TTM and Velvet

R

ReefTeacher

Member
I do NOT have any disease right now. BUT I am moving my 180gal to Boston this spring and might well sell my fish and restock once I get there. The last time I moved and ordered great fish online, I had a velvet outbreak that killed everything. I had a QT but did not premedicate. Lesson learned.

So I have been reading about velvet. I have used TTM to successfully treat for crypt, and I have seen the many threads that say it cannot work for velvet. I just don't understand the logic. I realize that the trophozoites can drop off the fish in as little as 12 hours. But would the fish not still be safe as long as the tomonts don't have time to mature and hatch? One thread states the transfers must be 12 hours apart, but I think that is in error.

So here is my thought. Sometime this summer I will place a largish online fish order. I will have plenty of buckets and bare tanks for transfer. When they arrive I will do dips in Safety Stop, as a prophylactic. My thought is then to do a DAILY transfer for 4 days along with a 3-5 minute freshwater dip to ward off any velvet. Then I will continue until day 12 with transfers every 3 days for the prevention of crypt. I have a 45 gal with some live rock then set up for a month or so of observation and feeding training. At this point the corals in the reef tank should be settled enough from the move to be able to receive guests....and the 180 can have a larger bio load.

Feedback?
 
Not sure if that will suffice but if you attempt it I would do formalin dips between each transfer for good measure
 
unlike ich, velvet will/may remain on the fish; reproducing in the gills and month. TTM, in most cases, is ineffective against velvet, even with shorter and more transfers. i have seen this stated in multiple sources!!
 
Dmorty217 said:
Not sure if that will suffice but if you attempt it I would do formalin dips between each transfer for good measure
Click to expand...

^^ This!

But I would only do this with members of the Syngnathiformes, Labridae and other fish known to be sensitive against Chloroquine Phosphate (CP).

Otherwise CP is the better choice to treat Amyloodinium.

As prophylaxis it is best to give every new fish a formalin bath before it goes into the QT.
 
Well, yes, of course. I would treat with CP if I saw actual signs of the disease. Safety Stop contains formalin in the first component, so that is covered. I would be cautious of doing daily formalin dips, as that can be harsh. I was hoping that the daily freshwater dip would take care of the velvet that stays on the fish and does not drop off; we would have four of those. I would be able to medicate the QT if need be.

CHSUB, do you have a reference for Amyloodinium staying on the fish to encyst? I have heard it anecdotally, (as I have for crypt) but I have never seen a scientific reference.

thanks all!
 
ReefTeacher said:
CHSUB, do you have a reference for Amyloodinium staying on the fish to encyst? I have heard it anecdotally, (as I have for crypt) but I have never seen a scientific reference.

thanks all!
Click to expand...

It cannot be over-emphasized that diagnosis and treatment must not be delayed... lest all fish livestock be lost. The free-living dinospore stage is susceptible to chemical treatment, but the on-fish stages (trophonts and tomonts) are not. from bob fenner.....he list numerous sources.

he states the on-fish stage as both trophonts and tomonts.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm
 
ReefTeacher said:
Wow CHSUB! Lots of good reading there. I recommend the 1987 article in seascope by Carol Bower: http://cdn.spectrumbrands.com/~/media/UPG/Files/Instant Ocean/SeaScope/Volume 04_1987.ashx

It is a wonder Copper treatment works as well as it does! But still, I cannot find a reference that states encystation can occur on the fish. But I also do not have access to the texts referenced on WetWebMedia. I will keep looking!
Click to expand...

it does not say directly, but it can be inferred; because the tomonts stage is the encyst parasite. fenner and others write that Amyloodinium tomonts are sometimes found on the fish.
 
But without a footnote, it is just anecdotal. Bob Fenner is a great guy, a high school chemistry teacher just like me, I have met him at MACNA and had great discussions with him. But he is not a researcher (nor am I) and inference is not observation. That evidence might still be out there, I will continue my research. I have an old copy of Stoskopf, but I don't have Noga at my disposal. Does anyone else have a copy?
 
CHSUB said:
It cannot be over-emphasized that diagnosis and treatment must not be delayed... lest all fish livestock be lost. The free-

living dinospore stage is susceptible to chemical treatment, but the on-fish stages (trophonts and tomonts) are not. from bob

fenner.....he list numerous sources.

he states the on-fish stage as both trophonts and tomonts.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm
Click to expand...

Few of those sources are actually scientific research papers but rather citation of citations in citations of abstracts... at that level it can come down to the level of a rumor.

