Treating ich fighting ammonia

[HankstankXXL750]

@MnFish1 @brandon429 @ISpeakForTheSeas @vetteguy53081 @Jay Hemdal @lion king

sorry to tag everyone but you are some of the guys I seem to converse with and I need help. I have 4 large fish thin lined puffer, panther grouper, marbles Cat shark, and red volitan lion fish. Moved them from a 160 into my 210 that I lost everything to ich and then went fallow for 77 days. These fish got ich and I started trying to figure out what to do on 4/27. Once again getting caught with an ich issue when my QT system is full, I decided to move them into a 75 with a HOB that I have been running for months as a coral QT as I’m trying to keep this stuff out of my DT’s.

my best guess is that I had cysts that survived the fallow in low O2 areas like maybe in a canister filter I use on this tank?

So I moved all but the panther grouper into the 75 at 2.5 copper power and everything looked good for the first 3-4 days. Yesterday I added the panther grouper and my sea Chem alert badge started showing color change. So I dose prime and stability. Fed last night, dose P&S again this morning and prepped for a water change. Prior to water change ammonia at least 2.0 on Red Sea test. This after dosing P&S.

Changed out 40 gallons of water and dosed Copper power (got it to 2.75 is that too high should I swap some fresh mix to bring down) 2 Oz for the 40 gallons I thought I changed. And then dosed with P&S for 40 gallons.

Will the P&S keep ammonia from harming these fish (as long as I’m ready and able to do water changes if it spikes) or do I need to be doing daily water changes? Would moving tge FX-6 canister from their DT help (or does copper power kill the bacteria making it a waste of time)?

Of water changes am I better to do like two different 20 gallon a day or 1 40 gallon.

Thanks for any help.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

This question is a bit out of my wheelhouse, so hopefully the others will comment for you, but here's my two cents (edit: if you're confident that it's ich): I'd run hyposalinity (1.009) and do daily water changes (I'm not sure if one big one or two smaller ones would be better, but I'm kind of leaning towards the smaller ones to try and maintain a more constant water quality unless you have an ammonia spike).

Here's my reasoning for this:

Sharks and lions are generally believed to be sensitive to copper treatment, so you may want to run hyposalinity (1.009) instead of copper for treating the ich right now.

Coppersafe is not as toxic to sharks and rays as ionic copper is, but I normally don’t suggest dosing them at a full coppersafe dose,

Ime lions from copper tanks don't survive very long, rarely more than a year, most times much sooner.

I can't speak to the use of Stability, but with regards to the use of Prime, by all experimental accounts that I can find, it doesn't seem to do much (based on the links below, I'd guess that Prime would not help reduce the toxicity nor lower the amount of ammonia in the tank):

I’d love to know if it does anything useful. Don’t be fooled into assuming all hobby products do what they claim. Some some do not.

Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

This started when @Dan_P was looking at measuring NH3 with seneye and was curious about performance near zero NH3. I suggested trying Prime to artificially zero out the NH3 sensor, and the results were weird... so I checked with my seachem kit. Prime by Seachem is commonly used to treat tap...

www.reef2reef.com

Prime Does Not Remove Ammonia

Last August we discussed data that cast doubt on the ability of Prime to remove ammonia from artificial seawater. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/does-prime-actually-detoxify-free-ammonia-nh3.849985/ Since then, I continued the search for evidence that Prime removed ammonia from artificial...

www.reef2reef.com

For the fallow, I'd personally say to try again (making sure that the temp stays at or above 81F the whole time, and trying to make sure that there are no low O2 areas to worry about).

 

[Max93]

I’d run hypo as well. It’ll help almost immediately, do it over 3 days dropping the sg to 1.009.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

Thanks. Would have run hypo, but @Jay Hemdal told me it would not be safe for the shark. My understanding which I hope is true is that copper power is more or less the same product as copper safe. Otherwise I have not done a good thing for those two.
From the lion king quote it appears the lion won’t fair well as I ran full since every thread says if it drops below the level you have to start over.
Never done copper before. Generally do TTM but not feasible with this many fish of these sizes.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Thanks. Would have run hypo, but @Jay Hemdal told me it would not be safe for the shark. My understanding which I hope is true is that copper power is more or less the same product as copper safe. Otherwise I have not done a good thing for those two.
From the lion king quote it appears the lion won’t fair well as I ran full since every thread says if it drops below the level you have to start over.
Never done copper before. Generally do TTM but not feasible with this many fish of these sizes.

Interesting - now I’m curious what the best method of treatment is for the shark specifically (I’d defer to Jay Hemdal’s suggestions for treatment).

I’m genuinely curious as well about how the lion will hold up for you long term after the treatment - I’ve been wondering if coppersafe and copper power could be used with them safely for a while now (they’re both supposed to be safer/less toxic to the fish than the old copper treatments were).

Hopefully all goes well for you no matter what treatment you use - good luck!

 

[HankstankXXL750]

Interesting - now I’m curious what the best method of treatment is for the shark specifically (I’d defer to Jay Hemdal’s suggestions for treatment).

