Initial Copper Levels and Prophylactic Brook/Uronema treatment

[FrenchAngel]

Hi all! I have two questions that I am trying to sort out.

Question #1: Something caught my eye as I was reading through this thread here
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-current-qt-process.483371/
The writer says that they start the quarantine copper levels at 1.0 ppm before dropping the fish in. Since the recommended therapeutic range of copper power is 1.5-2.0 ppm, this would be a starting dosage of 50-66% of the final level. This seems quite high and I would be concerned that the fish would have a hard time acclimating to this level right off the bat. Have any of you experienced any problems with starting any particular fish groups at 1.0 ppm copper levels?

Question #2: Since Brooklynella and Uronema are such common and yet dangerous killers in this hobby, I would like to prophylactically treat for both of these. This thread here
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/psa-general-cure-turbellarians.401681/#post-4797651
has a post that suggests that the best way to prophylactically treat both Brook and Uronema is Copper and Metronidazole. Does this mean that you would dose Metronidazole 5 times over the course of 10 days simultaneous with a copper concentration at therapeutic levels (1.5-2.0 ppm)?? Or do you separate the copper and metronidazole treatments? I would also like to know if the Copper/metronidazole approach is the 'best' way to prophylactically treat both Brook and Uronema according to general consensus. I know chloroquine phosphate is also suggested.

 

[HotRocks]

Hi all! I have two questions that I am trying to sort out.

Question #1: Something caught my eye as I was reading through this thread here
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-current-qt-process.483371/
The writer says that they start the quarantine copper levels at 1.0 ppm before dropping the fish in. Since the recommended therapeutic range of copper power is 1.5-2.0 ppm, this would be a starting dosage of 50-66% of the final level. This seems quite high and I would be concerned that the fish would have a hard time acclimating to this level right off the bat. Have any of you experienced any problems with starting any particular fish groups at 1.0 ppm copper levels?

Question #2: Since Brooklynella and Uronema are such common and yet dangerous killers in this hobby, I would like to prophylactically treat for both of these. This thread here
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/psa-general-cure-turbellarians.401681/#post-4797651
has a post that suggests that the best way to prophylactically treat both Brook and Uronema is Copper and Metronidazole. Does this mean that you would dose Metronidazole 5 times over the course of 10 days simultaneous with a copper concentration at therapeutic levels (1.5-2.0 ppm)?? Or do you separate the copper and metronidazole treatments? I would also like to know if the Copper/metronidazole approach is the 'best' way to prophylactically treat both Brook and Uronema according to general consensus. I know chloroquine phosphate is also suggested.

Welcome to R2R!!!

I'm sure others will elaborate... I can tell you I have acclimated several fish into 1.0ppm copper, including high end fish like regal angels, gem tang, Achilles tang, fem wrasse, several other wrasse like lineatus, labouti etc.
@4FordFamily can also confirm this.

I do not like combining Metroplex and copper. It can be done. Speaking from a prophylactic standpoint I would wait and use it solely post copper. If you have a fish in copper that is struggling with Brook or uronema then you could make the decision to go ahead and dose it. Keep in mind copper can supress both Brook and uronema so you likely wouldn't see severe symptoms during copper treatment.

 

[4FordFamily]

Welcome to R2R!!!

I'm sure others will elaborate... I can tell you I have acclimated several fish into 1.0ppm copper, including high end fish like regal angels, gem tang, Achilles tang, fem wrasse, several other wrasse like lineatus, labouti etc.
@4FordFamily can also confirm this.

I do not like combining Metroplex and copper. It can be done. Speaking from a prophylactic standpoint I would wait and use it solely post copper. If you have a fish in copper that is struggling with Brook or uronema then you could make the decision to go ahead and dose it. Keep in mind copper can supress both Brook and uronema so you likely wouldn't see severe symptoms during copper treatment.

I agree and I was shocked at how much better fish handled copper when acclimated to 1PPM right away versus waiting a few days to a week then increasing it over the next week. @Humblefish made the suggestion and it worked like a charm!

 

[Reefahholic]

I think it’s best to slowly ramp up. In most cases you’ll see better outcomes. Ramping up slowly gives the fish a chance to start eating. IMO...getting the fish to eat is huge. For me...that’s half the battle.

If the fish is so sick that he absolutely won’t eat, that is a good time to ramp faster. Getting the parasites off and providing relief is critical. Every wound that a parasite creates from feeding on the fish will only push that fish a little closer to death or secondary infections.

