Cupramine with Amquel ... ?

[jdg]

Is this 'allowed'? I'm dosing Cupramine and I'm afraid that I might end up with ammonia I can't control. I figured I'd use Amquel to keep the ammonia in check ... will this throw things off?

Also, what do I do with the power heads and stuff that I use in this tank? How do I 'un-copper-ify' them when all is said and done? Also, the Cupramine bottle indicates 14 days of treatment; though it appears as though the recommendation is 28. Should I go with the full (4) weeks using this product? If so, I have no idea how I'm going to keep the ammonia down without using Amqel or something similar.

I imagine water changes won't be acceptable either as they'll lower the Cupramine concentration for awhile. How long is a lower dosage okay for? If I do a water change, how long do I have to get the concentration of Cupramine back up before I enter 'start over' time?

Thanks in advance!

Joe.

[anthem]

-14 days of treatment with cupramine is fine.

-if you do not have a cycled filter, you will have to do water changes to keep your water chemistry safe. And we're not talking the little dinky water changes like 10%. We're talking 50% water changes which dilute the level by 1/2. The less you feed, the less ammonia is in the water.

-You should at a minimum measure the copper once a day - preferably twice. Generally its quite easy to determine how much more cupramine to dose, its like 1ml per 10 gallons per 0.25 ppm. If you have a 20 gallon tank and you replace 10 gallons and your cupramine level is at 0.50, then you're going to need 2 more ml to get the level back to 0.50.

-NEVER EVER use any water treatment products with copper compounds. You will suffer a complete loss. The water treatment products basically break down the copper amine product to a copper that is 10x more deadly than the copper amine compound.

[anthem]

-14 days of treatment with cupramine is fine.

-if you do not have a cycled filter, you will have to do water changes to keep your water chemistry safe. And we're not talking the little dinky water changes like 10%. We're talking 50% water changes which dilute the level by 1/2. The less you feed, the less ammonia is in the water.

-You should at a minimum measure the copper once a day - preferably twice. Generally its quite easy to determine how much more cupramine to dose, its like 1ml per 10 gallons per 0.25 ppm. If you have a 20 gallon tank and you replace 10 gallons and your cupramine level is at 0.50, then you're going to need 2 more ml to get the level back to 0.50.

-NEVER EVER use any water treatment products with copper compounds. You will suffer a complete loss. The water treatment products basically break down the copper amine product to a copper that is 10x more deadly than the copper amine compound.

[anthem]

-14 days of treatment with cupramine is fine.

-if you do not have a cycled filter, you will have to do water changes to keep your water chemistry safe. And we're not talking the little dinky water changes like 10%. We're talking 50% water changes which dilute the level by 1/2. The less you feed, the less ammonia is in the water.

-You should at a minimum measure the copper once a day - preferably twice. Generally its quite easy to determine how much more cupramine to dose, its like 1ml per 10 gallons per 0.25 ppm. If you have a 20 gallon tank and you replace 10 gallons and your cupramine level is at 0.50, then you're going to need 2 more ml to get the level back to 0.50.

-NEVER EVER use any water treatment products with copper compounds. You will suffer a complete loss. The water treatment products basically break down the copper amine product to a copper that is 10x more deadly than the copper amine compound.

[anthem]

-14 days of treatment with cupramine is fine.

-if you do not have a cycled filter, you will have to do water changes to keep your water chemistry safe. And we're not talking the little dinky water changes like 10%. We're talking 50% water changes which dilute the level by 1/2. The less you feed, the less ammonia is in the water.

-You should at a minimum measure the copper once a day - preferably twice. Generally its quite easy to determine how much more cupramine to dose, its like 1ml per 10 gallons per 0.25 ppm. If you have a 20 gallon tank and you replace 10 gallons and your cupramine level is at 0.50, then you're going to need 2 more ml to get the level back to 0.50.

-NEVER EVER use any water treatment products with copper compounds. You will suffer a complete loss. The water treatment products basically break down the copper amine product to a copper that is 10x more deadly than the copper amine compound.

[jdg]

Wow ... lotta replies ... they all said the same thing though ... :D

I'll go ahead with the water changes ... not sure what the cupramine level is though since it says to dose, then wait 48 hours before re-dosing.

I'll go ahead with the water changes and do like a 50% change at a time ... question though ... if I use buckets to change out the water, those buckets will then have copper-ified water in them. Are those buckets now un-safe to use with any other system? Basically. how do I 'clean' stuff to make it usable again without having to worry about contaminating with copper?

Also, I need to leave the main tank fallow for like 4 weeks at least ... so ... if I stop dosing copper in the QT after 14 days, do I just slowly do water changes for the next 2 weeks to get the Ammonia down and start to dilute the copper out of the system? Or, since I'm going to have it the specimens in there for 4 weeks anyways, should I just keep the cupramine levels at .50ppm.

Also, if I add cupramine to the water ... how long do I need to wait before I can test with SeaChem's kits for them to give me an accurate result?

It's only been a little over 24 hours, so I'm going to continue waiting it out -- No feeding today. Tomorrow evening, I'm supposed to re-test and re-dose to get the levels to .50ppm. We'll see how it goes. :)

I plan to feed ever-so-lightly tomorrow. I'm thinking about feeding every other day to keep the Ammonia levels down ... is this a good idea or is it too harsh on the fish? I figure they can probably go 7-10 days without eating, but why put them through that?

Thanks in advance for past and future comments! :)

Joe.

[anthem]

RC was having a lot of trouble there. Didn't get to edit it in time. It was that repeatedly hitting "submit reply" with the "Sorry we're currently doing maintenance message" that kept coming up .. .

[jdg]

Yup ... I got that as well ... any thoughts on my additional questions/concerns ... ? please? :D

Thanks in advance!

Joe.

[anthem]

Do water changes to remove, or use carbon/cuprasorb. Both will readily remove it. A trace amount in a quarantine tank will be fine.

Don't worry about the minute trace amounts in mixing bowls. A good wash down will be fine. Just don't immediately acclimate snails in the bucket next. After a couple of uses, there shouldn't be any traces left. Copper if anything leaches into some silicone, but not much if any into glass and hardened plastic.

Cupramine in the system with an airhead should be fully dissolved into the water within a few minutes. You can wait half an hour to an hour if you're concerned.

You can dose to 0.50 in the next day. No real reason to wait two days. The effective dosage for cryptocaryon is I believe 0.25-0.30, so you really need it north of that to start having an effect of killing off the free swimming stage.

If you don't have a cycled filter in there - put your fish through the feeding every other day. Even then, you may still have to do daily water changes. Measure water chemistry carefully.

[jdg]

Doh! I had a thought. I have a completely cycled 180g system that has a few of those sponge blocks in the sump to help trap bubbles going between baffles. Would that help if I just place it in the QT tank? If so, does just putting it in the tank suffice or do I need to stick it near the powerhead input/output?

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!!

Joe.