Cupramine for Flame Angel

[marine_mini]

Hello,
Is it ok to use cupramine to treat a flame angel that has ich? I read that flame angels don't tolerate copper well at all, but it seems that some people have treated flame angels using cupramine with no apparent issues. Paraguard is not an option as I don't think it's available here in NZ

Thanks

[Tech Support EH]

Because some fish tend to be a bit more sensitive than others, there is no way to guarantee a medication 100% safe for any fish. Cupramine is the gentlest copper medication available, and most fish do very well with the treatment. We have had many people treat flame angels for for ich using Cupramine with no adverse effects on the fish. You may want to consider dosing the Cupramine to a lower concentration than recommended, as the therapeutic range begins at around 0.25ppm. As with any medication, the fish should be monitored for signs of stress during treatment, and you can increase the concentration to 0.5ppm once the fish seems to have acclimated to it.

[marine_mini]

Thanks for the response. So even if my angel doesn't die from the copper treatment, will there be any permanent damage to its organs?

[Tech Support EH]

When used as directed, Cupramine is completely safe and will not damage your fish's organs.

[marine_mini]

So I've decided to go ahead and treat my fish with cupramine. Because one of the fish is a flame angel, I'll be limiting the max concentration to about 0.3.
Because this is less than the recommended concentration, should i therefore treat the fish for a longer period of time? How long should I leave the copper concentration at this level for?

Also, I'm not 100% what I'm treating is ich. So please recommend a treating period that will kill most parasites.

Thank you

[Tech Support DD]

We typically recommend treating with Cupramine for at least three weeks. However, if your fish are handling the medication well, you can leave the copper concentration for at least four weeks (many people treat for one month; some, even longer). This length of treatment should eradicate most parasites.

[marine_mini]

We typically recommend treating with Cupramine for at least three weeks.

The directions for cupramine states treatment for 14 days. Are you recommending a longer treatment period because of the lower concentration that I'll be using?

[Tech Support DD]

Most parasites (ich included) have a 21 day life cycle. That is why we recommend treating for three weeks. If your fish are tolerating the medication well (and since you will be using a lower copper concentration), you can extend the length of treatment.