Velvet Probs.

Reefers4U

Active member
We haven't placed a fish in over two months but perhaps it came on a frag.

In any event I have Velvet.

There is SPS, Clams, lps in the 120. Currently have about 7 fish, several of which are flashing.

Kole tang has it bad, 48 hours with it is optimistic.

I have a 20 gal QT running at all times avail jic.

Suggestions?

Thank you So Cal
 
We haven't placed a fish in over two months but perhaps it came on a frag.

In any event I have Velvet.

There is SPS, Clams, lps in the 120. Currently have about 7 fish, several of which are flashing.

Kole tang has it bad, 48 hours with it is optimistic.

I have a 20 gal QT running at all times avail jic.

Suggestions?

Thank you So Cal

I know it's prob not what you want to hear... but the proper way is to get all ur fish out and put them through qt.

if qt is not an option, do a search on hydrogen peroxide in-tank treatment.. It's experimental but it has work for some ppl... if your fish aren't too bad, I would try this method...

As for your tang, a 30 min dip, 20ml of 3% h2o2 per 1 gal of saltwater, it should temp relieve him b4 putting him in qt.
 
bummer man, i got me some velvet recently too. i also think i brought it in via coral, but maybe it was more due to my subpar QTing practices, can't really ever pinpoint the source of this stuff

idk where your tank is at coral wise, but mine was still newer so removing all of the rocks wasn't the end of the world. still sucked, but fallow with proper qt is still probably the best way to go. if your tank is loaded with coral, then i'd consider the h2o2 dosing regime like hersheyb advised

sounds like you're already familiar with velvet and how it works so i'll save that

what i did was remove all fish and gave them all 30 min 150 ppm h2o2 baths en route to various QT tanks. for 7 fish i probably wouldn't use just a single 20g. i used some tanks i had hanging around + some heavy duty storage totes. you can get them at home depot. i then ramped up copper fairly quickly in some of the tanks and then had a wrasse only tote so i could ramp that slower

out of 25 or so fish i ended up losing 4 total. 2 in the DT due to velvet, 1 post copper (pintail fairy wrasse that i think crashed into something randomly) and 1 during copper that i think may have been an aggression issue. i did copper power and tried to keep it closer to 2.5 than 2.0, but i did have it venture down into the teens. i also had one tote venture up to around 2.75, but i wouldn't recommend that. i didn't know this, but copper is like salinity. it doesn't evaporate, so if you don't topoff consistently it'll rise. but stuff can also absorb it. ime using marinepure spheres and other biomedias and even a decent amount of sand, it doesn't leech much at all, but that might not be the case for you

it was also advised to me by humblefish that bacterial infections were likely so the best is to dose anti biotics into the qt tanks, but i only had a few doses of spectrogram hanging around, and with like 4 tanks that was gonna last like a couple days at best. so what i did was every other day i added the abx and laced it to the frozen fish food with seachem focus. i never encountered any bacterial issues, so i guess it worked. hard to prove that, but i have had issues with bacterial infections using copper in the past

if you go this route try to be proactive with what you'll need. i ran out of hanna copper test packets and had to order those, it's recommended to test copper daily, so those go quickly even if you start off with like 10-20. i also saw the abx issue looming so i ordered what was available. spectrogram was not available so i ordered a couple sets of furacyn https://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquatronics.html

my post 2 weeks of therapeutic copper plan was to transfer all fish into 2 more large totes, but this was dumb by me as i couldn't actually observe the fish, which seems important for post copper observation. i ended up grabbing a 40 breeder from petco (dollar per gallon sale was going recently) and i had an old 55g tank hanging around from my early hobby days before i knew what a sump was

good luck with whatever you choose. humblefish has a site you can ask him questions if you want more expert guidance
 
If that QT is up and ready, I'd catch the fish give them a bath in Ruby Reef with an airstone. Altho, 7 fish in that 20 will be crammed. I don't imagine those fish from the 120 are small. Anyways, that'll give them temporary relief. Then ramp up the copper power in the qt. If you can dose small amounts of copper several times, ramping it up .25 per time and get to 1.0 or 1.25 within 24 hours, then 1.5 or 1.75 within the next 24 hours. I think you'll have a good shot of saving them minus the kole. Depends how bad he is. Make sure the QT tank is well oxygenated. Velvet will kill the fish from asphyxiation.

I had velvet outbreak in one of my observation tanks and one fish got really bad within 24 hours. After following the steps above he looked decent within 24 hours and within 72 hours he was looking good, within 96 hours looked perfectly normal. He's now 2 weeks in copper power ranging from 2.0 to 2.25 and doing very well.
 
I know it's prob not what you want to hear... but the proper way is to get all ur fish out and put them through qt.

if qt is not an option, do a search on hydrogen peroxide in-tank treatment.. It's experimental but it has work for some ppl... if your fish aren't too bad, I would try this method...

As for your tang, a 30 min dip, 20ml of 3% h2o2 per 1 gal of saltwater, it should temp relieve him b4 putting him in qt.

With the corals in the tank, I'd be concerned that the h2o2 will have a negative impact on them. Plus you'll have to dose h2o2 at least twice a day to maintain it's effectiveness. So it might become tedious depending on how you intended to dose. I've never done it, I've read about it extensively because I had velvet in my display so it was an option I considered. I don't have corals in my display (yet), so that wasn't a concern. After reading I decided not to do it. I concluded that the h2o2 in tank dosing is experimental so the outcome didn't seem favorable. I opted for a treatment I knew would be favorable so long as the fish could hold on for 24 - 48 hours.

