Will a copper ich treatment kill of my macroalgae

Decided to use copper against a battle with ich. Will the copper kill off my macroalgae?

 

it will kill all your inverts , most likely corals , probably any starfish your have. . dont use copper in your dt

 

It should not hurt your macroalgae when dosed in amounts for ich. Do you have inverts in your tank? I noticed that your sig says you have inverts. Copper is harmful to invertebrates.

 

The situation is kind of a big mess. Ich ended up in DT. Third round of ich in a year. Seems like every group of three or four fish I get ends up breaking out. Last group I thought was ok didn't stay in quarantine long enough and were starting to scratch after putting in DT. So anyway, broke the display down for a through cleaning. Wanted to re-landscape anyway and couldn't catch the cleaner shrimp with the rocks in there.

Moving on, fish went to one quarantine, inverts and macroalgae in another quarantine while I get the display going again. I'm going to treat with copper this time. No luck with other meds I've tried. Inverts will stay in the fallow quarantine for at least 4 weeks so they don't carry any ich back to display. I've got some macroalgae I'd like to get back to the display as soon as possible. If I move it over with the fish while I treat them with copper for a couple of weeks, will it kill it, is my question. If so I'll just leave it in with the inverts while that tank stays fallow for the entire time.

BTW, I know the inverts and algae don't necessarily carry ich, but I believe any water that's transfered with them runs the risk of transfering it. Thus the inverts and macroalgae are getting the quarantine, too, and the algae copper treated if it isn't harmful.

 

I would not treat the whole tank with copper. I heard it is hard to get rid of copper once it is in your tank. Did you try UV?

 

Yeah, I was treating the DT with marine ich-x and running two turbo twist 9 watt uv's in series after seeing the first fish starting to scatch. About 6 days later another fish was starting to scratch a lot and another was showing spots. Before it gets out of control and I lose fish I'm going with copper in a quarantine and have completely cleaned and sterilized the DT (no coral in there yet). Probably seems a little radical but I lost over $200 of fish last year due to ich and trying to use a reef safe type med. Once the DT is back up and cycled, and I have my current small group of fish ich free and back in the DT, every fish I get will go through a copper treatment in the quarantine before being moved out. Ich has cost me a lot of money and time. Feeding with Selcon and Garlic on the food. This group of fish haven't been wiped out in the past like the others. Guessing the food additives and UV was helping a little but I want my tank ich free. Lost a Powder Blue Tang and nice Lion last year, tired of playing with this parasite.

 

Treating your display tank with Copper will kill your Live rock and all the biological filtration

 

I know. I've already done that actually by sterilizing the display. Starting from scratch basically to ensure it's ich free. Not playing any games this time. DT is almost filled back up (RODI) so by tomorrow it can get on it's way to cycling. Cupramine going in the quarantine with the fish to get them cured. Invert/macro quarantine fallow to break the ich cycle in that tank. I'll win against this parasite one way or the other.

 

You should try throwing in a pair of cleaner gobies. Nearly no fish will attack them, and they eat ich amazingly well...

 

anything other than fish treated with copper is harmful. if you did use copper in your DT , even with nuking the rock, im not sure what the leaching effect can still be. dont treat your inverts and such with any sort of copper. the ich cycle usually takes 6 weeks to run its course. wait 8 weeks to be on the safe side in your DT. leave it fallow. as far as i know or read, these kick ich and stuff that are supposed to work in a DT dont really cure the tank. others may have had success. if they have , would be good to hear their stories. good luck with it all.