copper treatment w/ carbon filter? - coral beauty angel (pic)

I've recently purchased a new coral beauty angelfish. As i've found is quite usual, she didn't take to eating right off. I've had her a week now and yesterday was the first time i noticed her going after the frozen brine shrimp. However, in the meantime her fins and tail have starting to appear tattered (see pic), and this morning i noticed a white spot on the tail and top fin. I was thinking the fin appearance was a result of not eating, but the spots got me spooked.

The guy at the pet store recommended going ahead with a copper treatment in a quarantine tank. However, my 10-gal quarantine tank only has a small carbon filter (that is quite old). Is this going to counteract all the productivity of the copper additive? Or will the old charcoal leave enough copper in the water to still do some good?

So far the fish was still swimming around, mostly within the LR, and not appearing to act "sickly"....so i'm clinging to some hope.

Thanks,
Scott

 

Carbon will soak up the copper making it very hard to maintain proper levels for treatment. Do you have a test kit for copper?

~Will.

 

no test kit.....didn't even think about it when i bought the chemicals.

 

There only around $10-12 for an API test kit and IMO really should be sold as a kit with copper meds. Thats a rough looking dwarf angel, is it getting punked by something? What are your ammonia, trites and trates at? Also, what size tank and how long has it been up for?

For what its worth, I would never buy a fish I diddn't see eat first. Patience really pays off in this hobby in every aspect.

~Will.

 

Yeah i may run by and pick up a kit today...or at least take in a sample and get them to run it. The 75-gal tank has been set up for 7 or 8 years. As of last week i only had a (fairly large) oscellaris clown and lawnmower blenny....bought a new smaller clown (risky i know) along with this coral beauty and about 12 lbs of rock on Christmas eve. So with those fish i wouldn't think anything is bothering the angel and i definitely haven't witnessed it. I took a water sample yesterday to be tested and it was "zero's across the board"....nothing to indicate a problem but salinity was a bit high at 1.025.