I’m genuinely curious as well about how the lion will hold up for you long term after the treatment - I’ve been wondering if coppersafe and copper power could be used with them safely for a while now (they’re both supposed to be safer/less toxic to the fish than the old copper treatments were).

Hopefully all goes well for you no matter what treatment you use - good luck!

Thanks

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Correct, sharks do not handle hyposalinity well. I've dosed hundreds of lionfish with copper and I've only had adverse reactions with ionic copper products, during the treatment itself. I asked the public aquarium list serve a month or so ago, and nobody has reported any latent mortality (+3 months or so) after using any medication.

Here is a possible issue though: I don't use ammonia binding products with amine-based copper medications. Other people do, I always wonder if THAT is what causes people to say "copper is dangerous".

The company that makes Cupramine comes right out and says you cannot use that with Prime, it breaks the ammonia/copper bond, releasing free copper that is highly toxic. What about Copper Power and Coppersafe? They don't say, because that is their competitor's products.

Amquel is safe with Coppersafe as far as I can tell, but it uses a different chemistry than Prime does.

Another issue - all reducing agents (like Prime) have very complicated chemistry. I won't profess to understand it all, except that a study that I did back in 1989 showed that these reducing agents react with different compounds at different rates, and if you add them in excess, they go on to react with new compounds....so, what if they preferentially bind with free ammonia first, but then, if you add a bit too much, they then break the copper ammonia bond?

I prefer to manage ammonia through biofiltration - using bottled bacteria if I have to, but seeded bio media is best. Water changes can be used in a pinch, but without biofiltration, even huge water changes often do not keep up.

Jay

 

[HankstankXXL750]

Correct, sharks do not handle hyposalinity well. I've dosed hundreds of lionfish with copper and I've only had adverse reactions with ionic copper products, during the treatment itself. I asked the public aquarium list serve a month or so ago, and nobody has reported any latent mortality (+3 months or so) after using any medication.

Here is a possible issue though: I don't use ammonia binding products with amine-based copper medications. Other people do, I always wonder if THAT is what causes people to say "copper is dangerous".

The company that makes Cupramine comes right out and says you cannot use that with Prime, it breaks the ammonia/copper bond, releasing free copper that is highly toxic. What about Copper Power and Coppersafe? They don't say, because that is their competitor's products.

Amquel is safe with Coppersafe as far as I can tell, but it uses a different chemistry than Prime does.

Another issue - all reducing agents (like Prime) have very complicated chemistry. I won't profess to understand it all, except that a study that I did back in 1989 showed that these reducing agents react with different compounds at different rates, and if you add them in excess, they go on to react with new compounds....so, what if they preferentially bind with free ammonia first, but then, if you add a bit too much, they then break the copper ammonia bond?

I prefer to manage ammonia through biofiltration - using bottled bacteria if I have to, but seeded bio media is best. Water changes can be used in a pinch, but without biofiltration, even huge water changes often do not keep up.

Jay

Thanks. I will add the FX-6. Is dosing copper power to 2.5 the correct way. As many state lower doses don’t kill ich just weaken it?

 

[vetteguy53081]

This question is a bit out of my wheelhouse, so hopefully the others will comment for you, but here's my two cents (edit: if you're confident that it's ich): I'd run hyposalinity (1.009) and do daily water changes (I'm not sure if one big one or two smaller ones would be better, but I'm kind of leaning towards the smaller ones to try and maintain a more constant water quality unless you have an ammonia spike).

Here's my reasoning for this:

Sharks and lions are generally believed to be sensitive to copper treatment, so you may want to run hyposalinity (1.009) instead of copper for treating the ich right now.


I can't speak to the use of Stability, but with regards to the use of Prime, by all experimental accounts that I can find, it doesn't seem to do much (based on the links below, I'd guess that Prime would not help reduce the toxicity nor lower the amount of ammonia in the tank):

Prime Does Not Remove Ammonia

Last August we discussed data that cast doubt on the ability of Prime to remove ammonia from artificial seawater. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/does-prime-actually-detoxify-free-ammonia-nh3.849985/ Since then, I continued the search for evidence that Prime removed ammonia from artificial...

www.reef2reef.com

For the fallow, I'd personally say to try again (making sure that the temp stays at or above 81F the whole time, and trying to make sure that there are no low O2 areas to worry about).

No Hypo for sharks. Will take them downand same applies to most scaleless species

 

[Spare time]

Just dump a massive bottle of cycling bacteria in with some plastic bioballs or biosponges for the ammonia concern.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks. I will add the FX-6. Is dosing copper power to 2.5 the correct way. As many state lower doses don’t kill ich just weaken it?

That's a tough call: Copper Power, dosed according to label instructions, tests out at 2 ppm. Many people report that they need to go up to 2.5 for velvet. I use coppersafe, and that doses out to 2.5 ppm. I would go to 2 ppm, and then, see if the parasite load drops back (that takes up to 3 days to see a change). If the parasite load increases, go to 2.5

Jay