Post by parker002 on Sept 16, 2009 18:13:40 GMT -5
Tank Size: 55g
Age of the tank: 1 month
pH: 7.2
Ammonia: 0
NitrAtes: trace
nitrites: high
GH/KH: hard
Temperature: 78 F
Fish in your tanks: yes
Fish:
Age of the tank: 1 month
pH: 7.2
Ammonia: 0
NitrAtes: trace
nitrites: high
GH/KH: hard
Temperature: 78 F
Fish in your tanks: yes
Fish:
3 x PlatyQuestion/Problem:
2 x Dwarf Platy
2 x Guppy
2 x Swordtail
4 x Serpae Tetra
1 x Danio
3 x Spotted Cory
1 x small Pleco (3")
I'll start by giving a little background.
We bought a 55g tank about a month ago, knowing pretty much nothing about freshwater aquariums. I have since learned quite a bit from reading on the internet - it didn't take me long to learn about tank nitrification and what a mistake we made in adding fish the day after we bought the tank!
Anyway, we got through it. I bought some Turbo Start at the LFS and added it to my tank about 3 weeks in - ammonia dropped to zero about 48 hours later. I'm now in the "nitrite" phase and everything was going fine until yesterday...
One of my swordtails was displaying translucent, stringy feces, which I've read generally indicates an intestinal parasite like roundworms or protozoans like Hexamita. I took a sample to the LFS and had them look at it and they agreed.
They gave me some medicated food (metronidazole, praziquantel, levamisole) which I had read was the preferred treatment. Good deal.
And then they recommended I treat my tank with Mardel Coppersafe.
I'm VERY concerned about this. I've found a few anecdotes that say it's pretty safe to use, but I've found quite a few more horror stories about what it did to some peoples tanks.
Specifically, I have 2 questions:
1) Will it affect my bio-filter? Mardel says it won't. The LFS says it won't. I've found a couple of places on the internet that say it won't. But the OVERWHELMING majority of search results say it will absolutely kill my nitrifying bacteria.
I've already put my fish through enough, and I'm SO close to being done cycling. I don't want to have to start over.
2) Some day I would like to add freshwater shrimp to my tank. I understand the process of chelation and I know that Coppersafe will stay in my tank water for 4-6 weeks if not longer (our water is very hard.) But everything I've read online is that chelated copper sulfate will penetrate any porous material in my tank and leech cupric ions into the tank for months or even years, creating a toxic environment for any shrimp I add.
I'm really not sure what to do here, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.