Marine Velvet

[btreyes]

I've been trying to fix up my professor's tank which has been plagued with massive amounts of aiptasia, hair algae, dinoflagellates, cyano, mantis shrimp, and just about every other problem in marine aquariums. I've gotten rid of all of the problems, except for what I think is marine velvet disease. I lost an ocellaris clown, a royal gramma, and an aiptasia-eating filefish within the past two months to what looked like marine velvet. The fish had cloudy patchy growths on their scales and were lethargic and not eating. The clown died a few weeks before the royal gramma and filefish, which died two weeks ago. I did a black-out to try to kill any marine velvet dinos in the water column, but I'm not sure if it worked. My yellow tailed damsel and lawnmower blenny look healthier than ever, but I'm afraid to add any new fish. I now have 0 nitrates and near-zero, 0.004 ppm phosphates.

What are the best methods to removing marine velvet from a reef aquarium that contains SPS? Should I just wait a long time before adding any new fish? Will the damsel and blenny act as asymptomatic carriers of the disease?

Thank you for your help!

 

[Deinonych]

Cloudy patchy growths sound more like Brooklynella than velvet. Do you have pictures of the affected fish?

Whatever the disease is, you will need to remove all fish and leave the tank fallow (fishless) for an extended period of time. Both velvet and brook require 6 weeks of fallow time. Also, Amyloodinium is an obligate parasite, not a photosynthetic organism like other dinoflagellates. So, removal of a light source has no effect on velvet.

 

[Newsmyrna80]

^agree. Also the Blenny and the damsel have more than likely built up an immunity to the disease but they could still be carriers. You could do nothing with them or treat with formalin dips. IME I treated 2 gobies that had been exposed to Brook with light doses of 2 formalin dips followed by a 30 days observation.

 

[btreyes]

Thanks guys. I guess I need to figure out a way to catch the blenny and damsel without destroying the reef, either that or don't have any other fish. :/

 

[Newsmyrna80]

There's a stickie on this forum on how to catch uncatchable fish.

 

[Deinonych]

I've had great success with an AquaMedic Fish Trap in the past.

 

[Spar]

I've had great success with an AquaMedic Fish Trap in the past.

i tried this trap three times now. Twice with used traps. Neither worked; would just stick rather than drop. However, I just bought a brand new one, and it worked fantastic right away... i even got lucky and the fish I wanted to catch was the first to go into the trap.

good looking traps. but just be ready for some patience-testing if you get a sticking one.