velvet?

[digidana]

i have some kind of crud in the 75. its killed a couple fish, and a couple more look like hell. looks like they have some sort of film on them and small white spots. at first i thought ich and started to go hypo, but was then told that its probably velvet, so i tried running a course of that rally stuff, but its still not lookin good.

right now i have a dogface puffer that's lookin bad, hasn't eaten in 2 days, a tomato clown that's covered in white spots, and a mandarin goby that's still looking good. if the puffer doesn't make it, which unfortunately, i don't think he will...i'm probably going to shut down the 75.

my question is...there are hermit crabs and rock in that tank that i'd like to use in the 240. if i move the crabs and rock over, will they carry whatever infestation mess over with them?

and, if you have any suggestions on how to save "puff daddy", i'd love the help!

 

[cee]

From DFS:

This disease is highly contagious.


The key to treating this disease is early detection and prompt treatment.


Most fish that show the severe skin form are probably too sick to respond to treatment.


Only the free-swimming dinoflagellate form of the organism (the dinospore) is susceptible to treatment.


Properly sized UV sterilizers will also kill the dinospores.


The encysted form is not susceptible to any treatment.

If the fish die, I'd probably leave the tank set up and research the lifecycle of the disease. After about 2 lifecycle periods you could probably transfer LR and hermits, but doing so beforehand would be risky IMO. However, I'm no expert in fish disease, so you might want to wait and see what Matt has to say.

 

[goreefer]

Do you think that a Diatom filter would help in this situation?
I have treated Ich with it in the past with success, but if the spores are too small they may not be catched by the filter.
Matt?

 

[Fishboy42]

For the inverts, I'd side with what Dave suggests. 2 cycles seems to be a safe-bet when "waiting-out" obligate parasites. Moving things to another tank may risk transferring the disease there too, and if there's a risk that it's been misidentified, it makes transferring anything all-the-more risky. Leaving everything fishless for a few weeks (I'd do 6 if you can wait that long), should ride-out the life cycles of most of the parasites we know about.

If the symptoms do look like velvet/Amyloodinium, it can be a tough one. For the fish: since copper is effective on both ich and velvet, it might be a good idea to remove the fish and medicate with copper (while leaving the tank empty) to make sure to get rid of the problem, whichever it may be.

The clown and the puffer should be fine with copper treatment, but I don't know how mandarins respond to copper, and feeding it while in a hospital tank might be a problem. AFAIK, mandarins don't pick-up parasites too often though. Pete the Puffer went through a 6-week prophylactic treatment before leaving the house, including two weeks of copper to make sure he (she) was "clean" before introducing her to the hatchery (I was worried that it may have picked up some infections along-the-way, especially since puffers have been blamed as "carriers" and this one had been through quite a bit). Although I was concerned about it, the treatment didn't seem to affect her heath.

Another option, although not a cure, might be to try freshwater dips/baths. It might be able to give the fish enough relief that they can fight it off if otherwise healthy. I used this approach with a severe case of velvet on a (now breeding) pair of maroons followed by copper treatment, but the bath (I did 30 minutes in temperature and pH adjusted FW) seemed to offer huge relief of the parasite load on the fish. Most of my other experiences with this disease did not end well (bleach and dry everything and start-over), as it acts fast, so it can be tough when caught early and even when treating prophylactically. It is one of the ones that continues to plague marine ornamental operations, which is why all of our "experiments" with treatment and QT of potentially unsafe animals happen at the house.

I take Randy's coral approach with fish. The proper treatments may be harsh, but they will kill the targeted parasites, so we'll be left with a parasite-free animal at the end of the treatment, and we hope that it comes-out alive. Not so different from the treatments for some human diseases really.

Here's the DFS page on velvet (http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=83). Some good information there. FWIW I've never gotten anything from the DD that I've had to treat for anything, so I've studied their pages a bit too

 

[digidana]

thanks guys...unfortunately, the puffer and the mandarin died overnight. the one male clown is all that's left.

thanks for all the advice. i could let the tank go for 6 weeks, even longer if i need to, but even then i'm not sure i'd want to put anything in the big tank. i'm afraid of risking it. this is some nasty stuff.

think i should cook the rock? pitch the sand?

 

[TriMax]

Dana

What did you do with the tank? Did that poor clown ever die.

Eddie

 

[digidana]

the last clown died the day after the meeting. on monday i took out all but a couple pieces of rock. i'm doing the "let it run for 6-weeks" thing so i can save the crabs and snails, etc.

i've had the rock sitting outside in the cold for a week...think its ok to move it in a piece at a time into the big tank if i keep an eye on phosphates? i just really wanna make sure the "crud" is D.E.A.D!!

it was scary the way it wiped everything out.