Marine Velvet

[red tailed trigger]

Suggestions to cure other than attempting to catch all the fish and treat with a dipping bath and I will not use copper in my reef tank.

I have lowered the salinity to 1.017, increased the tank temp to 81 degrees, feed garlic extract, amino drops, various marine cubes defrosted with metroniazole and focus and mysis shrimp. I have lost my 5th fish today and it is quite distressing to me. I have used kick ich and rally in the tank, turned off the skimmer, decreased the lighting, changed the filters daily and am now at a loss as to what to do. My water tests good, the corals are fine but I am looking for some other suggestions as to what else I can do? Not sure if I should do another water change in the 120 gal. Did a 30 gal recently.
Help?

 

[victor626nj]

i suggest you take all your fish out and qt them for 3-4 months and dont add another fish to the dt for that time cause you will just introduce another host for the parasite ...... with no host he parisite will eventually die good luck and ask brandon xyz..... he is the pres and very knowledgeable with fighting stuff like this ..... are you sure it is velvet ?

 

[red tailed trigger]

Looks like my mataa tang took a bath in babypowder.

 

[victor626nj]

can you get a really good pic of it so we can see it

 

[red tailed trigger]

I'll try tonight when I get home from work. It is so distressing to see them labor.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

If you have Marine Velvet, you have NO OTHER CHOICE then to remove all the fish and treat right now. Velvet is like Ich in many ways, except for the people that do not think that Ich can kill, Velvet takes care of that problem fast. The best treatment that I experimented with was Chloroquine diphosphate</em> But the problem is I got it from Ed Noga and according to Steve Pro, you can only find it in one product in the aquarium trade, Aquatronic's Marex. A FW dip followed by a treatment in Hyposalinity would be my preferred treatment. I DO NOT LIKE copper treatments and Formalin dips have mixed results with Velvet. Not much else that you can do. There has been a bright spot of hope with using hydrogen peroxide to treat Velvet and Ich. I have yet to put it to a test but it shows promise. I would not recommend it at this time though.

So after treatment, your fish get a nice little stay for a month in the Fish Hotel known as Château QT

 

[red tailed trigger]

Thanks for all the suggestions. It is hard to catch the tang and the wrasse with the rock in there. By the time I got home, I lost the female clown.
The cardinal and the Mata have lost most color now and the rabbit is now having a party of his own in the back of the tank behind rock. Maybe it is good that they dart out to at least eat?

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Nope, that is not a good sign... You will loose all your fish. I know pulling out the rock is hard and a task you do not want to take on but really it is either that or pick up dead fish. Believe me, you will only do it once before you learn why QT is important. Also know that even if you allow all the fish to die, you can not put another fish in there for one month. So either way, the tank needs to run fallow or it is the kiss of death for a fish.

 

[lorenk]

I assume you've done the research already, but just in case:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm">http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm</a>

[IMG]http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylrealcures.htm">http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylrealcures.htm</a>

 

[red tailed trigger]

Thanks Lauren, I had seen the one article but not the other. I really appreciate your help.

 

[red tailed trigger]

Have not been able to catch them, tried turning on the lights fast in the dark (they still partied behind the rock) Tried to put food in then have net in hand. Tonight I will try to move the rock and catch them although will that stress them more?
I was told not to QT my fish, that it does stress them to move them again so I didn't QT them. I think I have learned my lesson to avoid the tears.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Whoever told you NOT to QT a fish should be shot... Seriously, where do these people get this stuff from. If anything, a proper QT decreases the stress on a fish.

At this time, do not worry about stressing your fish more. What is better: Being stressed for a bit or being dead?!? Velvet WILL kill all your fish. It is not like Ich where your fish can "learn to live with it".

You will most likely have to remove most of the rock to catch them. What I do in this case is take a black trash bag, cut it open to make it nice and wide (there is no reason that you need tow layers), then I take my rock out and put it on the trash bag on the floor. Do not worry, this will not cause all your rock to die. net the fish and then put the rock back. I have even taken a picture of the tank before hand so that I can try to take the rock out, put it down on the bag like a map for how it needs to go back and then look at the pucture for fine tuning the aquascaping again. I can get the rock back pretty close to how it was this way.

 

[red tailed trigger]

Will take me awhile to remove the rock (unable to use left arm) but I will take your suggestion and take a pic before hand. I have just gotten a large QT tank for them to go in after the FW dip. The dragonette and the Christmas wrasse don't seem to have it, think they can stay in the tank with the cleaner shrimp?

 

[ace1204]

I wish you the best of luck sorry to hear about the current losses though.

 

[rockdog]

I lost 6 fish to velvet and I am now letting my tank sit, only 2 fish lived. I will tell you get them out and TREAT THEM NOW, velvet can kill in as little as 48 hours!! Just my .02 and it is from <span style="color: #333333;">experience!!</span></em>
<span style="color: #333333;"></span></em>
<span style="color: #333333;">GOOD LUCK</span></em>
<span style="color: #333333;"></span></em>
<span style="color: #333333;">Jason</span>

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Red Tailed Trigger;180331 wrote: Will take me awhile to remove the rock (unable to use left arm) but I will take your suggestion and take a pic before hand. I have just gotten a large QT tank for them to go in after the FW dip. The dragonette and the Christmas wrasse don't seem to have it, think they can stay in the tank with the cleaner shrimp?

I wish I was going down to that side of town in the next day or so... I would come and help you.

No, you can not leave any of the fish in there. Treat every fish. Velvet normally presents itself in the gills first and by the time it hits the body it is a full blow infestation. Do not leave it to chance, you have to get EVERY host for it out of the tank.

Make sure you PH adjust your FW dip and monitor it with some sort of digital PH monitor. I have one but getting it to you to borrow might be hard. There has been conflicting reports as to if a FW dip will take care of it because Velvet has show to be able to withstand low Salinity but I would follow it with a formalin dip/bath. You are going to have a hard time treating that dragonette, you can not copper dip them and they do not handle even a short term FW dip well. Lucky thing is they can be resistant to most illnesses but he still needs to be treated. IMHO, you best bet is formalin in this case.

 

[red tailed trigger]

Was going to try to get them out last night, got tangled up in a very bad car wreck last night on my way home from work (lucky that everyone lived with 2 cars flipping over) and didn't get home until very late. I think I must have a "black cloud" following me....

 

[red tailed trigger]

In the wreck but facing the possibity now ofsome surgery.

 

[nickskains]

I wish you well and will keep you in my prayers.

 

[rockdog]

pray for ya!