*COPPERSAFE WARNING* along with Research on Hanna Instruments High Range Copper Checker

[HotRocks]

Just got my checker. Checked first tank and got a reading of 3.56. Started making water to change water to get copper level down. Will post other two tanks in a bit. Dosed 1.5ml per gallon.

Coppersafe? WOW. That would put your bottle right in line with mine. Its Crazy. If you run an API test, would you say it aligns with the digital reading?

I still have two unopened bottles of copper safe that I want to dose and test the baseline. But I am holding off until I get my additional reagents.

 

[Big G]

Just got my checker. Checked first tank and got a reading of 3.56. Started making water to change water to get copper level down. Will post other two tanks in a bit. Dosed 1.5ml per gallon.

Yikes!

 

[Huskymaniac]

Coppersafe? WOW. That would put your bottle right in line with mine. Its Crazy. If you run an API test, would you say it aligns with the digital reading?

I still have two unopened bottles of copper safe that I want to dose and test the baseline. But I am holding off until I get my additional reagents.

Possibly. The color charts are impossible to tell. It crazy. This is nuts. Thankful that nothing died and for this thread.

 

[Huskymaniac]

Tank 2 at 2.9.

 

[puffy127]

I agree that API is hard to tell between 1 and 2 ppm, but shouldn't over 2 ppm be pretty clear?

 

[deedubz]

Given I started coppersafe yesterday, before finding this thread, I decided to call fritz and ask them to check my batch number. I've had my bottle for a while and I've dosed 22ml so far in a 29g with ~26-27 gallons. I'm reading ~1ppm. I figured I'd likely need 40ml to be within therapeutic range. It appears my bottle ***should*** be ok, but I'll obviously keep going slow and test, test, test.

Anyway, the receptionist told me I'd need to email Mike. Within minutes I got this response... Pretty classy

 

[Huskymaniac]

3.5 in tank 3

 

[Kyl]

Add me to the checker club, at least the "I just ordered the Copper HR checker" club. I'm going to be curious just how concentrated the copper my blue star just went through actually was. I'm not worried about it being over, an older bottle of coppersafe, but the range looked 2~ish, but I never really was super confident.

 

[Huskymaniac]

I agree that API is hard to tell between 1 and 2 ppm, but shouldn't over 2 ppm be pretty clear?

Between 1 and 2 is easy for me. Between 2 and 4 it looks the same. Here is what 3.5 looks like.

 

[Huskymaniac]

Dumb question. If my copper is 3.5 does replacing 50% of the water mean my copper level will then be 1.75?

 

[deedubz]

Dumb question. If my copper is 3.5 does replacing 50% of the water mean my copper level will then be 1.75?

Not a dumb question at all. From what I understand, yes

 

[HotRocks]

Not a dumb question at all. From what I understand, yes

+1 yes

 

[HotRocks]

Between 1 and 2 is easy for me. Between 2 and 4 it looks the same. Here is what 3.5 looks like.

I would agree, although always hard to tell on a pic. It's definitely much lighter than 2.0, slightly lighter than 4.0. so I could call that 3.5 Prior to having the checker I don't know what I would have called it. But regardless I think everyone will agree it's between 2-4

 

[scuzy]

So what's the therapeutic level for copper power?

 

[joec]

So what's the therapeutic level for copper power?

2.5

The moral of the story so far seems to be use Copper Power or get the checker

 

[HotRocks]

So what's the therapeutic level for copper power?

This is what makes this a bit difficult.

Ionic copper IE Cupramine is .5ppm

Chelated Copper IE Copper Safe/Copper Power is Deemed therapeutic at 1.5ppm
Copper Safe states if you dose per instructions on bottle... you should be in the 1.5-2.0ppm range.
Copper Power states if you dose per instructions on bottle... you should yield 2.5ppm (I have personally seen an email from endich the manufacturer of copper power, and they say 1.5ppm is therapeutic and it should only be used at the 2.5 concentration if necessary). That is vague, to me, but does follow suit with the fact that for years 1.5ppm is therapeutic level for a chelated copper product.

Now with visual test methods, I think you will find most people using chelated copper would shoot for the 1.75-2.0ppm range to be sure they are therapeutic.

@Brew12 will also tell you in the past, coppersafe had known to have only had a concentration of 1.16-1.17ppm when dosed at the bottle instructions (Which have never changed) which is sub-therapeutic. So there are several of us, myself included who previously dosed over the instructed amount to achieve the 1.5ppm target or slightly above, and never had any issues.

I did not start this thread to dog on coppersafe, only for my own research and trying to find a better way for all of us in the hobby to treat fish properly, and the least amount of fish loss possible in the process. My reason for the warning was just to tell people to test if they were using the product. I think the proof is in the pudding. I am continuing to run into people more and more, especially with newly purchased bottles that seem to contain a higher concentration than the 1.5-2.0ppm if dosed properly. Fritz may believe the testing is incorrect, and that is ok too. We can all make our own determination based on our own personal findings.

 

[Josh Kraft]

I am a fan of Hanna products, but what about other copper colorimeters?

Lamotte makes one. New is it a more expensive (probably most people won't do this price), but you can find used ones online as well, between 100-200 bucks. Below is their PDF for the instructions. 30ML of regent is 15 bucks, each test takes 5 drops. The attached PDF has a "method" section that explains how their test works.

http://www.lamotte.com/images/pdf/instructions/3673-01.pdf

 

[4FordFamily]

I’m going to make a random prediction now — a new member will be participating on this thread shortly. It will be someone brand new to R2R, and this will be the preponderance of their participation. They will be negating everything that has been said, or attempting to do so.

Just a harmless prediction, let’s see what happens. That’s all I will say.

 

[DanielJameS]

Between 1 and 2 is easy for me. Between 2 and 4 it looks the same. Here is what 3.5 looks like.

Yikes. This whole thing has me nervous. I just decided to redo my test vials for API/CopperPower. Matched the salinity and ph and all the fun stuff.

.75ml in 1/2G of 1.020 water at 8.1-8.2PH

I sure hope this is accurate because my QT is pretty much dead on matched to it for the last 2 days.

I really need to get the Hanna....[emoji58]

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

I’ve read all of this and thought I had it figured out, but am confused now. I thought that the initial concern was that if we blindly used the box instructions for dosing, it would overdose to potentially lethal levels. Now, I’m starting to see what I think are people making it sound like it’s the actual testing that is the issue??? I get that the Hanna checker may work and that’s awesome, but is it a dosing issue or testing or both? I usually ramp up my copper over a few days and test every time before and after I add, so I was never worried about overdosing.