For an accurate dose, it is 0.95 ml of formalin in 10 gallons of water to give a 25 ppm dose. I would dose that twice, 24 hours apart, and then every 48 hours after that until control is seen. You can go daily, but IMO, what happens is that the normal daily dose is 15 to 25 ppm, and you need to be at the top end of that. Formalin de-gasses at about 25 ppm/day. However, it often doesn't totally de-gas in that time, so you end up running about 30 ppm and that is too high for some fish.
No need to remove the sand, but provide strong aeration.
Remember that this off-gasses, and that is going to happen in your home. Best if the tank was in a room with the door closed, or with good ventilation. Use proper PPE when handling it.
Here is the kicker - Ionic copper and formalin is o.k. to do, but is a bit stressful to the fish. However, I have not mixed copper power and formalin. Formalin is a reducing agent. It *might* be able to break the amine-copper bond in Copper Power. If it does, then toxic free copper would be released. I would play it safe and not dose it with copper at the same time.
Jay
@Jay Hemdal
I’m about 56 hours into copper safe at 2.24, dropped to 2.15, added a little to get it back up to 2.22. My clownfish has been very lethargic, staying in a tube all day, has come out only a few times. Just swims inside the tube and lays down then swims inside the tube again. Hasn’t been eating at all. Not showing any dusting, spots, slime, peeling, or sloughing. Breathing doesn’t seem crazy rapid. Difficult to count breaths/min with her fluttering. Also, yesterday, I saw her have a thin green poop. Don’t know what this means. I imagine as long as it’s not white. Just really concerned with the intermittent laying down on her side and the lack of eating. Also continuing treatment with metroplex, kanaplex, neoplex. Some other fish are starting to eat again. Ammonia badge still yellow. 2 airstones, 2 wave makers pointed at top, hob. I have new formaldehyde coming Wednesday just in case this is brookynella and not ich/velvet. Is there anything I can do to help her or get her to eat? I’m feeding frozen brine, mysis, marine cuisine, using selcon and garlic power.
Question is, at what point into the copper treatment should I be concerned if the clown doesn’t start eating and acting less lethargic that this isn’t ich/velvet and that I should shift gears to possibly treating with formaldehyde for brookynella? (Since you said you don’t recommend using copper power and formaldehyde together in the qt, and I’m concerned about removing the clown (and possibly others) to do a formaldehyde bath given how weak the clown seems and how much moving them seems to stress them). I know you said that copper should typically work in 3 days, so I’m hoping my clownfish will start eating and acting less lethargic around the 72 hour mark tomorrow. I assume this isn’t flukes, since they’ve gone through prazipro and fenbendazole treatments, but maybe it’s possible that the treatments I did weren’t enough. I provided the exact dates with flukes treatments in a separate response within this thread for reference. Thanks again for your help with my questions. Just trying to plan ahead. I’ll post some video tomorrow when the lights back on if she’s still acting the same.
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