jcoopcycle
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Great write up
Thank you
Thank you
still lost on quarantine protocol
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FrancineJ
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It’s certainly something we were never experiencing before...... and posts like this are popping up more and more all the time....shops and dealers started treating with sub therapeutic levels of copper and CP....or treating with full strength but only for a week or less.... it’s been the consensus that all this will do is possibly build up a short tolerance to the diseases and unfortunately it’s probably the 10th (or more) article I have read like this lately....
The LFS owner in my town has been doing this for nearly 40 years.... we have sat and had many chats at how things have changed.... and it’s all for the worse.... he has 5 or 6 stores around our area and he does not treat ANY of his fish with copper or CP before selling them.... I had 5 fish when my velvet hit... 3 from him and 2 from another supplier.... guess which 3 fish are still alive....
The issue is.....
It’s all about cost.... trying to keep cost down... the less fish that suppliers lose the cheaper they can sell them for... the more business they get.... and this is RIGHT from a supplier... I just asked one the other day why he treats his fish with sub therapeutic levels of CP/copper.... not once did he mention for the benefit of the new owner.... for the benefit of the fish but it was that he needed to stop his losses and keep his costs down.... it comes down to many factors.... if some people seen how this fish are shipped on the international flights they may never buy a fish again.... hardly enough water to breathe.... tiny little bags.... and again it’s all about cost.... water costs too much to ship on planes so they are sent in as little as possible.... it’s all actually really sad....
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I agree with you - if they are doing this - it is sad - and probably causing more problems than it is helping. I only buy fish (ONLY) that are in with inverts such that I know at least there is no copper - or I ask them to test the levels. If I were going to buy from an online or other vendor - I would ask them their copper levels and then have them check them - I would not buy from a tank containing copper for a number of reasons:
1. Copper itself collects in tissues and is damaging long term (much like cyanide fishing)
2. It damages the fish's immune system.
3, Supporting an LFS, etc that uses subtheraputic copper puts every fish at risk (though its not been reported) with resistant parasites.
@Lasse knows far more about this than I.
PS - I agree with you about the treatment of fish - some are caught with cyanide, drugged so that they dont breathe as much during shipment, etc etc. But - having said that - 'everyone' wants the 'cheapest' fish. Thats how they do it. Thats also why countries are now banning fish shipments(and coral) to avoid mistreatment of animals. If you want an interesting read - check out the number of threads complaining that the 'hobby' is getting too expensive (partly because of the bans, new rules, etc). But - yeah - I agree with you
But the heart of the matter here is that if they treat subtheraputic in their system - it would not help them to not losing any fish because this concentrations do not kill or slow down the parasite. Their low concentrations must be theraputic in their systems. as @MnFish1 try to say many, many times. I.e. they combine low salinity and low copper - hence make the copper more toxic, hence demand lower concentrations to reach theraputic levels, hence kill the parasites. IMO - it is not the concentration that´s the problem - it is the copper that bioackumulate in the fish . And for me - it not differs if it is a LFS or an aquarist that use this toxic heavymetal for prophylactic treatment. The LFS say´s - we most use prophylactic methods - the aquarists says the same - and the result will be the same. Only the reason seems to differ here what I can understand of what I´m reading - the LFS use this cruel method with prothylactic copper treatment in order to save money - the aquarist use it because he/she cares for the fish. Yes - I´m sarcastic - its my swedish nature - its like - it is inmoral to kill other persons - I kill you for that 
Sincerely Lasse
Sincerely Lasse
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I have seen many statements thats velvet can be dormant in the sand for 72 days - is that true - sources?
Sincerely Lasse
Sincerely Lasse
FrancineJ
Active Member
Sub therapeutic means that it is not enough to combat velvet or disease on its own.....
It’s like if I am supposed to add 10 of something but I only add 5.....
