Velvet

[karaim]

I have a FOWLR tank. My fish developed what I though was ich. I proceeded to hypo the display tank (300 gal, 14 large fish...too many to quarantine) and lowered the sg to 1.012 (going to 1.009). My fish have since got worse. I fear it is velvet and not ich. The white spots are very close together forming what looks like a velvet coating. Half of the fish are not eating.

My only remedy is copper I presume. I have no choice but to copper the DT. Any side effects of hypo with copper?

 

[davidwillis]

I think I read that you are not supposed to do both hypo and copper. You may want to raise the salinity back up then do copper. Or at least wait until someone else with more knowledge confirms that it is safe to do both.

 

[tubntxawg]

When fish are in a hyposaline liquid, the effects of medicines and medications changes. Some meds become lethal, like copper. SO DO NOT USE COPPER YOU WILL MORE THAN LIKELY WIPE OUT YOUR LIVE STOCK...

 

[Swim]

I hate when this happens. Velvet is usually much tougher than ich to treat once you get past 24 hrs without the right diagnosis. Let me guess, this is after a drop in temp? There is more than one strain of velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum) and sometimes chelated copper like "copper power" will work and sometimes not. Sometimes "ridich" works when "copper power" doesn't but it's much harsher and needs to be dosed daily. At this point I would get the copper dosed following directions and also bring the salinity back up to 1.021 as quickly as you can without giving the fish PH shock or something like that. Your dealing with binary fission here. (I have a paper that was done by the U of La. here somewhere.)