Ich or marine velvet?

corey904 · Dec 13, 2020

Is this ich or marine velvet and do you guys have any suggestions on how to cure?
it looks like white spots all over my kole tang

RedFrog211 · Dec 13, 2020

Hard to tell from those pics- velvet is usually more circular than ich, with ich trophonts having a more oval shape. Velvet is also much smaller, usually giving the fish a “dusty” appearance.

RedFrog211 · Dec 13, 2020

Either way I’d probably start setting up a QT

we’ll see what others have to say though

SaltyT · Dec 13, 2020

Is your tang breathing heavily? I agree with @RedFrog211 recommendation getting a QT setup. Do you have any copper medications on hand?

corey904 · Dec 13, 2020

I think multiple fish in my tank already have it so I’m looking for a medication to dose in my tank that is coral safe

RedFrog211 · Dec 13, 2020

I’ve heard iffy results with the “reef safe” treatments. For some it worked, for some it hurt the corals, and for others, it had no effect. I’d recommend checking out some threads and figuring out if it’s ich or velvet. That’ll really determine how much time you have to react. If it’s ich, and QT isn’t an option, I’d increase the water temp to high 70’s- 80°, then feed very nutritious food while dosing reef safe treatment, and keep a close eye on the fish and corals.

Reeffraff · Dec 13, 2020

In-tank treatments are unlikely to yield the results you desire. As others have noted, a QT tank (for all fish) with copper maintained at therapeutic levels is your best bet and will take care of both ich and velvet.

corey904 · Dec 14, 2020

After talking to my lfs I purchased polyp lab medic so I’ll see how that goes

Crustoceous · Dec 14, 2020

I had something very similar looking to that in my tank not long ago. It was slow to spread and slow to go away, and only affected some of the fish. It killed a couple of cleaner goby's and a two spot tang. It started on a flasher wrasse, spread to my clowns and then the tang, but most other fish did not get affected. I tried reef safe treatments but nothing worked, if anything seemed to make things worse. I eventually just let the UV do its job and fed the crap out of the fish, adding garlic too because appetites didn't seem to be that strong. The tang almost made it, struggled for two months before he disappeared.

One thing I did, that's somewhat controversial and not entirely proven but does have some evidence of helping was peroxide dosing. I dosed a pretty low amount for about a month or two until all signs of disease went away. It's been about 9 months I think, no issues.

The reason it went away could be a lot of things - it could be the UV was finally allowed to work (I had to turn it off for tank treatments). It could have been the peroxide - it definitely didn't hurt the situation and I still ran UV and skimmer. It could be that my tank reached a maturity level that it naturally suppressed the bug.

I think my biggest takeaway was that the more I messed with things the worse they got - pulling fish to FW dip and otherwise meddling seemed to mean things got worse before they got better. What I learned to do was hard, I had to let the tank habitants heal on their own. I think the peroxide helped me feel like I was doing something for them, if nothing else kept me from doing more drastic things.

I have added several fish after this event and have not had another episode, which leads me to believe that it's suppressed to a level that has no impact on the tank, or it's completely gone.

All this to say, I know what you're going through, it sucks. Hopefully you can take something away from my experience.

vetteguy53081 · Dec 15, 2020

Pic makes it hard to tell with deep blue pics
But appears to be protozoan
Copper based treatment or even polyp lab Medic should help this guy

corey904 · Dec 16, 2020

Crustoceous said:
I had something very similar looking to that in my tank not long ago. It was slow to spread and slow to go away, and only affected some of the fish. It killed a couple of cleaner goby's and a two spot tang. It started on a flasher wrasse, spread to my clowns and then the tang, but most other fish did not get affected. I tried reef safe treatments but nothing worked, if anything seemed to make things worse. I eventually just let the UV do its job and fed the crap out of the fish, adding garlic too because appetites didn't seem to be that strong. The tang almost made it, struggled for two months before he disappeared.

