TTM and Velvet

[ThRoewer]

The problem with H2O2 is that it is very unstable. Just some light will break it down to water and oxygen. This breakdown can be so rapid that it becomes explosive. That's why hydrogen peroxide has to be stored in dark plastic bottles that won't let light in.
The treatment should also be done in a room with a low light level.

 

[ReefTeacher]

ThRoewer,

Peroxides can be explosive, and need to be stored carefully, but that is only in pure form. Hydrogen peroxide in solution cannot explode. Certainly not in 3% solution at CVS nor even in the 30% used in chemistry labs. They can break down, which is why concentrated solutions are kept in the refrigerator. But household peroxide has in inhibitor to keep the solution from breaking down too quickly. In terms of tassod's experience, he does seem to have hit the appropriate concentration, but reintroduced the fish to the infected tank. It is hard to know if this is the inefficacy of peroxide or the reinfection of an already weakened fish.

Mrs. Music: if real symptoms are shown I would certainly use a quinine drug. But I have had some bad experiences with prophylactic treatment with CP. We are talking about a short term prophylactic bath between transfers during the TTM so as to avoid medicating a tank.

 

[ThRoewer]

Why not use a quinine drug?

That would be Chloroquine

 

[ThRoewer]

ThRoewer,

Peroxides can be explosive, and need to be stored carefully, but that is only in pure form. Hydrogen peroxide in solution cannot explode. Certainly not in 3% solution at CVS nor even in the 30% used in chemistry labs. They can break down, which is why concentrated solutions are kept in the refrigerator. But household peroxide has in inhibitor to keep the solution from breaking down too quickly. In terms of tassod's experience, he does seem to have hit the appropriate concentration, but reintroduced the fish to the infected tank. It is hard to know if this is the inefficacy of peroxide or the reinfection of an already weakened fish.

My experience is only with the pure and fully concentrated peroxide - I used it as an additive to a circuit board etching solution. That bottle had the explosive warning on it. I never had much use for the household stuff though.

At a certain infection level killing the parasite would not be enough to save the fish - it may just die from stress and circulatory failure. Alprazo suggested an injection with steroids, but not many will have the required materials at hand or the confidence to do it

 

[Mrs. Music]

Dmorty,

I think that is a mistake. I was shooting for 100 ppm (the study confirms both 75 ppm and 150 ppm) as a good estimate, 100 ppm= 100mg/L or 0.1 g /L. Let's figure 1 gal= 4 L. so that would be .4 g/gal. Drug store H2O2 is a 3% solution so .4/.03= 13.3

Since the density of a 3 % solution is VERY close to 1 g/ml, we could use a syringe and add 13.3 mL of drug store H2O2 per gal for a 30 minute bath. Since we are using 100 ppm in the middle of the range of effective doses, the estimates leave us within a decent margin of safety.

I am having a hard time understanding how a bath of short duration would treat parasites that are enclosed in the fish tissue. Or how peroxide would be safer with less side effects than CP.

 

[ThRoewer]

Amyloodinium is not enclosed in the fish's skin - it's more like a mosquito that sits on the skin and sends a drill down to suck. The damage doesn't come from the sucking but from the fluids the parasite releases into the fish's tissue to liquefy it.

Because it sits on the skin it can be reached by baths.

CP requires at a minimum 2 weeks of treatment. Some species don't tolerate it at all, but even with those species that normally handle it well, there are individual fish that react negatively (same as you have with people). So I would only use CP if there is an actual velvet infection.

 

[CHSUB]

TTM and Velvet

Feedback?

imo, after studying more closely, I would conclude you are correct: TTM should work perfectly. going forward i'm going to include it in my qt processes with a slight change to the TTM.

some fact i found.

-i found no evidence that tomonts are found on fish, as bob fenner suggests, and since they are small and actually don't "dig" as deep as ich it may be more unlikely it encys on the fish.

-"Trophonts remain attached to fish for 2 to 5 days at 24 °C, although
some individuals may detach within 24 hours." SRAC Publication No. 4705

-A. ocellatum isolates from diverse geographic origins and from different species of fish are all the same species (Levy et al., 2007)

-At 20 °C and 20 to 40 ppt salinity, the time between detachment
and emergence of infective dinospores of a Red Sea isolate
was 3 to 6 days (Paperna, 1984a)

with these facts in mind, a simply change to TTM should eliminate ich as well as velvet. typically, when using TTM, transfers on done on days 4, 7, 10, 13; if changing transfer to days 3,5,7,10,13 velvet and ich will be eliminated. also starting the process with a formalin dip to kill all dinospores would be needed, imo.

in my daily life i'm lucky to be able to speak with professionals in fish hatchers, public aquariums, and marine biology. when i ask them about TTM in the QT processes they almost all look at me a little strangely, but after a moment of thought i get, "that could work if you follow the life cycle". Point being most pro's would fine TTM impractical, but for hobbyist it's invaluable.

 

[microlady]

This is a great thread, and very timely for me. I have what I believe is velvet in my display. I thought it was crypto, but I've had too many casualties in my opinion. The last fallow period might have worked, but I added a tang and a dwarf angel from Live Aquarius that I didn't quarantine long enough so it's possible they brought the infection back in.

We pulled all of the fish out of the display again yesterday and gave them a formalin bath. I'm seriously thinking of tearing the entire system down, but I might give the fallow period another try. There were three more fish deaths this weekend so I'm getting tired of this. The remaining fish will be quarantined for quite a while, but I'm getting discouraged on how to treat them. Two survivors are wrasses, so CQ is out. The clownfish is breathing heavy and not looking good. The two clown gobies are unaffected that I can tell. I don't like using copper, so I may try this modified TTM protocol. I really don't have anything else to lose at this point.

 

[ReefTeacher]

please keep us all informed of how this goes!