Velvet wiped out my tank.. =(

[Caliburst]

Im sure that there are many threads on this topic but not having the search feature makes it difficult to research. Ive been into the hobby on and off for a decade and I have never experienced velvet until now. A fish came in that apparently had it. He showed symptoms and died within a week. Six more fish followed. After all of my fish died, except one, I did a massive water change and let the tank run with the uv sterilizer for about a week and then picked up two more fish. They now both have it and are dying. I dont care about losing the fish and am not going to bother to QT/treat them, but I cant have this becomming an ongoing cycle. How do I stop it? It is a reef tank so copper is not an option...


I will post up pics later but the symptoms are pretty obvious- fish breathing heavy, major discoloration, film/blotches on body. Rubbing on the rocks, disorientation/lethargy, gasping for air, etc.

 

[Caliburst]

The only fish that survived the fist wave was a coral beauty angel fish. The two new fish came down with it within three days and are now dying as of this morning. I expect to see them both dead when I return home from work. Obviously, Im not adding any more or doing anything until this is resolved.

The coral beauty still does not show any visible signs of it. Even though he doesnt show it, he may still have it and be infectious...

 

[nauticac4]

You should have QT'd and You need to pull the fish and QT them to treat as well as leaving the tank fishless for a period of time (not sure what the time is on velvet). That will be the only sure fire way to erradicate it

 

[Caliburst]

You should have QT'd

I agree, however, the suspected source died quickly and the remaining fish are hard to get out of the tank.
Ive always been a believer that with many illnesses, its better to leave the fish in the tank and hope that he will continue eating and develop a natural immunity to it. It is better than tearing a tank apart to get a fish out to QT it. That is, unless the nature of the disease/illness is highly infectious which seems to be the case here. I could take the two fish out and give them a freshwater dip for five minutes but at this stage, I think they are beyond treatment. While I have never experienced velvet, I have always read that once it shows blotches all over the body, it is usually too late...

 

[Chris27]

To eradicate, you'll need to leave your tank fishless for a month to let it run it's cycle...after that QT'ing new specimens will alleviate the problems you encountered after adding one fish.

 

[Caliburst]

I agree with the post above that I should have removed the first fish at the first sign of velvet, however, Im not a fan of Qting fish. [not to mention by the time velvet became visible it was probably too late anyhow]
I know that it is the popular method for treating illnesses and issues on this site, however, I am a big fan of letting things take their course. If a fish is eating and is happy and healthy to begin with, most will overcome an illness and then become immune to it down the road. I am also a believer that many of these little problems, such as ich, are present in your tank at all times and its stress that causes outbreaks. Lets be honest, the water quality in a QT tank is almost never what it should be. It is also not a good idea to terrorize an entire tank and rip everything apart to get a fish out. I have one little clown and one little coral beauty (2.5") in my 120G. He is not going to be caught easily.
I also dont think its good to be fishless for a month in terms of keeping a biological balance in the tank. The coral beauty that is in the tank has been through hell and back and hes a hearty fish. I may leave him and let things ride. In the meantime, I will change my UV bulb for safe measure and then do 30-40% water changes weekly for the next three weeks or so and then try to add another fish.

What do you guys think? Seems to make the most sense...

 

[Recty]

Im not a fan of Qting fish. I also dont think its good to be fishless for a month in terms of keeping a biological balance in the tank. The coral beauty that is in the tank has been through hell and back and hes a hearty fish. I may leave him and let things ride. In the meantime, I will change my UV bulb for safe measure and then do 30-40% water changes weekly for the next three weeks or so and then try to add another fish.

What do you guys think? Seems to make the most sense...

That actually doesnt sound very useful at all...

Doing big water changes will dilute the diseae, not get rid of it... UV will kill any of the disease that happens to go through it, but nothing that stays in the tank. UV and ozone are good for keeping disease levels down, but they dont get rid of it totally.

Leaving in a fish that could be hosting a disease (which at this point still hasnt been identified as velvet) and doing measures that dont get rid of the disease but at best dilute it and then adding new fish back in three weeks is just asking for trouble again.

I know you dont like QT as you've stated, but it's really the only option to know your fish wont get sick.

As far as biological balance goes, I wouldnt worry about it a bit. Just dont add 500 fish at once when you decide to start adding fish again, let your tank slowly adjust to fish being added slowly to it.

 

[Caliburst]

I think you missed the point of some of what I was saying. I am not in any way suggesting that a month from now I will dump 50 fish in the tank.
What I was saying is that the tank, particularly the bacteria that I want to keep alive in my tank, need fish in the tank. I do not want to go fishless for long periods of time and disturb the biological balance or move in a backwards cycle.

