This is 100% operator error, but I figured posting about it might be useful to others who might be as negligent as I was. I am a very experienced aquarist (had a 375 gallon FOWLR tank for 15 years) and earlier this year got back into it after a few years off because of work travel. I decided to do it right in every way--including running the full Humblefish quarantine procedure for every single fish. I set up two QT tanks--a 10 gallon and a 20 gallon. I bought only captive-bred fish. And proceeded to inadvertantly kill most of them...because I used Cupramine and instead of reading the Cupramine label which says to dose no more than 0.50 ppm, I blindly followed the quarantine procedure instructions which call for >2.00 ppm copper...using Coppersafe.
I overdosed at 5X. Most of the fish died quickly (within a week). I couldn't figure it out and blamed suppliers. So I tried three different suppliers. Same result each time. I was literally yesterday about to give up and switch to fresh water. I was already researching nature aquariums. Then on a whim I read the Cupramine label and the lightbulb went on. I have three remaining fish in the QT tank and they were hurting--very little movement and not eating. I quickly got the copper levels down to 0.50 ppm and, lo and behold, they now are swimming happily all around and eating like crazy (others before I tried moving to the other QT tank without copper out of a random attempt to try anything and many of them died--so there is no guarantee that a copper-overdosed fish will survive even when removed from the copper...the damage is sometimes done and irreversible apparently).
I feel terrible for the fish (and money) losses and am kicking myself. But I hope highlighting my mistake might help someone else avoid it.
I overdosed at 5X. Most of the fish died quickly (within a week). I couldn't figure it out and blamed suppliers. So I tried three different suppliers. Same result each time. I was literally yesterday about to give up and switch to fresh water. I was already researching nature aquariums. Then on a whim I read the Cupramine label and the lightbulb went on. I have three remaining fish in the QT tank and they were hurting--very little movement and not eating. I quickly got the copper levels down to 0.50 ppm and, lo and behold, they now are swimming happily all around and eating like crazy (others before I tried moving to the other QT tank without copper out of a random attempt to try anything and many of them died--so there is no guarantee that a copper-overdosed fish will survive even when removed from the copper...the damage is sometimes done and irreversible apparently).
I feel terrible for the fish (and money) losses and am kicking myself. But I hope highlighting my mistake might help someone else avoid it.