That is what “sub therapeutic” means.... and again what this does is allows fish to build up a slight tolerance to certain diseases.... they appear fine in the shop but when you bring your fish home within days it can start showing the effects of the underlying disease.... and your last sentence hits the nail on the head.... “not enough to combat velvet or disease on its own” so again what happens is your fish appears heathy... then you have 2 choices.... do a full blown treatment in qt or hope for the best....
And I am in no way blaming the shop owners... everyone has to make money... but a lot of these places do not tell customers this and then they wonder why their fish got sick so quickly.... you will read many stories about how people can’t get fish through qt and IMO this is one of the reasons....
It really has absolutely nothing to specifically do with this “resistant” strain... that was not the entire point I was making.... but it does go hand in hand with it.... these fish are starting to build up an immunity to the CP or copper is what the article is getting at.... and they are investigating if this is due to too many shops/breeders treating with “sub therapeutic” levels....
I hope that makes more sense....
FrancineJ
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It is not dormant.....it is literally in your whole tank.... rock, sand everywhere for 72 days.... it’s the life cycle of the disease.... and it can remain forever if you don’t take out your fish (mind you all fish would be dead long before that....) For anyone who hasn’t had this disease it will certainly make you more apt to qt....it’s a lot of work.... (if any of your fish even live) and there are many side effects of the treatments.... and can lead to secondary infections.... all kinds of nasty stuff....
Also one of the other reasons why your qt/hospital tank should have no sand... no live rock.... that and also because they can absorb the copper....
But yes once you have it in your DT you must leave it fallow for 72 days.... if you add a snail or coral during that time you must restart your clock.... so if you are on day 52... and you add a coral that has not been in qt.... then you must go back down and start counting from 0 again....
There is a TON of this info in the fish disease thread....
FrancineJ
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There does not have to be fish in with the cuc in your shop in order for the cuc or corals to carry the disease....Ummm.... right - but which retailers sell CUC with fish in them? The one's I buy from do not. So - I would suggest that people that buy CUC from a place that has fish in the tank needs to QT them (I said that before)....
Besides.... do you always know where those snails or inverts came from before they got to your shop? Not everyone does.... How can you be certain that the snail, crab, shrimp, coral never came into contact with a fish?
Have you any prove that Sub therapeutic level of copper will supress the development of any parasite - and with prove - I do not mean statements in threads here at R2R - I mean real scientific tests. IMO - these type of treatment is on - off. It kills - or not kill. Is it below therapeutic level - it will not kill the parasite - and the parasite will infest the fish.
The same with the statement with velvet and 72 days - any real prove of this ? - I know one scientific article from long ago showing 72 days for saltwater ich - never ever seen any prove about velvet. Please - tell me where I can read this proven. Not what anyone state - a real test showing this results. @HotRocks - any comments about velvet and 72 days?
It is up to you that state these things to prove them - not to me to disprove them.
Sincerely Lasse
The same with the statement with velvet and 72 days - any real prove of this ? - I know one scientific article from long ago showing 72 days for saltwater ich - never ever seen any prove about velvet. Please - tell me where I can read this proven. Not what anyone state - a real test showing this results. @HotRocks - any comments about velvet and 72 days?
It is up to you that state these things to prove them - not to me to disprove them.
Sincerely Lasse
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Phishguy3.0
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I’ve seen ich in every lfs I’ve been in and have been told that all of their fish tanks are treated. I’ve gone the route of first putting fish right into my dt after acclimating to now putting them in a hospital tank and treating with paraguard and then prazipro. I’ve had to battle ich in my dt twice and followed through with the 78 days in qt and a fallow dt. It felt impossible to remove my fish and I had to remove most of my rock to get them all. I’m not one who wants to see his fish suffer and then die because I wasn’t able to treat. Once you have a sick fish with ich in your dt ich will continue to be there until you eradicate it. Good luck.
Velvet is 45 days fallow, it’s CI that is fallow for 76 days,
@Humblefish put this table together in this thread. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fallow-periods-going-fishless.190324/
Fallow Periods - Below is the general consensus fallow periods for all diseases that require it. In most cases, it is the longest known time period that the encysted stage can survive on corals, inverts, rocks, substrate without a fish host to feed on. The fallow period starts when the last fish is removed from the tank.
