Theoretically...only 9 days of cupramine for ich?

[Shilpan Patel]

Hey guys! Sorry to keep posting I’m just learning about ich and copper and I have all these questions. I’ve currently got a sailfin tang in quarantine that I plan to keep in there for a month. Then after the month is up, WITHOUT lowering the copper, catch it, FW dip it for a fluke test, and then put it in a bucket, lower copper in the bucket using cuprisorb then straight into my display.

I was thinking since Ich only has that feeding stage on the tang for 9 days, wouldn’t it make sense that copper treatment a day or two over 9 days would be sufficient to get rid of the ich by having it fall off the fish? The ich would still be in the QT of course but none would be on the fish.

Or is the reason people don’t do this because it leaves too little room for error?

 

[ZachR32]

You can do tank transfer method in as little as 13 days

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Ah yes I’ve looked into that, but it’s a bit costly for a tang. Given I have a 40 gallon tank and I’d need another one which is appropriate size plus all the salt water used.

I might try it next time for a smaller fish though using buckets.

 

[Rython]

Plus TTM only covers you for Ich, and copper covers you for velvet too, which is arguably just as common these days. And speaking from experience here, TTM is super annoying. I'd personally rather do a month long easy treatment with a biofilter than a 2 week long treatment that requires a ton of work where ammonia is a much greater threat. With the chelated copper + hanna checker methodology now, at least for me, copper treatment is the obvious choice.

As for your original question, i'm not sure the answer. My guesses would be (1) copper isn't perfectly effective so you need to go through 2 ich lifecycles to have a high probability of eradication or (2) the recommended duration is to cover you for velvet too, since it looks so much like ich. I'll be curious to see what the experts have to say.

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

Yes, 10 days is sufficient if the fish is moved to a clear tank.

I observe after that to make sure all is well before going in to dt.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Oh wow so you’ve done this before and you find that the fish don’t get re-occurrence of ich?

I’ll obviously be doing longer than 10 days, this is my first time using cupramine and I don’t trust myself to have everything perfect the first time.

 

[kwan8911]

Plus TTM only covers you for Ich, and copper covers you for velvet too, which is arguably just as common these days. And speaking from experience here, TTM is super annoying. I'd personally rather do a month long easy treatment with a biofilter than a 2 week long treatment that requires a ton of work where ammonia is a much greater threat. With the chelated copper + hanna checker methodology now, at least for me, copper treatment is the obvious choice.

As for your original question, i'm not sure the answer. My guesses would be (1) copper isn't perfectly effective so you need to go through 2 ich lifecycles to have a high probability of eradication or (2) the recommended duration is to cover you for velvet too, since it looks so much like ich. I'll be curious to see what the experts have to say.

From my personal experience, I don’t believe cooper can 100% kill free swimming ich in the water. I am currently treating ich in a QT tank, and I always maintained 2.5ppm cooper using cooper safe and Hanna checker. I am still seeing white spot on fish after 2 weeks. But at around 4-5 weeks, the ich are gone. It should correspond to 2 ich life cycle.

So when you keep fish in cooper for 10 days, there are some chances that the ich fall off on day 1, hatched, and reattach on fish on day 7. So your fish will still be carrying ich on day 10.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

I see, and that’s probably why SeaChem also suggests 14 days of treatment, because copper must not be 100% effective at therapeutic dose.

Ok thank you for that guys. Another reason to continue my Tang quarantine well past 14 days.

 

[Rython]

Tangs in particular are so high risk that I think you're being prudent to go beyond the theoretical bare minimum duration.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I would also shoot for closer to 30 days to be safe. While theoretically it might work, I personally wouldn't risk having to go fallow.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Wise advice crabs, I just went through a 16 weeks fallow last year and that was not fun...

 

[Humblefish]

Yes, 10 days is sufficient if the fish is moved to a clear tank.

I observe after that to make sure all is well before going in to dt.

+1 I've tested this approach on 68 different fish that had either ich, velvet, brook or uronema and it worked every single time.

However, I used Chloroquine on the vast majority of the fish - not copper.

 

[Mini Coop]

I’m hi-jacking with my own question. So 10 days in chloroquine then to a fresh tank would work. OR if you can’t do a completley fresh tank, 30 days at therapeutic would be effective?

