How to remove velvet from quarantine

S

shifty99

New member
Just lost all 4 of my fish in quarantine to velvet. It happened really fast. I just added cupramine yesterday and now they are all dead. I still need to add the second dose of cupramine after the 48 hour period to bring it up to the correct level.

Anyway needless to say I am pretty bummed out but should I continue with cupramine for a period of 2weeks to rid the tank of velvet or can I drain the tank and give the live rock and filter media a freshwater bath and restart right away. Im anxious to get going again and get this behind me but dont want it to happen again
 
Well personally I would drain. Then bleach everything heavily. Then re use . but you won't be able to save your live rock etc.. I wouldn't be using lr anyway. It absorbs cu making treating with Cu iffy. You should try using a sponge filter and keep one seeded in your sump. Otherwise option 2 is keeping copper in there and raising the levels but velvet is no joke so either way that tank is always a risk imo. Plus your Cu levels might not always be right with that rock absorbing some..
 
Thanks for the reply. I seeded the sponge for the hob filter in my sump but added a couple pieces of live rock from my display for a couple pygmy angels to graze on and had my fingers crossed that I would not need to add meds. If I dump the rock and seed a new filter and clean out the tank, how long would it take the new sponge to be seeded again?

Would just a sponge filter in this 40g be enough bio for say 3or 4 fish? That is also why I threw in a couple pieces of live rock as I did not want to have to worry about ammonia
 
Well the longer you seed the better say 4 weeks. With a fresh sponge you can use bio-spira to seed it with nitrifying bacteria, however most people will argue or disagree but to each they're own.. I have about 9 qt tanks running currently, half i used seeded sponges from my sump, half i used new with bio-spira and never saw any ammonia. But going that route you would need to keep an eye on it and not over load the tank with fish, the ones i used bio-spira on have 1 fish per tank ea. so small bio load.

Also i have qt a few angels and not had to used LR. I've done a potters and flameback, and currently have a golden dwarf and never used LR. But depending on the fish you can always add some in if it doesn't eat after a bit.

I would usually start with a good observation period and get the fish eating then meds, which it seems like thats what you were going to do but velvet hits and hits hard and fast. I had a tank wiped out by velvet a few weeks back and lost everything. so i feel your pain.

Drain it, rinse everything off. Use a bucket to bleach any equipment used in the tank. Then fill the tank with water and a gallon of bleach and let it soak a day or two, drain and rinse a few times then let it and everything else dry out and if you don't smell bleach its good to go for round 2. I did this with my tank that had velvet and it took care of it for the next time i used it, which was a week later.

End long rant, GL :)
 
I do have some AquaBacT that says it is for seeding the biofilter. Is it as good as the biospira?

Nice avatar BTW. In my quarantine I had a small pair of bluethroat triggers, an orangepeel angel, and just added a potters angel and I think he is the one that had it as the others had been in for 2 weeks with no symptoms. Dang he was fat and eating too. That was my third try with a potters and if I am smart will be my last.

I lost a pair of crosshatches and quite a few other fish in my DT last year from velvet and thought with a quarantine I may limit my losses for the future but sometimes this hobby is frustrating
 
That's a bummer. I'm 1/1 on the potters and flameback. And 1/2 on the Golden's. First died from clear cyanide :(. Thanks my potters is my baby I lover her she has doubled in size in the last few months. Was 1" when I got it and is now almost 3" and about .5" thick. She is actually most likely a male now..

Haven't heard of that stuff but bio-spira is basically Dr. Tims bacteria or whatever... Also look into cp treatment its chloroquine phosphate and is safer than copper and if you up the dose it treats for brook, ich and velvet and 1 other disease?

Also recently lost a pair of red stripe tilefish which basically refused to eat :( aside from those I've had a pretty good qt track record.
 
shifty99 said:
I do have some AquaBacT that says it is for seeding the biofilter. Is it as good as the biospira?

Nice avatar BTW. In my quarantine I had a small pair of bluethroat triggers, an orangepeel angel, and just added a potters angel and I think he is the one that had it as the others had been in for 2 weeks with no symptoms. Dang he was fat and eating too. That was my third try with a potters and if I am smart will be my last.

I lost a pair of crosshatches and quite a few other fish in my DT last year from velvet and thought with a quarantine I may limit my losses for the future but sometimes this hobby is frustrating
Click to expand...

Only Bio Spira and Dr. Tim's One and Only are proven to establish bio filter long term. Most others are actually land base bacteria that do not colonize.
 
snorvich said:
And the data to substantiate this is where?
Click to expand...

CP has been " reported" effective against ich, velvet, brook, urenema. I have effectively used it for all but the latter. Not sure were some cold hard data would be found. As of now I'm assuming it's based on individual results. 40 mg/g seems to work for ich and velvet, 80mg/g for brook. Granted the CP must be a good clean source.
 
Mrscribbled said:
CP has been " reported" effective against ich, velvet, brook, urenema. I have effectively used it for all but the latter. Not sure were some cold hard data would be found. As of now I'm assuming it's based on individual results. 40 mg/g seems to work for ich and velvet, 80mg/g for brook. Granted the CP must be a good clean source.
Click to expand...

Yes, "reported" is a good word. However, the article is a reasonable one but is not a peer reviewed article. While anecdotal evidence is a good start, saying something is better in all circumstances is a stretch, especially in a non-controlled environment. And there are definitely no studies abut the long term effect, if any on the fish. At this point, this treatment is promising but definitely not "proven".
 
snorvich said:
Yes, "reported" is a good word. However, the article is a reasonable one but is not a peer reviewed article. While anecdotal evidence is a good start, saying something is better in all circumstances is a stretch, especially in a non-controlled environment. And there are definitely no studies abut the long term effect, if any on the fish. At this point, this treatment is promising but definitely not "proven".
Click to expand...

I definitely agree, I've been using CP quiet a bit lately and hope more research is done with it. The biggest problem is inconsistant sources and not being able to test the levels. Therefore its tough to consider it a "fool proof" treatment IMO.
 
Mrscribbled said:
I definitely agree, I've been using CP quiet a bit lately and hope more research is done with it. The biggest problem is inconsistant sources and not being able to test the levels. Therefore its tough to consider it a "fool proof" treatment IMO.
Click to expand...

Those are two of the problems with the lack of testing being the bigger one. But, and more importantly, some fish reportedly (by Jay) do not react well to it. And there is no long term understanding of the effects on fish. I am also concerned about the difficulties of providing accurate dosage especially given the inability to test.

Dosing CP in a hospital tank is one thing, doing it in a display tank is something else again since there are many critters that might die off and create ammonia.

On a separate note, Jay used to be on this board.
 
How exactly does a method get to become "proven" anyway? I'm sure there's been research confirming copper's effectiveness. But how about with TT and hypo? In fact, I can show you research suggesting hypo isn't effective against all strains of Crypto - specifically Yambot's research from 2003.
 
IMO - anything that is good enough for public aquariums is proof enough. Couple that with the books by Noga as well as Goemans/Ichinotsubo advocating CP, and there are some very compelling reasons to use it in an aquarist's arsenal against crypto. I certainly understand the reticence to use it in the absence of available test kits (I had the same concerns before I started using it), but one could say the same for praziquantel, metronidozole and the variety of broad-spectrum antibiotics we use.

I would love to see some controlled scientific case studies done, though. I too wonder about the long-term effects of using it. In the end, it's not a miracle cure, but neither is copper. YMMV.
 
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