Need some advice on ich/velvet

[gianluca1970]

I'm having an outbreak of what looks to be marine velvet. Some of my fish look like they are getting covered in powder so I'm pretty sure it is velvet, not ich. My setup is 125 gallon tank with some soft corals, mainly mushrooms and button polyps and a couple of leather corals.

In the past whenever I have had a problem with parasites I've lowered the salinity and that has taken care of the problem. Personally I have used this method because I didn't really like introducing chemicals to the aquarium and I don't like moving the fish into a hospital tank because the stress seems to do more harm than good. I've had the most success just leaving the fish in the main aquarium and treated them using hyposalinity.

Well, this time it doesn't seem to be working and I'm not sure what I should do next. The fish are all eating very well and are very active. To move the fish into a hospital tank I'm going to have to tear the main tank down just to catch them. Then, by the time I put them in a hospital tank and treat them with something like copper, which i don't like using, I think all I will be accomplishing is to kill them quicker.

So, having said all that, does anyone have any suggestions on what I can try, preferably in my main tank to minimize the stress on the fish, that won't kill my mushrooms and polyps? I know there are a lot of "reef safe" products out there but I'm not sure what is worth trying. I appreciate any suggestions anyone my have.

 

[dunc101]

If it is marine velvet, hyposalinity will not phase it and you must use copper. Also, your corals and inverts would not make it through a true hypo environment in the DT (1.008 - 1.009 salinity). How long have you noticed this outbreak? If you haven't had any loses in a 3 day time span after first noticing symptoms, it is probably not marine velvet. On the other hand, if you just noticed the symptoms, you need to act fast as marine velvet kills VERY fast!
Can you post some pics?

 

[gianluca1970]

The symptoms have been visible for over two weeks now. I assumed it was velvet but if you think that it might not be what do you think it is? The best way I can describe it is that the fish's skin seems to be flaking. My one big black trigger seems to be the worst case. His eyes are also getting cloudy. However, he also seems to be the most active and still eats like crazy. At this point I am more concerned about the fish than I am about losing mushrooms and polyps.

 

[dunc101]

Can you take and post some pictures for us?
From your description, it does sound like Velvet or Brooklynella; however, you more than likely would have encountered more than 1 loss of fish by now as they both are VERY fast developing. Are the fish breathing heavy? Any signs of "flashing"?

On another note, you really can't treat anything in the DT without adverse effects. If you want to treat this, you will need to move ALL fish to a QT/HT assuming this is a parasite and then keep your DT fallow for 8-12 weeks (I would caution on the longer side myself).

 

[b0bab0ey]

If this was Velvet you had been battling all this time, all your fish would be dead by now. That's not to say you haven't recently introduced Velvet into your aquarium, on top of Crypto.

When dealing with Crypto, you have two options: managing it or eradicating it. I know people who successfully manage it for months (or even years) by soaking their fish food in vitamins or garlic, or this Herbtana stuff seems to be the latest "reef safe treatment" kick everyone is on. The problem with this is you're just treating the symptoms your fish are displaying, not eliminating the disease that's living in your tank. Basically, "management methods" may bolster your fishes immune systems long enough to survive another wave, but ultimately the parasite lives on in your aquarium to fight another day. And the day of reckoning usually seems to take place when two fish start fighting or you lose power for an extended period of time or a heater goes haywire. Some stressor event that overpowers your fishes immune systems and the parasite then seizes that opportunity to come roaring back. That's when fish usually start dying.

Eradicating it is a PITA but it's the only way to save your fish long-term. First, you'll have to remove all your fish from the DT for 9-10 weeks and treat with one of the three proven methods discussed here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1992196

After you've accomplished that, you must QT all new fish for 8-10 weeks before introducing them to the DT. Unless you're willing to QT, it's just a matter of time before Crypto is reintroduced into your DT from another infected fish.

 

[gianluca1970]

I'm at work right now so I can't post any pictures. As far as flashing, I've noticed a couple of fish scratching against rocks. Their breathing does not seem to be fast. That is kind of hard to tell though. The fish are really alert and eat like crazy whenever I feed them and they are always front and center when I walk by wanting me to feed them. At this point I'm ready to try and treat it as velvet. But like I said before, I would like to try it without taking them out of the main tank. Any suggestions?

 

[gianluca1970]

At this point I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to treat my main tank as the hospital tank. I still think that trying to catch my fish to move them into a hospital tank by tearing it completely down is going to cause more damage than good. I'm guessing copper treatment in the main display tank will probably not work because doesn't the live rock absorb the copper? I know that most people are against any of the "reef safe" treatments but I wouldn't mind trying something before doing something drastic like tearing down the tank.

 

[dunc101]

If you really want to treat in your main DT, remove all inverts to the QT, including all your corals. Any invert you leave will die. All pods will likely die as well and your tank will be back like "day 1" (your bio filter will still be intact, however with hypo). You will be killing all pods, worms, snails, the sand bed inverts, etc. This may also cause a sharp spike in ammonia which could set off a mini cycle. I would at the very minimum go purchase a seachem ammonia alert badge and be ready to do some major water changes if you must go this route and treat your DT. I guess your other option is to feed like mad with selcon/zoe/zoecon/garlic. This "may" work for a while if the fish are not too bad, but you will end up fighting ich again sometime in the future.

I believe your "best" option is to bite the bullet and get the fish out of the DT and into QT and treat with cupramine or tank transfer.

Again, this is NOT the recommended approach, but using a QT is.
If it has been 2 weeks since symptoms began without casualties, there is almost no chance it is velvet, but likely ich as b0bab0ey stated. When you get home, post some pics so we can confirm.