That being said, I’ve ramped up in two days without casualties. I’ve even treated with a full therapeutic dose from day 1 without issues other than fish not eating for several days. Only because the fish was on his death bed.

If you have time to ramp and the fish is swimming ok and looking fairly decent- other than being covered with spots, I would take your time until you feel that going slow may cost the fish his life. When that time comes- you will know.

I have a few fish with Velvet and ICH as we speak. They’re swimming ok and eating now. I don’t feel the need to rush it. I’ll be doing a transfer on Day 3 and by day 4...they’ll be close to therapeutic. When I do the transfer I’ll FW dip for the second time. This will provide more relief. Going back into a parasite free tank at near therapeutic level and minimal parasites on the body will only increase his chances even more. By the second transfer and re-dose of therapeutic...I’ll pretty much gain full control. My hippo tang was pretty wrecked. Here’s a few pics of the wounds. It’s all spotted up.

 

[Maritimer]

With my current round of QT, I acclimated into about .75 copper, and ramped from there. Given that there have been _many_ instances (including in my own QT) of a fairly virulent bacterial infection recently, and given that there were 11 anthias of two species in the current round, I began using the combination of Furan-2, Metroplex and Kanaplex immediately. Metronidazole, plus copper, plus a few other things. (Two of the Metro doses were given in the form of API General Cure, so included Praziquantel as well.) Keep saltwater mixed and ready for water changes.

I lost three of the six dispar to bacterial issues within the first few days, but the rest of the fish - including fairy wrasses, the other eight anthias, tangs and angelfish - seem to be doing well.

~Bruce

 

[HotRocks]

With my current round of QT, I acclimated into about .75 copper, and ramped from there. Given that there have been _many_ instances (including in my own QT) of a fairly virulent bacterial infection recently, and given that there were 11 anthias of two species in the current round, I began using the combination of Furan-2, Metroplex and Kanaplex immediately. Metronidazole, plus copper, plus a few other things. (Two of the Metro doses were given in the form of API General Cure, so included Praziquantel as well.) Keep saltwater mixed and ready for water changes.

I lost three of the six dispar to bacterial issues within the first few days, but the rest of the fish - including fairy wrasses, the other eight anthias, tangs and angelfish - seem to be doing well.

~Bruce

Glad to hear that Bruce!

 

[FrenchAngel]

Welcome to R2R!!!

I'm sure others will elaborate... I can tell you I have acclimated several fish into 1.0ppm copper, including high end fish like regal angels, gem tang, Achilles tang, fem wrasse, several other wrasse like lineatus, labouti etc.
@4FordFamily can also confirm this.

I do not like combining Metroplex and copper. It can be done. Speaking from a prophylactic standpoint I would wait and use it solely post copper. If you have a fish in copper that is struggling with Brook or uronema then you could make the decision to go ahead and dose it. Keep in mind copper can supress both Brook and uronema so you likely wouldn't see severe symptoms during copper treatment.

Thanks for the reply @HotRocks and for everyone else chiming in!
In response to your thoughts I have a few more questions.

Reefahholic has brought up a point that I too was wondering about. Have you had any problems getting fish to eat by starting at a copper dose of 1.0 ppm? Peoples experience generally seems to be that copper can suppress a fish's appetite, which may exacerbate a problem if the fish is already having a hard time adjusting to a captive diet. On a different note, I have a couple tangs in quarantine right now with zero copper in it. Should I add the first dose in such a way to reach 1.0 ppm in one day from zero? Or should I ramp up to 1.0 ppm slower over the course of several days (on my way to a final concentration of 1.5-2.0 ppm)?

My other question is this. If the simultaneous copper/metronidazole is not ideal and unnecessary for the prophylactic treatment of Brook/Uronema, could you maybe use metronidazole when you are treating with prazipro? Since General Cure contains both metronidazole and praziquantel, API would not put these two together if any one of them lost its potency in the presence of the other. By the same argument, they must be safe to use together as well (in regards to hardship on the fish). So could you maybe do a 10 day treatment using both metronidazole and praziquantel? For example, over a 10 day period you would dose prazipro twice (once every five days) and dose metroplex 5 times (once every two days). I know prazipro does nothing for Brook and Uronema, but in the interests of time efficiency, this could prophylactically cover Brook/Uronema/flukes/black ich and other worms all at once. This could be helpful in the interest of time efficiency. Thoughts?