Here are some actual research papers:

Studies on Amyloodinium ocellatum (Dinoflagellata) in Mississippi Sound: Natural and Experimental Hosts (A. R. Lawler, 1980)

Host site of activity and cytological effects of histone-like proteins on the parasitic dinoflagellate Amyloodinium ocellatum (E. J. Noga*, Z. Fan, U. Silphaduang, 2002)

ABSTRACT: Histone-like proteins (HLPs) are broad-spectrum, endogenously produced antibiotics
which we have isolated from tissues of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss and hybrid striped bass
(Morone saxatilis male × M. chrysops female). Here, we show that HLP-1, which has high sequence
homology to histone H2B, equally inhibited both young and mature trophonts of the important
ectoparasite Amyloodinium ocellatum. In addition to direct killing of Amyloodinium trophonts, there
was evidence that HLP-1 from both rainbow trout and hybrid striped bass caused severe developmental
abnormalities, including delayed development, in both the parasitic trophont stage as well as
the reproductive tomont stage. The deleterious effects of HLP-1 also were manifested in what
appeared to be "˜delayed mortality', where parasites of normal appearance would die later in development.
Similar serious damage was also seen with calf histone H2B and the unrelated peptide antibiotic
magainin 2. A comparison of the antibiotic activity in mucus versus epidermis compartments of
the skin of hybrid striped bass suggested that the majority of antibiotic (including HLP-1) activity
resided in the epidermis, although some activity was present in the mucus. These data suggest that
normal, nonimmune fish skin contains potent defenses against protozoan ectoparasites and that the
effects of these defenses may extend beyond their transient interactions with the parasites, which has
important implications for this host-parasite relationship.
KEY WORDS: Histone-like proteins · Innate immunity · Fish
Click to expand...

I'm gonna continue searching ...
 
agree, more anecdotal than not, but stating that tomonts are found on the fish because trophonts dig deep into the flesh of the fish is enough for me. however, seeing a study would be interesting.

if this turns out to be false, i don't see why TTM would not work for velvet?
 
CHSUB said:
agree, more anecdotal than not, but stating that tomonts are found on the fish because trophonts dig deep into the flesh of the fish is enough for me. however, seeing a study would be interesting.
Click to expand...

Agreed on finding that study. I am afraid this this is one of those rumors that just gets repeated with little real evidence. Repetition does not make it a fact.


CHSUB said:
if this turns out to be false, i don't see why TTM would not work for velvet?
Click to expand...

Yes! I have a feeling I might be trying it this summer. In the mean time, let's keep searching the literature.
 
An interesting read

An interesting read

Steve Pro references this study in his ReefKeeping article on Amyloodinium:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-7345.2001.tb01103.x/abstract

I did not read the whole article as I think the abstract gives us the info we need. It seems like a 30 min H2O2 bath at 75 ppm could clear a fish of trophonts. Even copper doesn't do this. I have added Hydrogen peroxide to my tank directly to try to combat micro algae. It didn't work so well on the algae, but nothing suffered, not even inverts. Granted, this is a much higher concentration, but it is possible that it is a safer protocol than copper or even Chloroquine. Maybe instead of a fresh water bath, a 30 min H2O2 bath would be safe and effective? Even if encyctation can happen on the fish (we still don't have evidence that it does) this could take care of it.
 
Hydrogen Peroxide has been shown to work for ich and velvet in large scale aquaculture facilities. Finding enough peroxide to get the ppm high enough is the challenge. I thought about doing this to my tank when it was empty of fish at 300 ppm but needed something like 8 gallons of peroxide!
 
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've tried 25 mL in 2gal of water and it had zero effect on the fish, it died a few days later. I think the concentration of peroxide needs to be a lot higher than drug store peroxide at 3%.
 
tassod,
this is important information. Could you describe the situation? What were the symptoms of the fish? Was the peroxide old? The source of the peroxide should not matter as long as the 75 ppm is reached.
 
ReefTeacher said:
tassod,
this is important information. Could you describe the situation? What were the symptoms of the fish? Was the peroxide old? The source of the peroxide should not matter as long as the 75 ppm is reached.
Click to expand...

The fish looked like it was covered in powdered sugar and was very lethargic and was breathing heavily. The fish was a lunula trigger which is pictured in my avatar. I gave him a 30 minute bath in 2 gallons of tank water with about 25ml of peroxide. Not sure on how old the peroxide was, not more than 6 months old though. None of the symptoms changed after the bath although i did not have another clean tank to return him to but at least i would have expected some improvement at the very least. When i was researching the use of peroxide to treat velvet, i do remember reading something about the concentration needed to be about 35% to be effective. I do not know where to get that type of H2O2.
 
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