Looking for Tips on reading the API Copper Test Kit, please!

[SeeK828]

Hi all,

As the topic says, I am using the API Copper Test kit and I am not quite sure how to read the result.

The instruction of the kit ask for the user to view the solution from the top looking down on the test tube.
While the instruction tells me to look down from the top with a white background underneath the testtube, it didn't specify if the testtube should be actually ON the white background or just be held above a white background.

I am worry because it gives a vastly different result.
For example, with my 45G QT water now, if it is placed ON the white paper background, it would seem about 0.5ppm of copper.
But if it is held above the white paper background, it would read just 0.25ppm.
That is one whole step in the product's result scale! Since it starts from 0ppm, then 0.25ppm, then 0.50ppm, and on and on.

Hopefully some of you have experience with this kit and can enlighten me!

Thanks

 

[dionysusjg]

I think you're best off placing it ON the card. Otherwise it is very dependent on the ambiant lighting of the room and the surroundings. I use mine in a well lit room, with white flourescent lights. It is hard to get an exact reading with this kit, but as the cupramine site says, it is generally safe to use a bit above the 'recommended' dose. Therefore you can go a little heavy-handed on the application, to make the reading clear to you!

good luck

 

[barbianj]

I went out and bought the Seachem test kit because I could not tell what was going on with the API. The colors are too close together in the range that you need for Cupramine treatment. I added the first dose, which should be about .25, and the API kit still looked nearly clear. Then I dosed 20 gallons of water to .5 to compare to the API scale, and it still looked way off. I had to drive 60 miles to get the stupid Seachem kit, but there was no way that I could trust the API kit.

The Seachem comes with a reference sample, which seemed to read a little high, but pretty accurate compared to the API test kit, which I couldn't tell what I was looking at. To me, there was not much of a difference in colors between safe and death with API.

 

[dionysusjg]

let me put it this way...
I misread the instructions of the API and was testing by looking sideways through the tube... therefore, it kept reading low... so I kept adding cupramine.
By the time I worked out my mistake and looked through the tube vertically, the reading was somewhere between 2.0 and 4.0!!!!! Despite this, the fish (4 different species) were completely fine, and not at all distressed. I lowered the copper down to the correct level and successfully completed the treatment. So from my experience you can overshoot the 0.5 (recommended mark) fairly significantly without too much stress (I'm not recommending you do so though). What I am saying, is that the change in the reading should be fairly significant between 0.5 and 1 (I think the colour change is obvious), so slowly increase until you notice it heading towards (but not at) 1's colour and then you know you have at least 0.5!

 

[barbianj]

the reading was somewhere between 2.0 and 4.0!!!!!

I bet that was a little scary. Either way, the Seachem is much easier to read than the API.

Like I said, though, the API tested much lower than the Seachem, which was close to the reference. I would be concerned that your readings were actually low. Like you stated, somewhere between 2.0 and 4.0, that's a big difference.

 

[dionysusjg]

yeah... well thats all the API gives you on the card... there is a colour for 2 and a colour for 4
my colour was somewhere between.

 

[SeeK828]

okay thanks for the info guys!
I am in the process of finding another brand so I can do some cross checking, or should I say double checking?
Either way, I hesitated about Seachem since I have heard bad things about it but since some of you have first hand experience with it and think it is better than the API, I chose to believe you all and will go give Seachem a try.

I also saw an Intant Ocean Copper Kit online and read some review about it saying it is not bad.
anyone have experience with that one?

 

[barbianj]

I have heard that the Salifert works well also.

With the Seachem, you get a miniscule amount of powder that you dab onto the rounded end of a small plastic stick. Don't use a huge amount on the first test, you need very little. Once you get the reference right, the testing is very easy from there. The color card is graduated, which helps a lot.

 

[SeeK828]

Nice thanks for the input, Barbianj!

I ended up using API and Salifert to check for the lvl of Cupramine.

There is one warning I would like to give out to all fellow fish keeper though!
If you are doing Cupramine treatment, DO NOT use/buy the instant ocean test kit!
Cupramine call for 0.5ppm and the Instant ocean one only goes up to I think 0.25ppm! ( i have it but forgot exactly)
I bought it online so I didn't see the product up close and the description never mentioned the range so I didn't know and bought it.
Now it is laying around useless and I'm still trying to return it.

I guess if you are buying in person you would have noticed the ranger but online it is tricky.

So there, hopefully no one will make the same mistake as I have and waste their $$!

 

[barbianj]

Glad you have it worked out. What fish are you treating with copper?

 

[SeeK828]

Glad you have it worked out. What fish are you treating with copper?

I'm treating a Regal Tang in a 45g QT, as stated in my sig.
The treatment is over now but unfortuneately the fish didn't get cured.
He still seems to be doing fine but the spots on him didn't go away.
I'm looking into other options now

 

[barbianj]

That is odd that it didn't work. I just finished treating all of my fish with Cupramine - 12" Queen Trigger, Clown Tang, Goldheart, Blueline & Pinktail Triggers, Emperor & Blueface Angels and Green Grass Wrasse. The Pinktail and Queen had it pretty bad, but within just a few days, the ich started to clear up. I ran the Cupramine at 5.0 - 6.0 for two weeks. You must not have had the copper high enough, or the Regal has something other than ich. The Cupramine is extremely effective. If you need any help, let me know.

 

[SeeK828]

That is odd that it didn't work. I just finished treating all of my fish with Cupramine - 12" Queen Trigger, Clown Tang, Goldheart, Blueline & Pinktail Triggers, Emperor & Blueface Angels and Green Grass Wrasse. The Pinktail and Queen had it pretty bad, but within just a few days, the ich started to clear up. I ran the Cupramine at 5.0 - 6.0 for two weeks. You must not have had the copper high enough, or the Regal has something other than ich. The Cupramine is extremely effective. If you need any help, let me know.

Hey thanks so much for the offer! I will keep that in mind when it comes the time to bother you! haha
But ya, I sort of knew that it is not ich even before I started with the Cupramine. But it still looked like some sort of parasite that I couldn't idenity so I was thinking Cupramine, being copper afterall, was my best bet and hoping that it will take care of it.
Maybe you are right and I didn't get to a high enough lvl. That was actually my first suspicion about this failure of Cupramine too.
But I really have tried my best to read the results from both kit but we all know it gets tricky sometimes with those color charts.......
So yeah, I am not ruling out the possiblity of the copper lvl being too low because of my mistake.

Anyways, I actually have been discussing this case with Lee, whom you probably know very well, for quite some time now and he suggested me to try a FW bath and see if the myterious spots come off.
So thats what I am trying next!

Thanks a lot again for your input!

 

[speckrb]

I know this is an old thread but if the vine is still there, did it work?