More bad luck!

A

Angela Short

New member
I just can't get a break!! I am looking at loosing all my fish from the 80 due to velvet. I make myself sooo mad sometimes! ESPECIALLY since I am the one in the club who preaches QT QT QT! I knew I was going to hypo the whole tank before ever putting anyone in the 270 for insurance against ever introducing ick in such a big tank. So I added a fish from a LFS un QTed right into the display and 2 fish from a fellow hobbiest. I was thinking the tank was going into hypo in a week or so anyways so it wouldn't be a big deal if they brought ick in.

I never thought about the other nasty, VELVET (amyloodiniosis). :( It is not as common as ick but much, much worse. Very fast kliller (when you realize you have it) and you don't even realize you have a problem till its all but to late. Hypo does nothing for velvet, Copper is the only readily avaliable treatment for this nasty bugger. To make it worse, copper is even more toxic in a hposalinity situation so I am dam** if I do and dam** if I don't. So I went ahead and dosed copper after raising PH and alkalinity to help stabalize it somewhat but I have calcium carb. sand in the tank which is probably just sucking my copper up.

The royal gramma has done passed over, the PB tang and coral beauty are covered in the dusty look and breathing so hard they may not make it through the night. The wrass is hidding uner some PVC and the 2 clowns have a dusting on there skin but seem to be breathing fine. My LMB I have had from my 1st tank attempts and had sentimental value is breathing hard also. Velvet takes a few cycles to build up enouph of a mass of parasites in the gills to do damage. When the fish starts gilling very fast and shows outward signs (dusty look) it is ussually to late as the gills are damaged beyond repair and death is within a day or two.

I am in no way mad at the LFS or the person I got the other 2 fish from because I feel it is my responsability as a hobbiest to cover my own bases. And any fish has the potential of introducing a disease. I am just MAD at myself for being in a hurry and adding new guys to my healthy stock just so I could hypo eveyone together and get more fish in the big tank faster. There is a lot more nasty things out there besides ick and I just seem to had forgotten that. I should know by now getting in a hurry just ='s trouble in this hobby :(.

BTW anyone who got fraggs from me at the swap should be fine as I added all 3 possiable carriers of the disease well after the swap and I haven't fragged out of my tank since then.

Sorry so long, just needed to vent and reitterate my stand on QTing. Why does bad stuff always happen to me?
 
Angela, I am soooo sorry to hear about youru tank....vent away, I would be doing the same thing. I am just hoping maybe since you dosed, some will survive. Please keep us informed, will be thinking of you. This is why i barely add a thing to my tank..just makes me nuts to worry about all this crapola. Get some rest!! I see you posted late (or early depending on how you look at it!)
 
Yea, Night owl. Then Hannah got me up 2x after I posted and went to bed :(.

On a somewhat better note, the tang looks somewhat better this morning. He is not just gasping crazy for air in front of the power head outlet like last night. Wrass is hanging in barely and everyone else is holding there own. This disease is so illusive because they were still eating all like pigs yesterday which is ussually the first sign something is wronge. The tang looks pretty bloated as well probably due to poor gas exchange making his kidneys work extra hard.

Yes I agree it seems like a job lately instead of a hobby. I am sometimes feel like just cutting my losses and throwing in the towel. Especially when you try to do right by your tank and still have woes. On a positive note (i guess) is if the fish don't make it the PB was meaner than poop and the coral beauty was ugly and had a case of HLLE when I got it which has only gotten worse over the past year even with good diet and he was pretty ugly. Smilly or frown... Hmmm :) :(
 
No its a protazoan (sp?) that mainly infects gills first, feeding off the tissue and as a result destroying tissue. The mayrycnn 2 is a great choice to fight off any bacterial infections that may happen from the open lessions left after the thing detatches to fall to the ground and remultiply much like ICK. Wish I had some handy....
 
hate to hear that, Angela. I'm a stranger to fish diseases, but I can relate on the QT. I catch myself throwing non acros and zoas directly into my displays after dipping only once. I know there is little likelihood of getting somethign like AEFW's from doing this, but the possibility I still there and I have caught myself taking short cuts lately. I've gotten rid of them once and don't want to have to deal with them again (they devastated my acros-most of which had to be replaced). I'm treading on thin ice, but when I think that the vast majority of people don't do any QT on corals or fish, I falsely comfort myself.