- Black ich (turbellarian worms) - 4 weeks
- Brooklynella aka “Clownfish disease” or “Brook” - 6 weeks
- Flukes (monogenean worms) - 4 weeks
- Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) - 76 days
- Uronema marinum - No fallow period, as it does not require a fish host to survive. It is an opportunistic parasite that strikes when a fish’s immune system has been compromised. Uronema mainly affects damsels (especially chromis) and clownfish.
- Velvet (Amyloodinium) - 6 weeks
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I actually defined subtheraputic many posts ago so I agree with you. What I was trying to get an answer to is WHY are LFS's using subtheraputic copper (since by definition - subtheraputic means there should be no effect on parasites. So - instead of saving money - (or making more money) as you seem to be implying - they are NOT preventing CI or velvet - they are also wasting money on the cost of the copper itself - so why are they doing it? (Like I posted before - unless like @Lasse said - they are using it with hypo salinity - which allows a lower dose of copper to kill velvet and CI - In that case - they are killing the CI).
By the way - if there were CI in a tank (or velvet) - with subtheraputic copper - wouldn't the fish have CI and velvet? Where is there evidence that subtheraputic copper works?
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If a drug is given sub therapeutic it doesn’t work... it may have a partial effect depending on the disease, but for each disease a partial effect has different clinical outcomes... just try taking 100mg of paracetamol for a headache.. that’s subtherapeutic and it won’t work, but the headache may go on it’s own in a few hours anyway... or stop a course of antibiotics after 2 days instead of taking the full course... there are absolutely no clinical reasons to give subtherapeutic doses
Again from @Humblefish from a previous thread, this does seem to support what @FrancineJ was saying about subtherapeutic levels, but I can’t find the actual evidence that humblefish read to come to this conclusion.. taken from this thread
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...mask-ich-velvet-symptoms.353243/#post-4386728
Subtherapeutic copper eliminates some of the free swimmers, but not all, so the fish continues to be exposed to them at low levels. The fish's immune system begins to develop immunity/resistance to the parasites the longer it is subjected to sublethal concentrations. However, once copper is removed from the equation the parasites multiply exponentially and that usually overwhelms the fish. But it can sometimes take awhile (or on rare occasions not happen at all) based on just how strong the developed resistance is to the pathogen originally being suppressed.
Back in the day (before reef tanks) many would keep ich/velvet in check simply by running low level copper in their DT. Because of this, diseases weren't the big problem they are today. However, back then fish rarely lived to a ripe old age, and I suspect prolonged copper exposure was at least partly to blame.
It's also important to note that low level copper does not always have a successful outcome when managing ich/velvet - not back then and not today.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...mask-ich-velvet-symptoms.353243/#post-4386728
Subtherapeutic copper eliminates some of the free swimmers, but not all, so the fish continues to be exposed to them at low levels. The fish's immune system begins to develop immunity/resistance to the parasites the longer it is subjected to sublethal concentrations. However, once copper is removed from the equation the parasites multiply exponentially and that usually overwhelms the fish. But it can sometimes take awhile (or on rare occasions not happen at all) based on just how strong the developed resistance is to the pathogen originally being suppressed.
Back in the day (before reef tanks) many would keep ich/velvet in check simply by running low level copper in their DT. Because of this, diseases weren't the big problem they are today. However, back then fish rarely lived to a ripe old age, and I suspect prolonged copper exposure was at least partly to blame.
It's also important to note that low level copper does not always have a successful outcome when managing ich/velvet - not back then and not today.
Now the question shifts to is the word subtherapeutic wrong to use in this case? Or does copper have a wider therapeutic range than proposed? or do more fish have an inbuilt immunity to these diseases than some lead us to believe and copper is only effective at the suggested doses?
