How to get rid of marine velvet?

[jcm707]

Hello so I've been in the reefing hobby for about 5 months now and everything was going great till recently. I picked up a Picasso clown from a local reefer that was breaking down his tank and he seemed fine. Now all my fish except a six line wrasse have what I though was ich but it's marine velvet I believe. I've been reading about it and it looks like the only way to get rid of it is too take it all down and start from scratch is this true?

 

[EZMAC114]

I'd say do a formalin dip and QT them. I had a clown that got it but didn't survive. Are they still eating? I also found this long article about the disease

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/index.php

 

[EZMAC114]

Oh and do you have any pictures of the infected fish?

 

[Reefing Madness]

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-discussion/169417-marine-velvet-coral.html

 

[jduck]

Copper or chlorine phosphate. They will treat brook, velvet and ich.

 

[jcm707]

I wish qt was possible but I have nowhere I could setup a quarantine tank at the moment. I'll get some pictures when I'm home after work. It's pretty bad it looks like all my fish are covered in sugar. I could possibly set a qt up at my work. Do they need to be separated or could I put all the fish into a 55 gallon then treat with copper? I have 7 fish. 2 clowns died from it so far

 

[jcm707]

And what about my corals. Is there any possible way to treat the display tank with my fish and coral in there?

 

[jcm707]

And yes all of them are still eating so far

 

[EZMAC114]

What kind of fish and what size are they?

 

[EZMAC114]

If you got a reef safe treatment but they don't work as well...I would separate the fish if possible and treat the fish qt with a copper treatment

 

[jcm707]

I have 2 small tangs. Hippo and yellow. 1 clownfish. 1 engineer goby. 1 damsel. 1 algae. Blenny. Flame angel and a six line wrasse. Biggest fish is the yellow tang and he's only like 2-3 inches at most

 

[jcm707]

I read that thread and it looks like I'll see if I can set up a qt at work so my fish survive. I think I'm moving soon so if that happens. I'll break down my tank and start from scratch with new sand water and rock. How do I go about making sure my corals wouldn't transfer it to a new setup?

 

[EZMAC114]

I would say you should be ok to have them in a QT...just make sure you have plenty of PVC for them to hide in.

 

[jcm707]

Alright hopefully I can set it up. Man this sucks 5 -6 months in and not having a quarantine tank messed it all up. Well at least now if I decide to continue I make sure to quarantine every fish before.

 

[EZMAC114]

I did the same thing when I first started out and I lost 4 fish which was everything I had bc I didn't QT a fish I bought from Petco and I didn't have a QT setup to treat all of the fish when they got ich...didn't buy any for about 3 months. Now I have a nice simple 20 long tank setup in the office for QT. Hope you have luck with getting it setup and that all the fish survive

 

[Deinonych]

Are you sure it's velvet? Velvet usually kills very quickly - within a couple of days. If an otherwise healthy-looking fish brought it in (the clownfish from your friend's tank), I would suspect crypto (ich) before velvet. Can you post pictures of the affected fish?

 

[jcm707]

Yeah I'm not sure anymore it could be ich which I hope it is opposed to velvet. I just thought it was velvet by how it looks and a pair of small clowns have died pretty quick from it but the rest of the fish are still fine. I'll post pics in a few minutes I just got home

 

[jcm707]

It's kinda hard getting pictures of them up close. There's stuff flaying around the tank but in the first picture you can see what it kinda looks like on the engineer goby in the back

 

[jcm707]

Got some better ones

 

[EZMAC114]

I would say either way QT them and treat with a copper based treatment.