Flame angel copper treatment article

[wayne in norway]

Hello, I do not often post here so if this is covered elsewhere ( I have not found) please redirect me.... but ....

Perhaps we should have a discussion round this, after reading this interesting article...
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/10/breeder

Now I've seen numerous references to flame angels being sensitive to copper, but at the same time my flame and other Centropyge I've owned have been through copper treatment and have survived. This has been to treat both Crypt and Velvet, the latter being particularly aggressive i.m.e. This article is pretty tough on copper treatment, but I am no longer so keen on hyposalinity as a comprehensive treatment. The occurence of hypo resistant ich means it is no longer guaranteed effective, and some fish, including centropyge and tangs do not always do as well as I had hoped in hyposalinity. Copper has always proven effective for me.

Looking at the article some things stand out to me. They kill a lot of fish in group A by exposing them to levels of Cu that I would consider dangerously toxic. They only kill one fish in group B, and then they admit they might have had temporarily toxic levels of copper. The levels of Cu they expose the fish to are greater than the normally recommended range to be effective. Am I misreading the size of the sample groups?

So my take away reading from this, and my own experience is that copper is a dangerous drug to use, but can be used with care to avoid overdosing. That means routine testing with a test kit to make sure CU does not exceed 0.2 mg/l

Any more comments? Thoughts. If copper is out, and hypo not guaranteed, what is a quick, effective treatment for fish in a advanced stage of Cryptocaryon that has been demonstrated to work?

 

[Anonymous]

Look into formalin (formaldehyde-based) treatments. I believe one Charles Delbeek has written a good bit on its use. It's what LBAOP uses (or used when I was there) on the butterflies.

 

[dvmsn]

I use Methyl blue as a dip before I introduce a fish to the tank. It is what Bob Fenner recommends. They say that is is very gentle. I have used it with very good results.

I have never used copper based treatments. When I worked in the lfs, we used them and I never liked the way the fish reacted. I think this study confirms that the the cure is as bad as the disease.

 

[jhemdal1]

Wayne,

I read that article. Let me say from the start that Advanced Aquarist is my favorite magazine, either online or print. I preferentially send them my best articles now because I want to support what I see as a winning format.
That said, this study left me with some unresolved questions. My first concern is that while it was written as a peer-reviewed study, it wasn't published in a journal that offers that type of critical review. I would have rather seen it peer-reviewed, as I had some question about the accuracy of their methods, and reviewers would have had that clarified first - for example, why did they use a propietary copper compound, "Paracure" rather than making up their own copper sulfate stock solution? The latter is easy to do, and avoids any variables thrown in by the use of some unknown compound in a commercial product. Second, I could not understand why they used LaMotte copper tests and the bicinchoninate method instead of the more accurate porphyrin method. I would never consider dosing a tank with copper unless I had access to that method of testing. I may have missed it, but I did not see where the cause of death in the angelfish was confirmed by professional post-mortem exam. They needed to positively tie cause and effect together in order to prove their hypothesis.
Now, I can't spell worth a darn, but I can use a spell-checker. The five or so incorrectly spelled words that I saw cast some doubt of the accuracy of the rest of the material....

Finally, just to add some anecdotal information - I no longer expose flame angels to copper during quarantine, I agree that they are ultra sensitive to it. Even other Centropyge seem to handle copper much better than flames. However, if dosed properly, it can be done with much lower mortality. The way you do it is this: bring the fish in and stabilize them in the system that will serve as quarantine. Using a spectrophotometer and copper sulfate / citric acid additions, slowly ramp the copper level up over the course of five days to 0.19 ppm. Hold the fish between 0.19 and 0.20 for 14 days, then remove the copper through water changes. Never do this while trying hyposalinity. I have also never seen acute copper toxicity in flame angels when an organically chelated copper product was used (Coppersafe, etc.).

In terms of the reduced fecundity in the dottybacks - I would never dose any actively breeding fish with copper, so that information isn't really usable to me - but if I did, I certainly would expect to see the issues that they report on.

Copper is still at the core of my marine fish quarantine protocol.....

Jay

 

[Anonymous]

Excellent info Jay!