Copepods Vs Copper

I have some food for thought!

My friend keeps a FOWLR with some aggresive specimans inside. From time to time his fish have contracted white spot, and he has never hesitated to treat the whole tank with copper.

Now get this - i was looking at his tank last night, and i swear i have never seen as many pods in my entire life. More then in any fuge i have ever seen. They covered all sides of the tank and every rock was covered. Now i thought copper killed all inverts? And aren't copepods inverts?

I can tell you now - he has not added any new fish or rocks for at least a year and he treated with copper about 2 months ago!

Whats the deal?

 

Cu will kill inverts but I have treated tanks w/ it and have seen inverts live through it, snails are very sensitive as are most corals. It wouldn't surprise me if the cu is working its way out of the system or becoming bound to the sand. The Cu levels need to be kept at .015 to be effective at killing ick so what is most likely happening is the Cu is low enough to still be in the system but not high enough to kill the inverts/pods.
If he does W/C he is taking some of it out everytime..

Happy reefing!

 

copepods are actually used by the heavy metal industry (copper, lead, nickel, etc) in scientific tests to determine toxicity levels. However, they usually lower the salinity substantially to perform these tests to lower the amount of these elements that would naturally be in the water.

There is copper in NSW and ASW mixes. It's just a very small amount (i.e. trace element). Higher salinities actually protect copepods somewhat from both waterborne and foodborne copper.

If I had to take a guess, I would guess that your friend has to wipe his glass daily to get rid of phytoplankton on it and that a lot of the rocks have microalgaes on them.
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My second guess would be that your friend used an amine based copper formulation instead the more inexpensive copper sulphate products.

 

Inwall, unless he just bought a random Cu product, anything made for marine use is ionic whereas fresh water products are chelated..... Maybe he used a fresh water product?

A little anecdote, about a year ago I treated my 125 with Cu and did some large water changes and added Cuprisorb and then added inverts without any issue, including snails and corals....

 

yes he does have lots of algae - i cant gurantee its micro, but the algae on the glass i suppose, yes it could be phyto! And yes it does normally need wiping every day.
The Cu he uses is the Aquamedic branded one, the one that states that it naturally dispearse's within 21 days.
He also uses ozone (not while treating) which i guess oxidises the cu also.

I was just very surprised to see so many pods in a copper treated tank, but i guess its to do with the blend of copper and the higher salinity protecting the pods?

 

Cupramine is ionic as you stated but I consider it a much safer product than the others.

Cuprisorb is absolutely amazing. I like this product a lot.