Mixing Inverts and Fish

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Lansirill

Mathemagician
Jun 14, 2007
248
0
16
Washington, DC
I'm thinking about putting some shrimp or crabs into my tank. Ignoring the air issue with crabs, I'm still concerned about the compatibility of fish and inverts in terms of water conditions. As I understand it, salt and copper are both commonly used in fish medications and highly toxic to inverts.

Salt doesn't worry me too much. I have a QT available, and I can simply make sure that the inverts stay in a salt free tank until I've reduced the salt to negligible levels in the other tank.

Copper likes to stick around however. After reading the removing copper thread, it sounds like you -can- get rid of most of the copper but you'll still be taking a bit of a risk by putting an invert into a tank that has ever had copper used in it.

What I was wondering is it possible to completely avoid the use of copper based medications? If so, presumably I can just stick to the copper free medications and avoid the problems that come with the use of copper.

I don't know if I want to take on the risk of using copper in a tank that will have inverts put into it, even if I do dose with Coppersafe or something else. On the other hand, I had never even realized you could put shrimp or crabs into an aquarium until a month or two ago when I started an aquarium after 15 years of not having one. I'm absolutely enamoured with the idea of keeping them. Unfortunately (perhaps quite reasonably would be a better choice of words) my fiancee doesn't want another aquarium in our apartment, so an invert-centric tank isn't a possibility.
 

MikeInOrlando

AC Members
Mar 18, 2007
144
0
0
51
Orlando, Florida
yes you can completely avoid using copper.

i would try some ghost shrimp first. make sure your fish wont eat them and they are ok in the tank. from there try cherry shrimp.

i set up a 20 gal tank just for cherry shrimp i think they are real cool and very active.
Dude...you have, like, the COOLEST avatar. Kinda reminds me of Command and Conquer for some reason.

Back to this gentleman's thread, I made the splurge. I didn't add a crab, but I did add a blue cray. So far, he seems to not be having much of a problem. I dosed this tank once for ich, although I think that what I used didn't have copper in it. (was that fizzy thing that turned the tank blue.....kinda reminded me of Tidy Bowl). He also doesn't eat my fish...yet. One time I looked over and he was in what I figured to be attack mode. He was frozen in this pose with his pinchers in the air and opened. He appeared to be looking at three oto cats that were being lazy and eating his shrimp pellets and not my algae. He never did go after them but my heartrate went up because I figured he was gonna.
 

pixl8r

MacroShrimpBreeder
May 11, 2007
720
0
0
Utah
Ich is easy to get rid of without using meds... just up the temp to 85 or so for a day.

FYI, which species of crayfish is it? The time that the fish will be most vulnerable is at night when they sleep. Crayfish are nocturnal and can catch fish while they are resting on the substrate. Also, if you have any aggressive fish, they might go after your crayfish when he/she molts.

Just a few things to think about.
 

MikeInOrlando

AC Members
Mar 18, 2007
144
0
0
51
Orlando, Florida
Ich is easy to get rid of without using meds... just up the temp to 85 or so for a day.

FYI, which species of crayfish is it? The time that the fish will be most vulnerable is at night when they sleep. Crayfish are nocturnal and can catch fish while they are resting on the substrate. Also, if you have any aggressive fish, they might go after your crayfish when he/she molts.

Just a few things to think about.
Warm water kills ich by itself? How is this so? (if that's true, it's very nice to know). I have no idea what species he is. He was listed as a "blue lobster" at the LFS. Beautiful guy, really, but is not very active in the tank. He likes his cave and doesn't come out much at all. I also think he's scared of me. The couple of times that I did notice him stray away from his cave, when i would approach the tank to watch him, he'd just back right into it. He's out long enough most times to just pick up a shrimp pellet and go back in. I keep him in with my two gouramies and 4 angels. One of the gouramies insists on bunking with him in the cave. The angels pay him absolutely no mind nor does he pay them any mind.
 

pixl8r

MacroShrimpBreeder
May 11, 2007
720
0
0
Utah
I was wrong on the duration, you need to keep the water at 85 for three days or more.

Here's a link to a non chemical cure for ich, http://www.fishlore.com/Articles/CuringIch.htm

The use of salt is optional, if you have inhabitants that cannot tolerate the higher saline levels.
 

MikeInOrlando

AC Members
Mar 18, 2007
144
0
0
51
Orlando, Florida
I was wrong on the duration, you need to keep the water at 85 for three days or more.

Here's a link to a non chemical cure for ich, http://www.fishlore.com/Articles/CuringIch.htm

The use of salt is optional, if you have inhabitants that cannot tolerate the higher saline levels.

Yeah, I read that article. Seems that he says at the end of it that although he prefers more natural methods, it's come to a point with the different strands of ich that are out there now that you're almost left with no choice. Plus, with inverts, you can't salt the tank anyway, can you?
 

pixl8r

MacroShrimpBreeder
May 11, 2007
720
0
0
Utah
Depends on the species. Amano shrimp can take some salinity, others will quickly die.
 

RoseFishWatcher

AC Members
Oct 31, 2006
432
0
0
Colorado
If you have a QT tank, you could remove fish to that tank when they need to be treated with copper meds, then move them back when their healthy. This way, you can prevent having copper (or other metals) in the main tank with the inverts.
 
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