Yeo: Copper Treatment - Seachem Cupramine

As the last posting, I have a incoming electrical circuit breaker trip that resulted in many fishes died and followed by an major ich outbreak in the tanks that also killed most of the remaining fishes.

I would like to share my experience learnt from this unfortunate incident.

Due to lack of oxygen, the fishes that did not died during the electrical trip are very weak and ich easily inflected them. I have tried many treatment methods and medicine from SeaChem Paragaurd, AquaPharm Cure Ich, Waterlife Octozin, API Pimafix, Metafix that are mostly reef-safe. For a major outbreak, those medicines are not so effective at all. I also have UVs installed in the tanks. UV will only help to kill the water floating ich not inside the fishes and in the sand ich parasite.

I have no choice to use copper treatment. All the corals and anemones died during the various treatment methods and medicines even the medicine said it is reef safe. Prolong using of any medicine will kill the corals. Cupramine is the best medicine I found to treat ich, however it will definitely kill the corals.

Slowly increase the Copper level. Due to the rocks absorbing the copper, it will take more doses. If the tank volume is 40l, dose 1ml of cupramine per day, continue to dose everyday until copper level reach about 0.25 to 0.5 ppm. You need to continue test the copper level in the tank everyday when you are adding the cupramine.

For my tank , it takes 7 days to reach the recommended level, reminder increase slowly to prevent stress on the fishes.

When you change water, you need to add the amount of cupramine that corresponding to the volume of top up. Maintain the level for 3 weeks after the recommended level have reached.

My hermit crabs survive the treatment, not other anemones and corals. Some fishes already in very bad health eventually died.

Use saltmix during the treatment as NSW may contain ich. I also drops the sg to 1.017 to 1.02 to reduce stress on the fishes.

After 3 weeks, do water change without add anymore cupramine. The copper level will slowly decrease so it will prevent sudden change in the water condition.

During the copper treatment, the tank because a quarantine tank, so it is the best time to add new fishes and rethink the type of fishes to be added.

Reminder you should maintain the recommended copper level for aleast a week after the last fish has added. This is to ensure the ich parasite that is inside the new fish will drop off from the new fish and killed by the copper in the water and in the sand and rocks. So the parasite will not multiply.

Based on my experiences, the recommended copper level can not be maintained from more than 5-6 weeks, this is because copper are toxic and it will cause other problems. I will discuss it next time.

Just to add on on copper treatment, the copper treatment only can be done if your tank is fully cycled and fully matured with no corals and inverts. If you tank is still cycling, adding copper will lengthen your cycling time. I advise not to use any copper treatment during cycling of tank. First of all, you should not be adding any fishes during the cycling process.

You can add fishes during the copper treatment, however you need to ensure the quality of the water that is ANN. Ensure the ANN is prefect are very important. Some may ask why the ANN are zero and the fish still got sick. ANN is a pre-requestic for the fish to live and does not mean good quality of water means no parasitic and diseases in the water.

Copper treatment does not cure marine flukes and worms in the fish. Furthermore, it does not stop other fishes from bullying the fish until it dies, will also be discuss on adding new fishes in the tank to reduce bullying and other disease treatments .

Below is my tanks on 27 Aug 11 after copper treatment done.