I do not expect the UV sterilizer to fix the problem. It will only kill free-floating parasites.

I suppose that there are different ways to look at it. Ive spoken to at least six people today, including friends, rc people, and two very reputable LFSs and some agreed with me, others agreed with you.
If you have a classroom full of kids and two have the flu, the entire classroom is at risk. If there are a handful of kids who have a strong immune system and dont get sick, they are not likely to 'carry' the flu and give it to someone else. The coral beauty may be fine and it may be best just to leave him in there and not do anything for a few weeks.

On the other hand, the remaining fish (a clown fish and a coral beauty) are cheap fish. I have lost all of the nicest and most expensive fish in the tank. Part of me wants to get rid of the last two- either by giving them to petco or someone with a QT tank and starting over. I havent decided yet.

By the way, this is the most virulent case of velvet I have seen. Everyone I have shown this to agrees. These two fish were eating and were perfectly healthy and active 48hrs ago. Yesterday, they were covered from head to tail in spots. This morning they looked like this:
both were laying on their sides and having trouble swimming. By 3pm, when I returned home from work, both were dead.

 

[Caliburst]

The bottom line is that there is nothing I CAN do but wait. In the meantime, a new uv bulb and water changes are the only thing that can help. I dont expect either to be a solution. Im just looking at what I can do to try in improve the situation.

 

[Recty]

I think you missed the point of some of what I was saying. I am not in any way suggesting that a month from now I will dump 50 fish in the tank.
What I was saying is that the tank, particularly the bacteria that I want to keep alive in my tank, need fish in the tank. I do not want to go fishless for long periods of time and disturb the biological balance or move in a backwards cycle.
[/IMG]

I'm thinking maybe you missed the point of what I said I'm saying you aren't loosing any bacteria your tank needs by removing the fish. The bacteria level will be higher with fish in there and will drop with no fish being fed/pooping in the water. When you go to add fish again, the bacteria levels will rise accordingly.

You are not going to move backwards or disturb some magic balance point your tank is at, your bacteria levels will simply decline for the time being and raise back up when you add more fish in. There is nothing to worry about UNLESS you wanted to add a lot of fish back at once, which is the only thing I was trying to point out.

The bottom line is that there is nothing I CAN do but wait. In the meantime, a new uv bulb and water changes are the only thing that can help. I dont expect either to be a solution. Im just looking at what I can do to try in improve the situation.

You could treat the current fish in a QT tank. You could remove them, get rid of them and let the tank remain fallow for a couple months and let the parasite die off. Those are at least two things you COULD DO if you wanted to. At this point doing water changes more frequently is like the husband going to the stove and boiling water/ripping sheets up when the wife is in labor. It does nothing but makes you feel better about it. You'll dilute the parasite, you wont get rid of it. The next fish added will get it. You acknowledge that but still seem to think that's a good plan, which I cant say I understand.

Your analogy of kids in school with the flu sounds good but is flawed. The flu is a virus, velvet is a parasite, the body handles them differently. I would never want to introduce fish back into a tank that has one or two fish in it that survived a velvet attack. They are most likely still harboring the parasite, it just cant reproduce to such drastic levels to kill the fish. A host fish in a tank with velvet is a bad thing. A kid in school who has an immune system that has totally nuked the flu virus is not a bad thing, he wont be spreading it.

Anyway, I'm not lecturing you here, I'm just telling you what you need to do if you dont want to repeat it again.

To sum up... water changes wont solve your problem. Leaving the current fish in the tank wont solve the problem. Replacing your UV bulb wont solve the problem. Waiting three weeks then adding more fish wont solve the problem.

Removing the fish and letting your tank fallow a couple months will solve the problem.

QTing your remaining fish and treating them for velvet will solve the problem, coupled with leaving your main tank fallow for a couple months plus you'll get to keep the scrappy little fish who survived velvet.

Do what you want

 

[Caliburst]

I think what I said was that water changes wont solve the problem, a new uv bulb wont solve the problem, etc but taking these actions can only help. Nothing will solve the problem but time. We have already established that.


Theres no point in rehashing it.

I know what I need to do. I knew what I needed to do before I posted this.. I guess I was just venting or looking for someone to say 'its not so bad'.. but whatever. It is what it is- as they say.
Im not taking any chances with the two remaining fish. They arent worth it. I dont have a QT tank running so Im going to either give them to someone with a QT tank or petco. They arent worth the trouble. The coral beauty is a $10 wholesale fish.

According to my reading, the lifespan of amyloodiniosis is about three weeks without a host. The UV sterilizer will kill the free-floating parasites. The rest is going to have to die off on its own.

 

[Recty]

I was just trying to help but I see you've already made up your mind on what to do. Good luck with your fish man, I hope it works out for ya.