 

[ihavecrabs]

I’m hi-jacking with my own question. So 10 days in chloroquine then to a fresh tank would work. OR if you can’t do a completley fresh tank, 30 days at therapeutic would be effective?

Yes! Be sure you are testing and making sure you do not dip below therapeutic levels though!

@Humblefish Would you suggest people first starting out their QT experience to use the 30-day vs 10-day as it may be more forgiving?

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

I'm not humblefish of course, but I actually find a 10 day course of treatment more forgiving. 10 days is far less time for meds to break down, get absorbed etc. Less testing and therefore less chance of error if using copper( I use cp).

10 days is also less exposure time to harsh meds, less time to deal with ammonia, less chances for a dosage mistake during water changes, less feeding issues due to meds or cramped qt. 10 days also let's you address lower priority issues sooner, maybe flukes, internal parasites, bacterial infections and so on.

The drawback is you need another system to move the fish into after 10 days and it should be in a different room than the treatment or display tanks.

Personally, I use cp for 10 days. Then move to an observation tank to continue the qt process.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I'm not humblefish of course, but I actually find a 10 day course of treatment more forgiving. 10 days is far less time for meds to break down, get absorbed etc. Less testing and therefore less chance of error if using copper( I use cp).

10 days is also less exposure time to harsh meds, less time to deal with ammonia, less chances for a dosage mistake during water changes, less feeding issues due to meds or cramped qt. 10 days also let's you address lower priority issues sooner, maybe flukes, internal parasites, bacterial infections and so on.

The drawback is you need another system to move the fish into after 10 days and it should be in a different room than the treatment or display tanks.

Personally, I use cp for 10 days. Then move to an observation tank to continue the qt process.

Very good points.. Do you black molly test as well or just observe?

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

Regarding ich and velvet, I just observe after the CP treatment. I go a minimum of 30 days after cp, but usually more depending on what else I treat for.

Molly test may be a good idea as an easy test, but I have never used it.

 

[Humblefish]

@Humblefish Would you suggest people first starting out their QT experience to use the 30-day vs 10-day as it may be more forgiving?

10 days allows no margin for error; 14 days might be a little more forgiving. I haven't had any instances of parasites making it through (as mentioned above), but prazi resistant flukes & turbellarians are more common than I thought. Also, bacterial infections will sometimes pop up post treatment. So, only treating for 10-14 days and then transferring the fish straight into your DT is a really bad idea. You need that second QT as a buffer in case additional treatment is required.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my questions. I don’t have a second quarantine tank so I will do the full 3 or 4 weeks, then NOT lower the copper, do a FW dip to test for flukes, and assuming no flukes I’ll put the fish into my display (acclimatising of course).
I hope we are able to get CP soon....sounds great.

I also didn’t think that waiting for 30 days allows me to observe for other infections like bacterial infections, so thank you I assume these will still show up in copper.

I’m testing cupramine daily and it’s above 0.4, so I’m happy with it being maintained it above 0.3.

 

[Mini Coop]

10 days allows no margin for error; 14 days might be a little more forgiving. I haven't had any instances of parasites making it through (as mentioned above), but prazi resistant flukes & turbellarians are more common than I thought. Also, bacterial infections will sometimes pop up post treatment. So, only treating for 10-14 days and then transferring the fish straight into your DT is a really bad idea. You need that second QT as a buffer in case additional treatment is required.

I have the Naso and powder blue tangs in QT. I also do not have another QT to move them to. So I should do a full 30 day treatment (if they need it) and move directly to DT rather than WC to lower copper and observe for 2 weeks? Just trying to clarify. I usually do 30 days of copper and transfer to new QT (good to know 14 is fine). But don’t have that option with these 2.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Did they have ich before? Or is this prophylactic treatment?

Theoretically from what those above said, 30 days treatment will mean no ich on the fish. And probably no cysts but who knows you could have one of those bad strains.

Moving them immediately to DT means you don’t have to worry about those freak cysts re-infecting your fish. But the risk you take is that if the copper treatment wasn’t successful (e.g it dipped below 0.3) then your fish could have suppressed ich. So I guess it depends on how confident you are that your treatment was successful. If not then I would consider leaving them in the QT and observing. Better they get ich and you re-treat them then infecting the DT.

At least this is what I believe Humblefish means.