity:
http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/hyposalinity.html

Hypo is my treatment of choice for ich. I've had a much better survival rate with it vs copper.

Many people also like the tank transfer method (ttm), so you might want to read up on that too.

[Sk8r]

POlyFilter pads can remove copper (they turn blue, so doing, and you toss them when you finally get no more blue, not even a whisper, you can hope there's no reservoir of it left.

[angelstar0204]

Originally Posted by GimpyFin

Yes, just take your time and you should be ok. There's a lot of good information both here and elsewhere on the web. If you do chose to do hyposalinity for treatment, you don't want to do copper at the same time. Keeping your fish in QT for 10-12 weeks will allow you to get them healthy and get everything with your main tank settled. This hobby can be a little aggravating because success is built on a fairly slow process, but in the end you will be much happier.

Phew, thank you so much!! I'm feeling so much more confident now that I have a plan in place with everyone's advice.

[angelstar0204]

Originally Posted by Hal

For a simple step by step explanation of how to do hypo salinity:
http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/hyposalinity.html

Hypo is my treatment of choice for ich. I've had a much better survival rate with it vs copper.

Many people also like the tank transfer method (ttm), so you might want to read up on that too.

I love this breakdown on how to!

[GimpyFin]

Glad to help! Keep the thread updated as you progress through. Cheers.

[angelstar0204]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

POlyFilter pads can remove copper (they turn blue, so doing, and you toss them when you finally get no more blue, not even a whisper, you can hope there's no reservoir of it left.

Hey I'm glad to hear you say this. I just read about the Poly Filter pads and was wondering how good they were/if they worked. I will be getting these for sure to hopefully clear things up.

[Sk8r]

They do work. They turn colors to tell you what they're absorbing; they're a must-have for the emergency kit, in case nephew adds the tv remote to the tank rockwork.

[angelstar0204]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

They do work. They turn colors to tell you what they're absorbing; they're a must-have for the emergency kit, in case nephew adds the tv remote to the tank rockwork.

Ba ha ha! Great idea for an addition to an emergency kit. I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old so I feel you. I hadn't even reached the point of thinking to put an emergency kit together, but now I clearly can see the need.

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