My tank is about two months old and I have two clownfish and a clown goby. They all have ich I have a quarantine tank going and I bought cupramine at the store how do I dose it correctly. It’s a ten gallon tank filled to about 9 gallons. With a filter and heater.
Flippers4pups
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Follow directions and measure with Hanna checker. Start at half dose for 24 hours then slowly increase to full dose over 1-2 days
Big G
captain dunsel
You may want to be careful with Cupramine. It's therapeutic range 0.50 ppm is pretty narrow compared to a "chelated copper" like Copper Power.
Good on you for measuring the capacity of your tank including filter. That makes the math pretty easy.
Ignore the directions on the bottle. Two big doses can be very harsh on some fish.
9 gallons need 4 drops per gallon to reach therapeutic level. So that's a total of 36 drops. Ideally you would want to slowly add those drops over 4-5 days. So if you shoot for 4 days, that's 9 drops per day. Consider dosing 3 drops in the morning, 3 at noon, 3 in the evening = your 9 drops per day. Do this for 4 days. This allows you the luxury of watching for a copper sensitive fish.
When doing water changes pre-mix the new saltwater with Cupramine at 4 drops per gallon. Never let the copper drop below therapeutic level.
A Hanna HL Copper Checker would give you accurate data as you sneak up on therapeutic levels.
Anthony Scholfield
Valuable Member
Its my belief that the best way to rid your fish of ich is the tank transfer method and let your main display go fallow for approx. 80 days. There is a lot of info on this if you look into it. This is how i beat ich and am free of it completely.
Big G
captain dunsel
And welcome to R2R!
Sorry I forgot about the fallow period as someone mentioned. In your display tank you have to remove all of the fish for 76 days. Make sure to stir the sand a bit during the fallow period. Ich parasites can go dormant in areas of your tank that are anaerobic. So stirring the tank sand helps to reduce that possibility.
Anthony Scholfield
Valuable Member
I could be wrong but all my research has shown that ich has a very specific life cycle and does not go dormant, that is why the fallow period works. Ich will die without a fish host.
Big G
captain dunsel
Nature is always surprising us with its adaptability. Here's an article that may interest you.
Why a fallow period will sometimes fail
Understand what to do if your fallow period for Cryptocaryon irritans, marine ich, fails.
www.reef2reef.com
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