 

[gianluca1970]

dunc101, thanks for your response. It sounds like whatever I do will be a pain and can have serious consequences. The more I think about it I think I might have to just try and catch all the fish, move them to a hospital tank and treat them with copper and leave the main tank fallow for a couple of months. I can't help but feel that when everything is said and done I will end up with an ich free tank but no fish. I only have an extra 30 gallon tank that I'm currently not using. Do you think this is big enough to house 4 triggers, 2 tangs, and a flame angel? I think that is too crowded and will probably cause even more stress for the fish. That is one of the reasons I'm hesitant to move the fish.

 

[dunc101]

30 gallons is a little small. Is there anyway you could get another 30 gallon and divide the fish into two? Also, if you decide to move the fish to QT, you can grab a sponge or something that you have been using in your DT and place it in the QT in a high flow location to help seed it. Otherwise your ammonia will rise very quickly with that amount of fish in the QT.

 

[gianluca1970]

I'll have to see if I can find either another 30 or a bigger tank. I'm kind of limited with what's available. What sucks is there are no good fish stores in my area that carry salt water equipment. The few that were relatively close have closed. All that is left is Petco, which is really limited in what they offer. The best one is 50 miles away. The only other one is somewhat close but he charges double what every other store charges, is closed on Saturdays, which is weird to me. And he wonders why he isn't getting enough business.

Well, I'll figure something out. Thanks for all your advice and suggestions.

 

[MrTuskfish]

As dunc101 said; ammonia would be a giant problem. Try Craigslist for a bigger QT/HT. there just isn't an easier way to do this.

 

[dunc101]

Your welcome. Let us know how it goes. Petco should at least have some simple HOB filters and some decent sized 29,40B, and 55+ gal tanks. I know the one out by me at least does. It doesn't carry cupramine, though =(.

 

[gianluca1970]

Well, I finally bit the bullet, set up a 55 gallon hospital tank, put a divider in my main display tank since all but one of my fish were hanging out on one side of the tank, and removed only one half of my live rock and corals so I could catch my fish. As I was removing my fish I would put them in a freshwater dip for five minutes and then transported them into the hospital tank. Once I had moved all of the fish to the HT I reset up the one side of my main tank, did a major water change, and am now going to just leave it without fish for about 8 weeks.

Since I couldn't find anyone locally that sells cupramine I used an old copper medication that I had from SeaCure. The fish were looking a little better after the original freshwater dip. However, after I started using the SeaCure copper treatment they all seemed to get worse and I lost my flame angel this morning. I decided to quit the copper treatment and go the hyposalinity rout. I wish I would have done that from the beginning. I never did trust adding copper. This morning ai did a 50% water change and added only freshwater to bring down the salinity. I'll do another one this evening to get it around .009.

Originally I thought that the fish had velvet just because their body was looking kind of gray and almost "fuzzy". However it definitely looks like ich now. They have visible white spots on them.

Do you think going the hyposalinity rout is the right thing to do or should I order some cupramine and treat them with that? I definitely don't want to lose any more fish. They difnitely didn't like being moved to a bare tank with nowhere to hide.

 

[dunc101]

Treating with hypo should be fine, just make sure your refractometer is calibrated and never let the salinity get to 1.10 or greater. If you do this, you should be fine and you should see some relief in a few days once you get to 1.008. I'm sorry about the loss of the flame =(.

Just fyi, people like cupramine here instead of other copper treatments because the fish seem to be a lot more tolerant of it. Most angels even do well at .3-.35 with cupramine.

Good luck!

 

[gianluca1970]

Well, the salt level is down to 1.008. Most of the fish seem to be handling that quite well except for my black durgon trigger. He is the one that broke out initially and has had it the worst by far of all my fish. Yesterday he was almost completely covered. This morning, he is still completely covered except that it looks like the things are kind of loose on him. I almost looks like they are about to fall off. Does that sound normal? What is worrying me is that he has almost completely stopped eating. He just hides for most of the day. I'm debating if it would be worth it to do another freshwater dip with him to try and get some of those things off his body. Do you think it would be worth it or would I just be adding more stress to an already stressed out fish?

 

[dunc101]

I would not do another freshwater dip. All it seems to do is stress the fish out more when they have ich and make them more prone to an open sore, thus infection, imo. Do you have some garlic or selcon you can add to the food?

 

[gianluca1970]

I ordered some Selcon last week and it is supposed to arrive this afternoon. I was reading some articles and found something that was interesting. Someone said that if you are feeding your fish frozen brine shrimp to stop. They said that frozen brine is full of frozen ich. They said that frozen ich normally dies but that he found for some reason it survived with frozen brine. Has anyone ever heard of that? The reason it caught my eye was because I feed my fish frozen brine all the time.

Also, when doing a hyposalinity treatment do you normally raise the temperature of the tank or leave it normal. I've read articles suggesting both. Some articles say that raising the temperature only effects freshwater ich. I haven't raised my temperature but do you think that I should?

 

[snorvich]

I ordered some Selcon last week and it is supposed to arrive this afternoon. I was reading some articles and found something that was interesting. Someone said that if you are feeding your fish frozen brine shrimp to stop. They said that frozen brine is full of frozen ich. They said that frozen ich normally dies but that he found for some reason it survived with frozen brine. Has anyone ever heard of that? The reason it caught my eye was because I feed my fish frozen brine all the time.

Not even remotely true.

Also, when doing a hyposalinity treatment do you normally raise the temperature of the tank or leave it normal. I've read articles suggesting both. Some articles say that raising the temperature only effects freshwater ich. I haven't raised my temperature but do you think that I should?

No, do not raise the temperature. If your fish really have a parasite in their gills, raising temperature reduces dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

[snorvich]

Fresh water dips do nothing for ich. Nada.