New clownfish breathing very heavily

[vetteguy53081]

How fast did you raise it to that level? When I use copper...it takes DAYS to get there. What test kit? Hanna? If the level was 2.5 when the fish was added it's usually a problem. Slow is fine. Fast is not. Let us know.

It does not and should not take days and you do not want to ramp copper but achieve full therapeutic levels in 24 to 36 hours and at full dose is desired, not a problem.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Read his 2nd post. I agree 100% with this.

Copper treatment

Copper treatment What It Treats – Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) and Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum). There is some anecdotal evidence that copper will suppress symptoms of Brooklynella hostilis and Uronema marinum; however it is unlikely to completely eradicate either. How...

www.reef2reef.com

This is a post from 2015 in which protocol has changed at least 3X and ramping offers no advantages but rather risk as stages of parasite move quickly. So youre saying every tank in LFS has dead fish when they introduced their fish and every person who followed the correct protocol has killed their fish ?

 

[tgrick]

This is a post from 2015 in which protocol has changed at least 3X and ramping offers no advantages but rater risk as stages of parasite move quickly. So youre saying every tank in LFS has dead fish when they introduced their fish and every person who followed the correct protocol has killed their fish ?

It comes down to the fish and the situation.

I'm not going to buy a fish that looks bad. I assume they all carry disease when they are purchased. If you are buying a fish and throwing it in high copper, I believe that you are making a mistake. You should not have purchased a sick fish. I stand by my statement, that is I have never had success when I have placed a fish in high copper. Granted, we did not have digital tests at the time, and you had to eyeball the colors as best as possible. So that's a factor. But I have had great success doing it slowly and it works for me. YMMV.

The clown is in distress. Do we really need to keep him in high levels of copper? I don't think so. If he has velvet he needs other treatment as well, like acriflavine. Either way you run a risk.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I did 1.3 then 2.5 over the course of 2 days , should I lower it? And it was breathing heavy since before I put it in the qt

Thanks for posting all the videos and the problem report. I've been pretty sick and am just getting back into the swing of things....

Don't lower the coppersafe. Clowns tolerate it very well, and since you don't know what the issue is, best to cover that base. You lost the first fish before you added copper, so there is obviously a problem that is not copper related. The three common issues for not eating and rapid breathing are: low dissolved oxygen, improper water quality or gill disease. Adding a good air stone takes care of the first issue. Copper helps with the last issue (but not if it is bacterial gill disease) and testing will tell you if it is the second issue. However, moving the fish to a new tank also resolves the first and third issues, so I would concentrate on the gill disease angle.

A couple of points - coppersafe is a very mild medication, that also means that it takes longer to cure. One artifact of that is that once you have lost fish to a disease, it is very common to lose other fish since it takes time to work.

It has become entrenched in the hobby that copper must be raised slowly. This is incorrect and is only true for the old ionic coppers, not amine based copper products like copper power or coppersafe. What happens is that this information gets widely spread, and then people think, if 2 days is good, then 4 must be better. The trouble is, it takes up to three days for coppersafe to control active protozoan diseases. If you take 2 days to get to full copper, then that is 5 total and some diseases will kill the fish sooner than that. Dealers (and myself) routinely move fish straight into full coppersafe with no issues.

Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks for posting all the videos and the problem report. I've been pretty sick and am just getting back into the swing of things....

Don't lower the coppersafe. Clowns tolerate it very well, and since you don't know what the issue is, best to cover that base. You lost the first fish before you added copper, so there is obviously a problem that is not copper related. The three common issues for not eating and rapid breathing are: low dissolved oxygen, improper water quality or gill disease. Adding a good air stone takes care of the first issue. Copper helps with the last issue (but not if it is bacterial gill disease) and testing will tell you if it is the second issue. However, moving the fish to a new tank also resolves the first and third issues, so I would concentrate on the gill disease angle.

A couple of points - coppersafe is a very mild medication, that also means that it takes longer to cure. One artifact of that is that once you have lost fish to a disease, it is very common to lose other fish since it takes time to work.

It has become entrenched in the hobby that copper must be raised slowly. This is incorrect and is only true for the old ionic coppers, not amine based copper products like copper power or coppersafe. What happens is that this information gets widely spread, and then people think, if 2 days is good, then 4 must be better. The trouble is, it takes up to three days for coppersafe to control active protozoan diseases. If you take 2 days to get to full copper, then that is 5 total and some diseases will kill the fish sooner than that. Dealers (and myself) routinely move fish straight into full coppersafe with no issues.

Jay

At my LFS and many I know of- they too move fish from Shipment to straight copper quarantine.