Discouraging Day

[elaw62]

Well its been a sad week. Contracted velvet in display and all fish are infected to the point where I don't believe any will live. I've been lucky in the past to have purchased all my fish from a lfs and never had issues. Now there is none in the area and i did an online purchase and added a powder blue and majestic angel. Did not QT and will pay an extreme price. I will end up losing a flame angel, orchid dotty back, yellow tailed damsel, clarkii clown, and both purchased fish. I know, I know, I know, a QT would have prevented this.
My question is this. I have a 125 reef tank. I have 2 cleaner shrimp, numerous snails, and scarlett hermits. I plan on leaving display fish less for 10 wks. I have a 90 that I broke down to set up the 125 that I will use to QT the new fish and treat before adding back to the display.After going fish less for 10 weeks in display, will any of the parasites be able to survive on any of the inverts? I don't want to go through this again! Also, when I add the fish to the QT tank I plan on treating them with both prazi-pro and copper. How long should they be treated before adding them back to display if treating them with copper. Just getting my ducks in line for the future.

 

[Deinonych]

Amyloodinium (velvet) is an obligate parasite that needs a fish host. If you leave your tank fallow, there will be no hosts to complete its life cycle and it will die off. Inverts cannot host the parasite.

As far as how long to treat incoming fish, you will get a variety of opinions. Personally, I treat all new fish with two rounds of Prazipro @ 5 days each, followed by 4 weeks of chloroquine phosphate @ 10mg/l. If you are using Cupramine, I would go with the 4 week treatment length at a lower dosage like 0.35-0.40. The recommended dosage of 0.50 is too high IME.

Hope that helps. Sorry for your losses.