# After Coppersafe fungus?



## ChrisK (Sep 14, 2011)

Hey everyone. So I was treating my 10g for what I thought was Ich there are no fish in the tank right now they had all died. I stumbled upon another thread with some advice from byron and so i turned up the heat and waited for my order of coppersafe to get here. It arrived today in the mail so I measured up the recommended dose and added it to the tank with the temp being 86 degrees. Now I did have a slight small amount of white fuzz algae or fungus prior to adding the coppersafe. So I went out for a little while and came home a few minutes ago and found a bloom of a crazy amount of this white fuzz on all of my live plants and the one ornament I have in the tank. Here are some pictures of this "White Fuzz".


































What is this stuff?!?!?!?


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## dormfish (Sep 4, 2011)

I was just doing a bit of digging and found this, Aquarium Fish Medications: CopperSafe
It says it can be harmful to plants. I'm guessing, since it is a copper-based solution, that it adds elements that some fungi and bacteria thrive off of. Maybe it's a lichen? Lichens live off rock and so forth. Sorry, I'm notmuch help. I know what happened, I just don't know what kind of thing is growing in your tank. :/


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## ChrisK (Sep 14, 2011)

Thanks for your help. I have since did the recommended water change and tried to clean off as much of this stuff as I could I'm wondering if it's just some sort of mold from decaying food that was in the tank I keep adding food once a day even though there are no fish in the tank to keep the tank from going into a mini cycle. I'm going to swing by petsmart after work to try and get some malaysian trumpet snails to see if that helps the situation


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## DKRST (Jan 11, 2011)

For future reference, once all the fish are gone from a tank, there is no reason to treat for _Ichthyophthirius_. The parasite can't survive long without a host, so upping the temp and waiting would have cleared the tank equally well in 3+ days at 80F. Ich does not seem to have any kind of "spore" form that can persist in the environment without fish present.

I have used coppersafe in a planted tank and had no problems, but experiences vary and I had mainly swords.


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## ChrisK (Sep 14, 2011)

Awesome thanks! I know it would have killed it off in a few days being there are no fish I just figured I'd take the extra precaution


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## ChrisK (Sep 14, 2011)

So it is now starting to look alot like mold. But I got a pretty cool deal at the lfs I got 10 ghost shrimp for 2 bucks and a snail lol. The ghost shrimp are only there until they possibly take care of this problem if they can


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## DKRST (Jan 11, 2011)

Any copper left in the tank and your ghost shrimp will become "ghosts" for sure!


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## ChrisK (Sep 14, 2011)

Lol I figured I'd try them in attempt to clean this stuff up. But it hasn't changed yet. I've done about two water changes a day since I put the coppersafe in. So I think it's fine with the shrimp. But anyway I'm thinking about just starting the tank over again fresh :/


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