I bought a coral beauty from a big box store, knowing most likely it had ich. Hard to find in my area and a great price, so I decided it was a good excuse to buy a quarantine setup since I'll need it in the future anyway.
As expected, it started showing spots almost immediately in my QT. It was hard to tell in the low lit sell tank, but when I brought it back it definitely had ich. Treated with 1.65 ppm of Coppersafe (the bottle said therapeutic is 1.5-2.0ppm and I hard angels were copper sensitive). Using Hanna copper checker. Ever since that initial outbreak of white spots I haven't seen anything on the fish for about a week.
My question is: Can I move it to the display tank soon?
I heard copper treatment for ich should be 30 days, but that's if the main tank is infected. This is because the cyst stage is resistant to copper and it takes about 30 days to be sure ich runs its entire lifecycle, including the copper vulnerable stage.
In my case, I bought a new fish and plopped it straight into quarantine. Unless every fish in my display tank is an ich resistant monster, my display tank is ich free. The parasite SHOULD fall from the fish between 3-7 days. Free swimmers will be killed by the copper, and the cyst stage doesn't matter since I'm removing the fish. So by my estimation I should be able to move the coral beauty to the display around day 8 or 9 (counting after no sympoms)? Is this reasoning sound?
Timeline (indexed by day)
1: Got coral beauty, put in quarantine
2: Got Coppersafe, start ramp up. White spots start to show.
3: Ramp up.
4: Ramp up. White spots stop showing.
5: Therapeutic dose starts now. White spots completely gone.
6 - 9: Hanging out in quarantine.
10th day Current day (as of this posting). 5 days since symptom-free.
FWIW coral beauty is doing great. It's got a plastic fake tree it hangs out in. Tank is bare otherwise. Comes out to eat readily or just browse, and colors look good *big knock on wood*. It's a really cool and aptly named fish. I think it looks better than the ever-popular flame angels tbh. In the initial hiding phase I would stick a dropper in the fake tree and squeeze out frozen brine/spirulina to made sure it ate. By day 3 it would peck at the dropper tip for food, always gives me and the gf a laugh.
QT is a 40 gallon breeder. Filtration is a Fluval canister filter. Using a over-rated aerator for max oxygenation. Has the Seachem ammonia indicator (this thing is freaking awesome). Also has a cheap powerhead for flow.
As expected, it started showing spots almost immediately in my QT. It was hard to tell in the low lit sell tank, but when I brought it back it definitely had ich. Treated with 1.65 ppm of Coppersafe (the bottle said therapeutic is 1.5-2.0ppm and I hard angels were copper sensitive). Using Hanna copper checker. Ever since that initial outbreak of white spots I haven't seen anything on the fish for about a week.
My question is: Can I move it to the display tank soon?
I heard copper treatment for ich should be 30 days, but that's if the main tank is infected. This is because the cyst stage is resistant to copper and it takes about 30 days to be sure ich runs its entire lifecycle, including the copper vulnerable stage.
In my case, I bought a new fish and plopped it straight into quarantine. Unless every fish in my display tank is an ich resistant monster, my display tank is ich free. The parasite SHOULD fall from the fish between 3-7 days. Free swimmers will be killed by the copper, and the cyst stage doesn't matter since I'm removing the fish. So by my estimation I should be able to move the coral beauty to the display around day 8 or 9 (counting after no sympoms)? Is this reasoning sound?
Timeline (indexed by day)
1: Got coral beauty, put in quarantine
2: Got Coppersafe, start ramp up. White spots start to show.
3: Ramp up.
4: Ramp up. White spots stop showing.
5: Therapeutic dose starts now. White spots completely gone.
6 - 9: Hanging out in quarantine.
10th day Current day (as of this posting). 5 days since symptom-free.
FWIW coral beauty is doing great. It's got a plastic fake tree it hangs out in. Tank is bare otherwise. Comes out to eat readily or just browse, and colors look good *big knock on wood*. It's a really cool and aptly named fish. I think it looks better than the ever-popular flame angels tbh. In the initial hiding phase I would stick a dropper in the fake tree and squeeze out frozen brine/spirulina to made sure it ate. By day 3 it would peck at the dropper tip for food, always gives me and the gf a laugh.
QT is a 40 gallon breeder. Filtration is a Fluval canister filter. Using a over-rated aerator for max oxygenation. Has the Seachem ammonia indicator (this thing is freaking awesome). Also has a cheap powerhead for flow.
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