Ich in my FOWLR - hypo or Cupramine?

[Ben jammin]

265 gallon FOWLR. No inverts. No QT as my tank is built into the wall and I have no place for a separate system. Tank has been established over 5 years. Added a bluestriped butterfly from LADD over the weekend - it looked and acted healthy and ate immediately. Acclimated him and all was well for a couple days except my PBT chased him around some. Not terribly, and not biting him, just chasing, nothing too bad. Got home last night though, and the butterfly was covered in ich. I've had ich in the tank a few times over the years but not for at least a year or so. Fish have all been pretty healthy.

My question is whether I should treat using hypo or Cupramine. I have never done hypo before so it concerns me about potential pH drops, biofilter impacts, etc. I have used Cupramine in the tank before and I feel it generally worked, although I did lose some fish to the ich when using it. I know all the caveats about using copper in a DT, but my understanding is that Cupramine is different in that it doesn't absorb into rocks or sand and leach out over time. I can confirm that I currently have amphipods living in my sump and filter socks despite having used Cupramine in the past.

I want the butterfly to survive of course, but I especially want to prevent any of my other fish from getting ich. I didn't see any others affected last night. Hopefully when I get home tonight that will still be the case. Whether it is hypo or Cupramine, I plan to initiate treatment tonight. Unfortunately, on July 5 I am leaving the country for 10 days so I will not be home to monitor.

Given my situation, do you recommend hypo or Cupramine? I feel more comfortable using Cupramine having never done hypo before, but I want whatever is most effective. Thoughts and suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Wildreefs]

Copper power. Have it in my display, levels hardly ever move

 

[Thomashtom]

Same here used Copper power in my DT with some success. Once its in your system i am finding that it is always going to be there.

 

[Wildreefs]

Just curios, how can that be? I would think with water changes and carbon, it should come out pretty easily

 

[Thomashtom]

No i was talking about Ich!!!!

 

[BadFish619]

Sucks ur going through it. Same thing just happened to me. I initially was treating my display but with all the rock and sand it was impossible to keep the correct level of copper in my tank so I switched to a qt. I've lost 7 of 10 fish with another on the way out. I've never tired hypo, I've never had a situation I needed to treat for that matter. Now im leaving the tank empty but running for a few months. Tough situation you're going through I feel your pain!

 

[Ben jammin]

Thanks. I went ahead and treated with Cupramine last night cause I had some on hand. I ordered some Seachem Focus and Manaplex (or something like that) to feed the fish as I read reports that those together actually help treat the fish while the are impacted. Soaking food in garlic now too, and dosed tank with garlic.

Also, for anyone who thinks that once you treat with copper you can never use the tank for inverts, here's something. I have a refugium plumbed to my sump but I've never been able to really get the algae growing. I would just let chaeto float in there but it wouldn't last long. Probably not enough tumbling or whatever, I don't know. I haven't tried it in over a year - the fuge is basically just an extra, empty sump at this point. But I decided to disconnect it from the main tank prior to the copper treatment. When I looked at (it's hard to access and see real well where it is located inside the wall, I found a soft coral tree growing and a hermit crab living happily off the slime algae. In a dimly lit (just one IM Skye fuge light) fuge connected to a heavily fed FOWLR system with high nitrates (I don't even test them anymore b/c my fish have always been healthy but they have historically been about 40 ppm) that has been treated with copper. And I also have the aforementioned amphipods in my filter socks. I wonder if there are pods in the main display. If so, I probably just killed them.

 

[Elitecorals]

How's the fish doing now, any news update ?

 

[WMR]

I would use copper power, works well. Also, medicate the food also. Maybe you can give your butterfly a fw bath to alleviate some of the icy, good luck

 

[Reefahholic]

Copper Power if your fish are compatible.

 

[Bob Weigant]

I had no issues using cupramine in FO. But I also won’t ever have corals in that either

 

[Ben jammin]

I ended up treating with Cupramine. It worked well. I lost a Midas blenny but that was the only casualty. I’ve been running carbon since the treatment ended and restocked my refugium with chaeto and pods. Will be watching to se if they can survive in a post-cupramine environment.

 

[Fairechio16]

Only use it if you only plan to have fish only and never a reef in that tank or sand bed that stuff nukes corals but fish only system fine but if you ever plan to add coral dont do it you'll have a losing battle