Ich x and cupramine help!

[EmilyC14]

Hey everyone I have a question can you mix cupramine and Ich x together? Or in small amounts different times? I’m really trying to get rid of Ick my poor puffer has it bad. I have him in a quarantine tank with the other fish. It’s a 20 gallon tank. I know puffers are sensitive to copper so I’m doing the doses slowly. I’m up for any suggestions. Just want my fish to be okay

 

[ShepherdReefer]

I don't think so...but I really don't know. Maybe someone else can answer.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Ich-X changed their formulation, it is just formalin now. I would not dose those together. You can use formalin as a dip while treating with copper, but I don't think the dosage for that is on the Ich-X bottles.

Puffers are NOT overtly sensitive to a proper copper treatment, but they are sensitive to ich. What happens is that copper takes up to 3 days to really start to work. People also mistakenly ramp their copper up slowly. A puffer with ich then dies because copper was doses too late and too slow, and they then blame the copper. You need a good copper test kit of course.

Jay

 

[PSU4ME]

@Jay Hemdal are you saying not to ramp copper in general or specifically in the case of puffers?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

In general. That is something that got entrenched in the hobby, but is actually a mistake based on how the old copper/citric acid meds worked on some fish...Centropyge angels for example needed to be ramped up over 48 hours. That idea got transferred to the newer, safer meds and the 2 days became 5! Now, I deal with fish dying from disease during this ramp up period.
Jay

 

[Zionas]

What kind of Puffer do you have?

 

[nereefpat]

In general. That is something that got entrenched in the hobby, but is actually a mistake based on how the old copper/citric acid meds worked on some fish...Centropyge angels for example needed to be ramped up over 48 hours. That idea got transferred to the newer, safer meds and the 2 days became 5! Now, I deal with fish dying from disease during this ramp up period.
Jay

Do you recommend that fish visibly infected with ich go straight into 2.0 Copper Power then?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Yes. To delay by ramping up to a full dose only allows ich to gain a stronger foothold. I’ve seen many cases where copper didn’t work fast enough to save the fish....
Jay