If your fish has been infected by ich or velvet, then you can treat them with the Seachem Cupramine.
You can take a look at this treatment schedule guide to see how you can properly use this product.
Before you start, make sure you turn off your ozone filter and/or UV filter if you are using either of these aquarium tools. You also need to remove any activated carbon, as well as other chemical filter media that are designed to remove medication, from your tank water.
It is also very important to note that Cupramine isn’t compatible with Seachem Prime. If you want to use both of these products together, then you need to do so very carefully.
Last but not least, shrimps, snails and other invertebrates can’t handle Seachem Cupramine at all. Therefore, you need to re-home these creatures temporary while treating your fish with Cupramine.
Day 1:
On the first day of treatment, we recommend doing a water change as you won’t be able to do another one during the treatment process.
You need to swap out enough of the tank water so that you will get 0 ppm of ammonia, 0 ppm of nitrites and less than 20 ppm of nitrates when testing your tank water after a water change.
After doing a water change, you can now add the first dose of Cupramine.
If you have a freshwater tank, then you need to add of 0.5 mL of Cupramine for every 10.5 gallons or 40 liters of tank water.
For a saltwater tank, you need to dose 1 mL of Cupramine for every 10.5 gallons or 40 liters of aquarium water.
Day 2:
Do nothing on the second day of treating Cupramine.
Day 3:
After waiting at least 48 hours after the first dose, you need to dose Cupramine again be the same amount as the first day.
In total, the copper concentration should be at around 0.25 mg/L for freshwater or 0.5 mg/L for saltwater if you want to use a copper test kit to test your tank water.
Day 4 to Day 16:
You don’t have to do anything during these days of treatment.
Day 16 and later:
After 16 days have passed since you first started the dosing Cupramine, the treatment process should be completed. With that said, the Cupramine will still be present in your tank water.
To get rid of this treatment, you need to add activated carbon or any other chemical filtration that is capable of absorbing medication from your tank filter.
You can also remove Cupramine by doing daily water changes to help dilute the cooper in your tank.
After a week has passed since you added the copper-removing chemical filter media, you can remove it from your tank.
Afterwards, we recommend using a copper testing kit, such as the Seachem Multitest Copper (which you can find on Amazon with this link) (#CommissionsEarned), to test if copper is still present. If the test kit still shows traces of Cupramine, then you can add more activated carbon and continue doing daily water changes.
Once the test kit shows that there is no more copper in your tank water, you should be able to safely add back in any shrimps, snails or invertebrates that you may have to re-home prior to dosing Cupramine.