One thing I did, that's somewhat controversial and not entirely proven but does have some evidence of helping was peroxide dosing. I dosed a pretty low amount for about a month or two until all signs of disease went away. It's been about 9 months I think, no issues.

The reason it went away could be a lot of things - it could be the UV was finally allowed to work (I had to turn it off for tank treatments). It could have been the peroxide - it definitely didn't hurt the situation and I still ran UV and skimmer. It could be that my tank reached a maturity level that it naturally suppressed the bug.

I think my biggest takeaway was that the more I messed with things the worse they got - pulling fish to FW dip and otherwise meddling seemed to mean things got worse before they got better. What I learned to do was hard, I had to let the tank habitants heal on their own. I think the peroxide helped me feel like I was doing something for them, if nothing else kept me from doing more drastic things.

I have added several fish after this event and have not had another episode, which leads me to believe that it's suppressed to a level that has no impact on the tank, or it's completely gone.

All this to say, I know what you're going through, it sucks. Hopefully you can take something away from my experience.

Thanks so much it also does seem to be affecting only a few fish and I’ll look in to peroxide

Keen4 · Feb 24, 2021

Crustoceous said:
I had something very similar looking to that in my tank not long ago. It was slow to spread and slow to go away, and only affected some of the fish. It killed a couple of cleaner goby's and a two spot tang. It started on a flasher wrasse, spread to my clowns and then the tang, but most other fish did not get affected. I tried reef safe treatments but nothing worked, if anything seemed to make things worse. I eventually just let the UV do its job and fed the crap out of the fish, adding garlic too because appetites didn't seem to be that strong. The tang almost made it, struggled for two months before he disappeared.

One thing I did, that's somewhat controversial and not entirely proven but does have some evidence of helping was peroxide dosing. I dosed a pretty low amount for about a month or two until all signs of disease went away. It's been about 9 months I think, no issues.

The reason it went away could be a lot of things - it could be the UV was finally allowed to work (I had to turn it off for tank treatments). It could have been the peroxide - it definitely didn't hurt the situation and I still ran UV and skimmer. It could be that my tank reached a maturity level that it naturally suppressed the bug.

I think my biggest takeaway was that the more I messed with things the worse they got - pulling fish to FW dip and otherwise meddling seemed to mean things got worse before they got better. What I learned to do was hard, I had to let the tank habitants heal on their own. I think the peroxide helped me feel like I was doing something for them, if nothing else kept me from doing more drastic things.

I have added several fish after this event and have not had another episode, which leads me to believe that it's suppressed to a level that has no impact on the tank, or it's completely gone.

All this to say, I know what you're going through, it sucks. Hopefully you can take something away from my experience.

Did you have coral and anemones? I have a second outbreak of the parasite after 2 days of returning the fish from a 76 day "fallow" period which I think I managed to disturb by adding new fish that "cant carry ich" on day 45. transferred them into QT after a few days. and continued the rest of the 76 day fallow period. Looks like I need to start over.

Crustoceous · Mar 12, 2021

Keen4 said:
Did you have coral and anemones? I have a second outbreak of the parasite after 2 days of returning the fish from a 76 day "fallow" period which I think I managed to disturb by adding new fish that "cant carry ich" on day 45. transferred them into QT after a few days. and continued the rest of the 76 day fallow period. Looks like I need to start over.

I did have both. Since that episode I have adopted a less stressful approach of feed and observe, and it’s worked well. I don’t qt, and I have added a number of fish since then. Running uv 24/7, it keeps everything in balance. When I tried to medicate or intervene things just seemed to get worse. Once in a while I see a fish with something that irritates it, a white spot or two but never for longer than a day or two. Everyone is fat and happy and I’ve had nothing die off since then. I look at it like we humans manage pathogens... someone might get sick, but we have immune systems for a reason, if they get hit more often, they just get stronger. Also my tank is a little more mature now, I think that plays in to things in terms of stability and suppressing those bad bugs.