Quarantine tank setup help and velvet!!!

[rileysreef4928]

As the title says guys I'm in need of help from across the pond in good old england .
My 5ft reef has broken out in what I think is marine velvet I purchased a regal angel from a fellow reefer and stupidly didnt qt the fish. Now disaster has struck and I'm up s*** creek without a paddle.
I have a few questions to ask and I hope you good fellows can help me. My display is full of huge acropora etc so its going to be fun catching my fish. I first noticed the ich spots a week ago and tried to treat with polylab medic but the ich soon turned to velvet. I've lost my mimic tang 1 anthias,goldrim tang and the regal angel already. All the other dish are showing signs some worse than others. So I'm going to be setting up a quarantine tank tomorrow but want to ask a few questions. They also have cloudy eyes and some fin deterioration by the looks of it. All are still eating so far.
1. What equipment do I need? Tank,sponge filter,heater,PVC pipe for fish hiding.
2. I've made some saltwater and will rapid cycle it with atm colony is this safe and do I add a fish to aid the colony. How long before I put my display fish into the qt tank?
3. What copper medication would you recommend and any other medications whilst in qt?
4. How long should I leave the display fallow? 6 weeks?
5. Do I do water changes on qt tank weekly and add copper to it or add copper to the salt water as its mixing?
6. Have approx 22 fish to quarantine what size at tank will I get away with?

Sorry its a sob story and loads of questions but I thank you all in advance.

Regards

A very upset reefer

 

[rileysreef4928]

Apologies if this is in the wrong section/forum.
I've kept marines for years but never had an outbreak like this

 

[alice 01]

As the title says guys I'm in need of help from across the pond in good old england .

My 5ft reef has broken out in what I think is marine velvet I purchased a regal angel from a fellow reefer and stupidly didnt qt the fish. Now disaster has struck and I'm up s*** creek without a paddle.

I have a few questions to ask and I hope you good fellows can help me. My display is full of huge acropora etc so its going to be fun catching my fish. I first noticed the ich spots a week ago and tried to treat with polylab medic but the ich soon turned to velvet. I've lost my mimic tang 1 anthias,goldrim tang and the regal angel already. All the other dish are showing signs some worse than others. So I'm going to be setting up a quarantine tank tomorrow but want to ask a few questions. They also have cloudy eyes and some fin deterioration by the looks of it. All are still eating so far.

1. What equipment do I need? Tank,sponge filter,heater,PVC pipe for fish hiding.

2. I've made some saltwater and will rapid cycle it with atm colony is this safe and do I add a fish to aid the colony. How long before I put my display fish into the qt tank?

3. What copper medication would you recommend and any other medications whilst in qt?

4. How long should I leave the display fallow? 6 weeks?

5. Do I do water changes on qt tank weekly and add copper to it or add copper to the salt water as its mixing?

6. Have approx 22 fish to quarantine what size at tank will I get away with?



Sorry its a sob story and loads of questions but I thank you all in advance.



Regards



A very upset reefer

Hey.
Sorry for your trouble.
I've had similar trouble and I have fish in QT currently.

I'm no expect but recieved advice on another forum.

I did a freshwater dip and then in QT.
Keeping the main tank fallow for 12 weeks.

Treating with cupramine now.

I see if I can get some further info.

What fish have you got as some are sensitive to copper meds such as wrasses.


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[alice 01]

"CP is not currently available. I would give the fish an acriflavine bath and then treat them with a copper based medication. Cupramine is easy to get and the most commonly used.

Both acriflavine baths and copper treatment are covered in the sticky link in my signature."

I should point out it was not clear what killed my fish although it was a suspected parasite.
It was so sudden there was no clear way to identify.

Going to treat with fluke solve after the copper.

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[rileysreef4928]

Thankyou...
My fish list are as follows
Yellow tang
Purple tang
Scopas tang
Regal tang
Approx 16 lyretail anthias(wreckfish)
Banana wrasse
2 x snowswirl clowns
Mandarin
Watchman goby
Cherub angel
Coral beauty

 

[alice 01]

As for water changes do them as often as you need.
With the number of fishes you have it could well be daily to stopped ammonia creeping up.
Test regularly

With the copper, what I am doing, rather than dosing half to start, then half in two days I have worked out the total dose and divided it by 7 and doses daily for a week.

In my case 70 drops for 70L tank.
So 10 a day for 7 days.
If I were to do a 10% waterchange then I would replace the the 7 drops to keep levels stable.
If you do 50% water change (I suspect you will) replace 50% of the drops

Watch out for evaporation, I've set up a bucket of RO with a drip line to keep water level constant so not to raise copper to s dangerous level.

As for QT size just go as big as you can. The really useful storage boxes go up to a decent size and would be suitable for a quick fix.
Hiding places a must with tubing.
Main thing is that you keep water at a safe level.


Hopefully someone with more know how will post. As I am experiencing my first outbreak

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[alice 01]

Think your mandarin and wrasse will be your main concerns for copper sensitive.
But I cannot be sure as to your full list.
I have only a clown and bi colour blenny in QT at the moment.

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[rileysreef4928]

Thanks very much I can only keep my fingers crossed. I've heard people running uv sterilisers on their qt tanks?

 

[alice 01]

Thanks very much I can only keep my fingers crossed. I've heard people running uv sterilisers on their qt tanks?

I've not looked into that personally but I cannot see any harm in it.
Every little helps.

Think doing the fresh water dip/baths before going into QT will be your best bet to try and give them some instant relief.
If you have not done before it's worth watching some online videos as it can be quite scary but really is straight forward.

Keep the post updated with how things go.

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[alice 01]

Oh I saw a online video of someone using microbacter7 in the QT to help tackle ammonia while using cupramine.
Not sure if its recommended but it worked for them.
They had lots of fishes In 64l QT.

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[clevername]

Think your mandarin and wrasse will be your main concerns for copper sensitive.
But I cannot be sure as to your full list.
I have only a clown and bi colour blenny in QT at the moment.

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FYI Mandarin fish DONT have scales like fish. They have skin like sharks, they CANT get ich or velvet.

 

[cody6766]

Best of luck. I had velvet in my 60g (same reason, didin't QT the last fish for the tank) and lost everything over about 2 weeks. The life velvet life cycle is fairly long. I did not re-stock my tank for about 60 days. There's some good info out there that details the parasite's life cycle. Do some google work and you should find it pretty quickly.

Again, good luck! I hope you salvage more fish than I did.