I do use the h2o2 as a bath on newly acquired fish. I don't know if it's been anymore beneficial compared to my traditional paraguard bath. I have had 1 fish died from h2o2 bath (golden rhomboid).
 
Currently have about 7 fish, several of which are flashing.

Flashing could be flukes. Could do a fresh water dip to confirm flukes. If it is flukes, there are reef safe treatments.

What makes you think it's velvet?

I've had velvet 3 times, I don't recall if my fish flashed. Most common visible symptom was seclusion, lack of activity, not eating, swimming into flow. Then death within 48 hours. If you're lucky you'll see the powder sugar like spots covering the fish. Otherwise, velvet is a silent killer (I've had fish behave normal at night, wake up the next morning and they're dead from asphyxiation). Unfortunately, it took a few fish of mine to die before I suspected velvet.
 
Flashing could be flukes. Could do a fresh water dip to confirm flukes. If it is flukes, there are reef safe treatments.

What makes you think it's velvet?


White spots all over the Tang - swimming into the mp40. Not the tiny spots like dust, big ol' spots like cotton.

My wife tried to get a pic but she couldn't - will keep trying.


What do you guys think about moving my coral + clam (dont have too much given my tank crash) into the smaller 20 gal QT, hanging a light over it, and then going to town on the display?

I have a reactor and could try to scrub out the meds once I'm finished. Thoughts?

Aye.... I'm studying for the bar exam and do not have time for this. :headwallblue:
 
As others have posted, you won't be able to get to the root cause without removing the fish. Your only other alternative is to remove all corals/clams/etc. and run hypo. This is at least a 30 day process so for me, the simpler solution is to catch all the fish and treat in QT with copper.

Without pics, it's tough to say, but I'm betting it's Ich and not velvet. If it's velvet you wouldn't even have time to post on here.
 
Flashing could be flukes. Could do a fresh water dip to confirm flukes. If it is flukes, there are reef safe treatments.

What makes you think it's velvet?

I think now it probably wasn't velvet and just a bad case of ick. Doubtful they would have made it days with velvet + tang was still munching on nori.

All the fish are in the QT - I got most of them small so it isn't too crowded (for everyone except the tang and wrasse :) Did an ro fw dip on the wrasse and kole tang.

I've got a fluval 206 + an ammo badge on the QT and prime standing by; that should be enough to handle the bio load.

What do you guys suggest I treat them with? I've got most meds except copper/copper measuring kit.

Also, I've got the mandarin in qt which I feel uneasy about - I don't think it eats pellets.
 
I think now it probably wasn't velvet and just a bad case of ick. Doubtful they would have made it days with velvet + tang was still munching on nori.

All the fish are in the QT - I got most of them small so it isn't too crowded (for everyone except the tang and wrasse :) Did an ro fw dip on the wrasse and kole tang.

I've got a fluval 206 + an ammo badge on the QT and prime standing by; that should be enough to handle the bio load.

What do you guys suggest I treat them with? I've got most meds except copper/copper measuring kit.

Also, I've got the mandarin in qt which I feel uneasy about - I don't think it eats pellets.

The mandarin in QT will not end well. Do you have another tank or a friend's tank that is fishless?

As for treatment, we had a lot of success using just copper safe with no testing and just going by the measurements from the manufacturer.
 
I use copper power. Wrasses are very sensitive to copper, you have to raise copper very slowly. I raise around .25 a day. Ideally I dose twice a day (raising it around .12 to .14 per dose, for my qt tank size it's 1/4 cap which I eyeball), once in the morning and once a night until I get to 1.75 with wrasses. Takes a week to get to that point. From what I've read people like to keep wrasses at 1.75, but tangs can do 2.0 to 2.25. If it were me, I'd just keep it at 1.75. Therapeutic level is 1.50, so technically you're fine. People talk about more resistant strains, hence the high levels of copper to treat. Maybe you want to consider keeping them in copper longer then 30 days, since I assume you're going fallow in your display for 76+ days.

I never had a mandarin, so I can't speak with any experience on how to care for it in any way.

Hanna Checker is the best way to test the copper levels. I test before I dose in the morning and before I dose at night. Once I get to the 1.75, I test 2 more days, then I test every other day. Because if you fall below therapeutic level then the 30 days resets and you're back at day one.

Oh and I've read that copper power is better for wrasses than cupermine. I've never used cupermine for that reason.
 
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you will need to commit to QT everything wet, including corals and inverts, from now on. or else all these treatment are pointless.

since it's just ich, I would just treat the sick one and keep the rest healthy and eating in DT. you could easily lose all your fish in a small 20gal QT tank. stress + medication + ich + uncycled water

mandarin fish has a body slime thats very tough for ich to attach. semi immune. tough to keep it alive in QT unless you buy pods daily. it will have better chance surviving in DT with ich
 
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I have tried saving all my fish just to lose them faster. now, i keep population lower, feed heavier and keep them fat. once in awhile the tangs pop some ich. i just increase nori feeding.
 
I'm thinking of putting the fish "“except the tang and wrasse"“ back into the display and run a uv sterilizer for a few months.


I don't have any sand and I feed lots of nori, rodsreef, and selcon.

I think this way is better than having all the fish in QT
 
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