As far as a QT tank not being worth the trouble, if I were you I'd set one up, even if you dont want to treat your current fish. It would be GREAT to treat your fish before they add them to your tank so that you dont ever have to worry about this kind of thing again. Treating your current fish would at least give you a little experience with maintaining a QT tank and actually using it to treat a fish, rather than start learning with your expensive ones you get later.

 

[Caliburst]

I cant argue with putting a fish in qt before putting him in the display tank. That is a good idea. I still dont think it makes sense to tear a reef tank apart to get out a small fish who has ich.. but If I had quarantined the original fish that took the entire tank down, I would have prevented this. He would not eat from day one which was also a sign of trouble. I like to see a fish eat before I get him but in this instance I met someone from RC at a neutral location and took the fish in a bag... so I have several mistakes to blame for this. I had a great run of luck over the years and I guess I took it for granted.. or perhaps I became too trusting- not just of others, but of fish in general.

 

[chewey]

Caliburst... after reading from begining to end, I understand sentiments as the same has happen to myself. It is heartbreaking indeed. Seems like you know what you are doing. I followed some advices that was given when my fishes was sick. Since i didn't have a QT in place, I had to set one up immediately. That unfortunately didn't work to my favor. After tearing up my tank in getting the sick fish out, they eventually die. I believe I stressed them out even more during the catch and the new environment. The BEST practice i seen and done is to QT new incoming fish. I live in an area with lots of Local Fish Stores...the unfortunate part is that some of them don't have a good practice in new arrivals....unless you go once a week, you won't know what was new. That's how my situation started. Now, I try to only purchase fish from private sales where I can go and see the fish swimming in the tank ( wishful thinking )...but definitely plan ahead. Prior to adding your next bunch of fish, setup a QT and have a good process. Just learn from mistakes.

also...we are not here to tell you what is right and wrong. Everyone needs some advice at times when we are confused and frustrated or just seeking a little reassurance to our own thoughts... Good Luck...

 

[hottuna]

how effective is formalin against this ???

 

[hottuna]

Just had a similar case of velvet wipe out 6 of my fish and counting...several others are infected ....tried aqua pro cure...so far it's containing the disease...

 

[jjk_reef00]

I learned the hard way but fortunately my first major disease was flukes and I treated the display with prazi. Ever since I qt all fish for 2 months before adding them to my display tank. I have had fish eat well in the LFS and then a few days later they broke out with what I believe is velvet. Good thing I had them in qt. IMO it is not a matter of if, but when your fish will get a disease. Hence all fish should be qt'ed so they don't have the chance to infect all the healthy fish in the display tank.

A qt isn't really all that much work. Get a small tank with a hang on the back filter and your all set.

 

[slojmn]

Im not taking any chances with the two remaining fish. They arent worth it. I dont have a QT tank running so I'm going to either give them to someone with a QT tank or petco. They aren't worth the trouble. The coral beauty is a $10 wholesale fish.

I think any fish is worth responsible reefkeeping no matter the price. I find these comments, and one in one of your other posts about "not caring about the fish" a bit mind blowing. If you don't care about the fish why do you have them??

I do hope you can eradicate the problem, it sounds awful. Good Luck.

 

[sufunk]

Sorry about your tank!

I'm right there with you. Velvet wiped out my tank last night as well. I bought a Powder Brown and had him in qt for 10-11 days and he looked perfect, just wouldnt eat much and looked stressed. The qt is small so i thought he would be happier and eat if he was in the display.

Now, my lyretail anthias is dead, my tennenti tang died and my Blonde Naso and Blue hippo are laying in the qt on their sides gasping for breath. Only my false perc and mandarin look like they will survive(maybe). My tank is now nearly empty and my aquascape destroyed getting them out into qt. Devastating!!!!

 

[gweston]

This sort of thing scares me... which is why I'll have a full QT setup for any new additions for the larger tank setup I have in progress. While a QT isn't 100% fullproof, it is a big layer of defense. I can deal with the extra expense and effort it requires.

I currently don't have a QT at the moment for my main 29g, but then again, I don't plan on adding any new critters.. this tank is staying as-is until everything moves to the 125gal. The 29g will become the quarantine.

My first fish was from the LFS store, was there for a long while, and was super healthy. Zero problems. The two clowns I added were from a friend that lives ~15 mins away. An established tank and the clowns were also super fat and healthy. Maybe I got lucky?

I'll also add.. a fish is a fish, but I treat them like revered pets. These critters, even the corals and anemone get pampered and cared for. I'll go out of my way to keep them healthy, disease free, and alive.

Oh.. and my 5 year old son sings good night to the fish/corals before going to bed LOL!!!!