Copper Sulfate

I tried not to do it, but I keep getting ich in my aquarium. My new fish that I got on Friday is starting to show small signs of ich. I closely watched the temperature this time and there was no temperature change! So it must have been the water quality that is causing the stress. I only have one fish in it (that's all that I've put in it in about four months), but I eventually want to keep other fish in there as well, since it is so cheap to get the fish here in Okinawa. I will probably be on the island less than a year and it's time to get something useful out of my aquarium.

I have also thought about minimizing the rocks in the aquarium and I don't have sand at the bottom of my aquarium. This will make it easier to get rid of the copper in the aquarium if I choose to take the copper out later on.

Before I pour in the Copper Sulfate, I will remove the invertebrates tonight.

I'm sure the Copper Sulfate will put a shock on my aquarium, but it will also get rid of the parasites attacking my fish.

Yes, it hurts to post this, but I want to do something before I throw the whole damn aquarium away.

1. Looking for your thoughts on what to do for easing the shock on the aquarium when I go to Copper Sulfate.

2. If I minimize the rocks in my aquarium, can I leave just a protein skimmer in there and only have about four rocks in to act as a biological filter with only fish in the aquarium?

Appreciate your thoughts and advice. Thanks.

Kermit

 

It might be a better idea to treat ich in a separate quarantine tank and try hyposalinity first before copper. I would never feel comfortable putting copper in a tank that will someday house inverts. I don't think you could ever completely remove the contaminate. Besides, copper is bad for your fishes liver and can compromise longterm health.

If you use a quarantine tank instead, you don't need any LR or sand. Just clean bottom with a PVC pipe or some place for the fish to hide. Add a power filter to keep water moving. Then make the salinity 1.009 and drop the fish straight in. You can keep the fish at this salinity for 2-3 weeks and then slowly bring the salinity back up to 1.023-1.025 over the next 3-4 weeks.

The one problem I foresee is that without removing all fish from the display tank for 6-12 months, there will be no way to guarantee that the ich won't come back. The best medicine is to keep the fish very healthy and the water very clean, thus relying on the fishes own immune system to keep it healthy thereafter.

 

I had an outbreak of what I thought was ich about five months ago. I gave the tank this long to let the parasite die off. I always thought they only needed about four weeks to die off, it's interesting to hear your .

Ultimately, if I take everything out of the aquarium except for the fish, will the protein skimmer in my sump be enough to filter the water? I also have a power head in the aquarium for circulation.

In the mean time, I'm just giving the fish as much time as I can before I make many changes to the system.

 

Marine ich is different than freshwater ich. The marine version could potentially lay dormant for much longer than the FW version. As for filtration, it will do nothing on its own for the ich--only time will. It is an obligate parasite, meaning that it cannot complete its lifecycle without consuming the flesh of a fish (some fish sp. are immune, btw). It can only lie dormant for so long, so eventually it will die off. It may take up to a year though.

 

My yellow tang had ick. I took him/her out and put in hosp tank the ick did go away with treatment. as soon as I put the tang back in the main tank ick again. So we picked up a cleaner shrimp and my fish has been ick free for 3mnths and doing well. Good luck.

 

Well, my fish is doing better than I thought. The two spots that I thought were ich have not developed much more. If he has ich, it's very small still and they have not grown out of control. I will hold off on treating with ich, and I have since put in a cleaner shrimp to keep anything the fish has under control. I also changed the salenity as suggested also. Now I'm giving it time and letting him get better instead of using copper.

 

No. The copper will soak in to the sand, rock, silicone on the tank, everything. Then slowly leach back out. If you dose copper in that tank, you may not be able to keep copper sensitive creatures EVER in that set-up again (or at least for many years).

 

This hasn't been mentioned but try soaking your fish's food in garlic or vitiman C. This will help boost the fish's immune system naturally.

I too am battling ich right now.

 

Everyone battles Ich at some point. DO NOT add copper to your display tank. You will regret it. There's a product called Kick-Ich that you may want to look into. There is some controversy on whether or not Cleaner Shrimp actually eat Ich, but it can't hurt. How big is the tank?

 

Coppersafe by mardel worked for my tangs. I only have live rock in my tank. The question is, will my live rock become dead base rock? Or is copper just bad for inverts?