 

[HotRocks]

Thanks for the reply @HotRocks and for everyone else chiming in!
In response to your thoughts I have a few more questions.

Reefahholic has brought up a point that I too was wondering about. Have you had any problems getting fish to eat by starting at a copper dose of 1.0 ppm? Peoples experience generally seems to be that copper can suppress a fish's appetite, which may exacerbate a problem if the fish is already having a hard time adjusting to a captive diet. On a different note, I have a couple tangs in quarantine right now with zero copper in it. Should I add the first dose in such a way to reach 1.0 ppm in one day from zero? Or should I ramp up to 1.0 ppm slower over the course of several days (on my way to a final concentration of 1.5-2.0 ppm)?

My other question is this. If the simultaneous copper/metronidazole is not ideal and unnecessary for the prophylactic treatment of Brook/Uronema, could you maybe use metronidazole when you are treating with prazipro? Since General Cure contains both metronidazole and praziquantel, API would not put these two together if any one of them lost its potency in the presence of the other. By the same argument, they must be safe to use together as well (in regards to hardship on the fish). So could you maybe do a 10 day treatment using both metronidazole and praziquantel? For example, over a 10 day period you would dose prazipro twice (once every five days) and dose metroplex 5 times (once every two days). I know prazipro does nothing for Brook and Uronema, but in the interests of time efficiency, this could prophylactically cover Brook/Uronema/flukes/black ich and other worms all at once. This could be helpful in the interest of time efficiency. Thoughts?

I have actually found less appetite supression and had an easier time with finicky eaters in the presence of copper. Since using the Hanna checker and being able to treat at a more accurate level I don't notice any appetite supression. I think this was because with visual testing methods we were much closer to toxicity than was desirable and causing suppression.

You can either dose up to 1.0ppm then ramp to therapeutic from there, or just do a daily ramp of .25ppm.

On the metronidazole + praziquantel note, I would not combine the two using a liquid form of praziquantel (Prazipro) and powder form of metronidazole (Metroplex).

To accomplish using the combination and getting the 10 days of therapeutic dose of metronidazole and the 2 doses of praziquantel you could use general cure by API as it contains both powder forms of metronidazole/praziquantel. I would do the following:

Day 1 dose General Cure
Day 3 dose Metroplex
Day 5 dose Metroplex
Day 7 dose General Cure
Day 9 dose Metroplex

Follow the WC schedule according to intsructions. This would effectively treat flukes/Brook/uronema simultaneously.

 

[FrenchAngel]

With my current round of QT, I acclimated into about .75 copper, and ramped from there. Given that there have been _many_ instances (including in my own QT) of a fairly virulent bacterial infection recently, and given that there were 11 anthias of two species in the current round, I began using the combination of Furan-2, Metroplex and Kanaplex immediately. Metronidazole, plus copper, plus a few other things. (Two of the Metro doses were given in the form of API General Cure, so included Praziquantel as well.) Keep saltwater mixed and ready for water changes.

I lost three of the six dispar to bacterial issues within the first few days, but the rest of the fish - including fairy wrasses, the other eight anthias, tangs and angelfish - seem to be doing well.

~Bruce

Interesting. I am sorry for the loss of your anthias. If I am reading this correctly, you had copper, metronidazole, praziquantel, and full spectrum antibiotics all running at the same time? This is quite a busy concoction. The only thing missing was treatment for parasites/diseases affecting the fish internally. If one were to include this in addition to the above, you could have all common scourges covered prophylactically, given the fish could withstand all this at once (and the medications didn't interfere with each other). Even accounting for the two week observation period, a fish could be in and out of quarantine in 4 and 1/2 weeks (hypothetically of course)!

 

[Maritimer]

The only thing missing was treatment for parasites/diseases affecting the fish internally.

Did I forget to mention that? General Cure with Focus. It's working for everyone except the regal angel, as s/he's only eating clam on the half-shell at the moment.

After losing more than half of an order of fish from LA due to bacteria, I decided to hit this run pretty hard in the opposite direction. Please understand - I would not recommend doing this - but so-far-so-good. By preference, we'd treat for just one thing, with just one medication, at a time. At this precise point in the history of marine aquaria, I'm just not sure we have that option.

~Bruce

 

[FrenchAngel]

Did I forget to mention that? General Cure with Focus. It's working for everyone except the regal angel, as s/he's only eating clam on the half-shell at the moment.