I have spent the whole afternoon in order to find the source - the real source - for the statement of up to 72 days dormant period for tomonts of salt water ich
The closest I com is this text from an article from 1992 It looks like this is the holy gral where all of this about 72 day come from
In that article - there is references (in bold). The only reference that I can not check is the one Colorni 1992. It is his thesis - named
Biology, pathogenesis and ultrastructure of the holotrich ciliate Cryptocaryon irritans Brown 1951, a parasite of marine ®sh. PhD thesis, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. In the other references - there is not any investigations that says 72 day. (most od them is with as PDF here - check by yourself. I´m interested to see in which temperature this 72 days test was done - there is a lot of indications that the temperature is important. as I see it now - there is no evidences for the 72 days fallow period in our aquaria at all. The real period could be both shorter or longer in our temperatures.
Sincerely Lasse
The closest I com is this text from an article from 1992 It looks like this is the holy gral where all of this about 72 day come from
In that article - there is references (in bold). The only reference that I can not check is the one Colorni 1992. It is his thesis - named
Biology, pathogenesis and ultrastructure of the holotrich ciliate Cryptocaryon irritans Brown 1951, a parasite of marine ®sh. PhD thesis, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. In the other references - there is not any investigations that says 72 day. (most od them is with as PDF here - check by yourself. I´m interested to see in which temperature this 72 days test was done - there is a lot of indications that the temperature is important. as I see it now - there is no evidences for the 72 days fallow period in our aquaria at all. The real period could be both shorter or longer in our temperatures.
Sincerely Lasse
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And here is a very good conclusion about saltwater ich
Sincerely Lasse
Sincerely Lasse
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I think @Humblefish makes a valid point. SOME theronts are likely killed by low dose copper (just like if you have strep throat - taking only one penicillin tablet will kill some of the bacteria - not all of them). However, I'm not sure you can jump from that to the idea that the low dose copper kills most of them (i.e. leaving only 'low numbers' of free swimmers in the tank). I think this is especially true when one considers that each 'particle' on the fish can produce up to 1000 'free-swimmers'
There are also theoretical reasons why this is not the case:
1. There is no documented instance of CI or velvet published
2. There is no definition of what 'low dose copper' that 'LFS' use actually is - is it .05 - is it .1 - is it .14?
3. Is there any information out there that shows how many theronts are killed by varying dosages of copper?
4. Copper is an immunosuppressant - so at the same time it MAY be keeping CI at lower levels - it is also making the fish more susceptible - and less likely to develop immunity.
EDIT - I did find a reference in an article that suggested that PART of the effect of copper in eradicating CI MAY relate to development of specific immunity rather than copper alone. However, they did not find that CI remained on the fish - but merely that the immune system may play a role in how copper works as well.
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I just spent some time trying to find some literature to determine where the recommended levels come from and was unable to - Just like any medication - the chosen levels (.15-2) were probably the levels at which either all/most of the fish survived - with minimal toxicity - or where there was no evidence of CI found after treatment.
You make a great point (and I edited my last post about yours) - I found an article that stated that when the initial studies on copper were done the knowledge of the immune system and CI were not as well known/studied - and they postulate that some of the effects that were thought due to copper may in fact be more related to development of immunity...
Back to the OP - having read multiple threads, multiple articles, and multiple QT protocols - There are many many ways to do it (or not do it). Most of the scientific literature (as compared to some of the protocols mentioned on this site) recommend a minimum of 3-4 weeks for CI (if you're going to treat with copper) and 10-14 days (minimum) for velvet at a level of .15-.2 - with frequent checking of copper levels(once but better 2x day) to maintain constant levels. There is also a bit of comment out there that chelated coppers are less reliable than non-chelated coppers.
With all due deference to those recommending not QT'ing - Science is strongly in favor QT protocols for all livestock including coral/inverts and fish (whether you use chemicals prophylactically or not).
Some other concepts I learned - Try to use the same source to obtain your livestock. Quarantine in batches all livestock goes into QT at the same time - and all livestock goes out at the same time. Don't mix livestock from different sources in the same QT tank.
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