Quarantine question Marine Velvet?

[Lord Rohan]

I tried searching for an answer but could not find any info specific to my question and was hoping that someone in the community with more experience here can help. I purchased a Bluechin Trigger 2 days ago and within 24 hours of putting him in my quarantine tank he broke out with what looked Marine Velvet disease. At first I thought it was ick but then realized that the fish had no appetite and could see a powdery white substance all over its fins and body. Smaller dots than ick. I am making the educated guess that this could be Marine Velvet.

Luckily I did follow quarantine procedure and this was the only fish in the tank at the time as the other 2 fish I had in quarantine were 6 weeks in and healthy so I moved them to my main display before putting in the new Trigger fish. I initially started with a 1/2 does of culpermine but it was too late and the fish died the next day. It looked fine at the store where I bought it but quickly deteriorated and died after 48hrs.

So my question is what do I do now with my quarantine tank? Do I continue treating copper in the fallow tank and leave it empty (for how long?)? Or should I completely break the quarantine tank down, clean the crap out of it and start over? Prior to this mishap my quarantine tank was up and running for 6 months so it is cycled. If have to leave the tank fallow for like 2 months to guarantee that there are no more parasites it may be quicker to sterilize the tank and recycle?

So basically by using my quarantine tank I saved the fish from my main display but now what is the best course of action in dealing with my infected quarantine tank?

 

[Dmorty217]

Break the tank down and clean everything with vinegar. Don't chance it with velvet. In the future I would formalin dip new arrivals for 50 mins-1 hr in a 5 gallon bucket with air stone to try and prevent this from happening again. Chloroquine phosphate is the best course of treatment for active velvet outbreaks

 

[JustinM]

+1 to what dmorty said. A qt should always be broken down and sterilized after each qt. The biofilm can degrade medicine so it's best to start with a clean slate.

When dealing with velvet, your survival rate will go up immensely if you FW dip first to remove some parasites and clean the mucous off the gills. After a FW dip, an acriflavine bath will help to heal the trophont bites and prevent a secondary infection. As dmorty said, cp is the choice here with velvet. You can go right to therapeutic with one dose as copper takes about a day(that is even rather quick but with velvet you don't have a choice)

I know this doesn't help you now but in the future, it can prevent another death. I'm sorry for your loss. Blue Throats are beautiful.

 

[Jdub968]

Also +1 with the above two post but I want to add after washing the tank with vinagar or bleach let it sit dry for at least 24 hrs this is the only way to ensure the parasites are dead.
Keep in mind when you introduce a fish to qt with velvet you have 48 hrs to get cu up to thereputic levels you don't need to raise it faster than 48 hrs and it only need to hit therapeutic levels. So cupramine is therapeutic at .35 ppm hit this level and then you can slowly bring it up to .5 ppm over the next 2-3 days. But keep in mind cupramine is a pain to maintain proper levels in the first few weeks