I had velvet pop up on my lion with out having added anythign to the tank in almost a year. I had upgraded tank size and used the same rock, etc. He was big, fat and healthy, then just quit eating. I started using MelaFix and PimaFix and he hung in there for over a month after I noticed it, but eventually succumbed... Good luck with it. I feel damned if I do, damned if I don't alot these days, and not just with the hobby... Murphy changes faces soo much...
 
Hmmm to sum up my bad luck run. First the tank move was a disaster and I lost almost all my stony corals, not to mention many many nights of sleep, then my good deal cheap lights didn't work and I am still switching out which buld burns for the day. I picked up 1 ballast local and the other 250 ballast isn't here yet so I re-wire the lighting harnesses daily between the 2 bulbs, then my cool anthia (and a small clown) was eatten by my big bubble coral in a small holding tank, now the 80 has this funk. Murphy need to move out!! :lol:

I just hope I haven't cross contaminated this into the other 3 tanks via my refractometer. That would really make me cry!
 
Yes, has a similar life cycle as ick. Hostes on fish, falls off and encysts, busts open with many freinds looking for host only to repeat till its fish hosts can't take the onslaught anymore :(. With Ick you have time ussually to help the fish but velvet is in such huge proportions on the fish by the time you see it it ussually is to late. It is a very fine dusting on the fish, hard to see and by the time its on the skin visable its destroyed the gills pretty much.
 
no I am sure it would have helped but I totally don't think it could kill all the free swimmers before they could find a fish host to repeate the cycle. I personally don't think they are a good replacement for proper QTing. But I really wish I had one now! :lol: I think they can "help" controll diseases like ICK because the fish can somewhat fight it off itself and the UV is killing lots of the free swimmers but I would never rely on that as my only defence against a disease. Just my opinion but they are helpful to a extent.
 
Very sorry to hear Angela:(

On a side note maybe you should give a talk on fish diseases at a future meeting if you haven't allready. You are becoming quite the expert:)

FWIW I try to remind myself in situations like that that things happen for a reason...even if we think it's a crappy reason:rolleyes:

Your tank will be a beautifull one when you finally get it finished and stocked....it won't be so overwhelming then.

Good luck with the rest of your charges. They are in the best hands I know of.

Chris
 
I am sorry Angela. I hope this is not fault of mine. The fish had been in that QT tank I had setup for 6 days. They came out of a tank setup for 2 years. Sorry for the string of bad luck. I know you dont want to hear it but it can only get better from here. It sux how this hobby can be so rewarding to only have something set it back and make you want to give up. I lost my CBB last Saturday. He ate Friday night and then Saturday died all of a sudden. Its hard to look at the tank because he was my favorite inhabitant. Alas, I must pick myself backup and go at it again. Tim has ordered me another CBB so I will give it another shot. Let me know if the clowns don't make it.
 
Angela sorry to hear about your bad luck!! As others have said in the long run things will get better and that tank will be awesome!! If i can help you or you need any stuff let me know.
 
Thanks for the nice comments guys!

Fishdoc, I was gonna help talk about QTs at Jfollies meet but had to make a run to east TN that weekend. I have had more than my share of bad luck with diseases it seems over the life of my hobby.

Titan, I think it was the LFS fish as I knew the clowns had been in captivity for awhile but as I stated, the fault lays on me so I am not upset at the store. There is no way a store can always avoid all bugs.

So far everyone is hanging in and hopefully the damage is repairable to the fish with good water and copper to kill the bug before it has a chance to reinfest the fish. It makes you almost want to proactivly do copper on all new guys! I always had planned on hypoing all new guys for ick even if they didn't show signs as it can hide undetected in the gill area also but now copper is a option I may look into. To bad all meds that work have bad side effects! I see now why I hadn't bought a fish in well over a year!
 
I took the advise from the disease forum and did FW dipps on the fish last night for instant relife. Tons of nasty stuff fell off them. For sure the powdery look to the dip water you will get with velvet. The wrass was pretty bad off and kinda in shock last night but swimming around fine today. I did everyone 5 minutes. I also added a airstone to hyper oxgenate the water. Hopefully since they have made it this far with 2 days of copper behind them ( I just added the second dose of seachem today) they will all pull through. I hope I am not to late. A few more days should tell if I am out of the woods.
 
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My didgi dosn't take very good pics of fish moving. It looks very fine and dusty. Like powder has been sprinkled on them, much smaller than ICK spots. Its kinda hard to see also unless you are getting a look kinda down the side of the fish. I will try and see if it comes out at all. My copper test kit is suppose to be here tommorow, I hope I am not overdoseing them on copper and slowley poisioning them! That would be just my luck but seachems copper is suppose to be the safest so we will see....
 
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