After losing more than half of an order of fish from LA due to bacteria, I decided to hit this run pretty hard in the opposite direction. Please understand - I would not recommend doing this - but so-far-so-good. By preference, we'd treat for just one thing, with just one medication, at a time. At this precise point in the history of marine aquaria, I'm just not sure we have that option.

~Bruce

Got it. Focus with the medication would cover that base. I do agree that running all these medications parallel to one another is undesirable, but understand why one would attempt it if there was an emergency and several problems were occurring at once.

 

[HotRocks]

Did I forget to mention that? General Cure with Focus. It's working for everyone except the regal angel, as s/he's only eating clam on the half-shell at the moment.

After losing more than half of an order of fish from LA due to bacteria, I decided to hit this run pretty hard in the opposite direction. Please understand - I would not recommend doing this - but so-far-so-good. By preference, we'd treat for just one thing, with just one medication, at a time. At this precise point in the history of marine aquaria, I'm just not sure we have that option.

~Bruce

Honestly this^^^^ is the only way I could overcome the losses as well. It definitely requires additional attention and isn't the way I'd prefer to treat fish. It may be the only way for now. Unless you are treating one or two fish at a time.

 

[FrenchAngel]

Honestly this^^^^ is the only way I could overcome the losses as well. It definitely requires additional attention and isn't the way I'd prefer to treat fish. It may be the only way for now. Unless you are treating one or two fish at a time.

The lesser of two evils I guess. It's either you risk losing a huge batch of fish because one of several potential diseases/parasites (and you do not know which one until it is too late) pops up fast, or you gamble with the pea soup of medications which might result in some fish responding negatively (dying?) to the vigorous treatment.

 

[HotRocks]

The lesser of two evils I guess. It's either you risk losing a huge batch of fish because one of several potential diseases/parasites (and you do not know which one until it is too late) pops up fast, or you gamble with the pea soup of medications which might result in some fish responding negatively (dying?) to the vigorous treatment.

It's true, it's also very controversial.

You have to do what works for you, that's what's most important. I have only lost around 4 fish out of +/-30 since switching to this. They were all very explainable. Things like spinal injury with wrasse, an idol so covered in velvet on day one that it didn't stand a chance. One fish had a shipping injury to mouth and wouldn't eat. No unexplainable deaths like waking up in the am to fish gone that were fine the night before. (Previous experiences)

Another 16 fish arriving Saturday!!!

 

[FrenchAngel]

It's true, it's also very controversial.

You have to do what works for you, that's what's most important. I have only lost around 4 fish out of +/-30 since switching to this. They were all very explainable. Things like spinal injury with wrasse, an idol so covered in velvet on day one that it didn't stand a chance. One fish had a shipping injury to mouth and wouldn't eat. No unexplainable deaths like waking up in the am to fish gone that were fine the night before. (Previous experiences)

Another 16 fish arriving Saturday!!!

I have definitely had my heartache with fish dying for no clear reason, including from online orders. These days I just go the the LFS as I live in SoCal and we have a huge number of big stores to choose from that are pretty close my house. I just try my absolute best to carefully inspect the fish to see if their appearance/condition/behavior/appetite all look good. I like being able to pick out the fish based on the size and appearance that I want before buying. I also usually get a far better price then Divers Den WYSIWYG as well.

To switch gears, I was wondering about Metroplex dosing. The instructions state to use 1-2 measures per 10 gallons. While I have thought that 1 measure per 10 gallons would be enough (and be more frugal with the amounts used), would it be better to use 2 measures per 10 gallons (ie maybe it would have a better chance of curing the fish) without adverse effects to the fish?

 

[HotRocks]

I have always used a single measure. It is usually a high enough concentration to take care of whatever you may be targeting. If you ran into a strain of Brook that was resistant then you should increase the dose. I would only increase in a "have to situation". Once you overdose a fish there usually isn't any recovering from the overdose. Although it may be a risk worth taking if the parasite at hand has a resistance and will end up taking the fish anyway. Make sense?

 

[FrenchAngel]

I have always used a single measure. It is usually a high enough concentration to take care of whatever you may be targeting. If you ran into a strain of Brook that was resistant then you should increase the dose. I would only increase in a "have to situation". Once you overdose a fish there usually isn't any recovering from the overdose. Although it may be a risk worth taking if the parasite at hand has a resistance and will end up taking the fish anyway. Make sense?

Yes, makes sense. One measure is what I have used before but was unsure if 2 measures would be better under normal circumstances (unless like you said, you were in a desperate situation with a more resistant line).