ICH OR VELVET ?

[scott4077]

So this started a few weeks ago when my Sailfin started getting spots all over him, covered in a bunch of dusty white spots/fuzz. he swims and eats plenty no signs of distress. my other fish were spot free and happy swimming and eating fine, but i had a bunch of blue chromis go missing. i had recently added a very large Rainbow tip nem and though maybe they had fallen prey to that. then my newish kole tang died ... but he and my tomini tang were not getting along so i though well maybe he just got to stressed ( although they had been swimming together fine for a week or so) then i lost a yellow tang... and i decided to move everything to quarantine at this point, i put them in two nights ago, since then i have lost 2 chromis, the tomini tang and before i left for work the sail fin looked like he was getting ready to go as well. I'm super confused as nothing showed signs of stress/illness but suddenly they are all going out, the only fish with a spot on him is the sail fin still. I'm treating my QT with that seachem culprmine or however you spell it. any ideas or tips? seems like I'm probably going to lose all of the fish before this ends, but none of the timelines add up, and with velvet i would have expected it to sweep the tank within days not weeks, and it seems like the fish all got worse when i put them in QT is that just a stress reaction? ill try to upload photos of the sail fin when i can, but as far as i can tell its very similar to photos of velvet ive seen.

 

[scott4077]

 

[tgrick]

Velvet!

You need to act fast.

a) Freshwater Dip. Don't be scared. Works really well. 5 mins. You are late! Do it now.
b) Acriflavin bath. Poor guy needs about 90 mins in this bath.
c) CP or Cloroquine Phosphate.

If no CP then copper...

c(ver.2) Copper Power or Copper Safe. You need Hanna HR copper test kit. The combo is a miracle device. Raise copper so that you hit 1.5 in 2 days. That's really quick. I prefer 4 or 5 days but you have no choice. I would add copper in AM, then PM. Repeat next day going to 1.5. Hover around 1.5 for 3 days or so. Bring up to 1.75 or 2.0 if fish is doing well.

Good Luck. Bath is required for life saving chance...both of them.

 

[scott4077]

Velvet!

You need to act fast.

a) Freshwater Dip. Don't be scared. Works really well. 5 mins. You are late! Do it now.
b) Acriflavin bath. Poor guy needs about 90 mins in this bath.
c) CP or Cloroquine Phosphate.

If no CP then copper...

c(ver.2) Copper Power or Copper Safe. You need Hanna HR copper test kit. The combo is a miracle device. Raise copper so that you hit 1.5 in 2 days. That's really quick. I prefer 4 or 5 days but you have no choice. I would add copper in AM, then PM. Repeat next day going to 1.5. Hover around 1.5 for 3 days or so. Bring up to 1.75 or 2.0 if fish is doing well.

Good Luck. Bath is required for life saving chance...both of them.

sail fin was on the floor when i got home from work.... to late for him but i did the freshwater bath for maybe 3-4 minutes the yellow tang stoped swimming and looked catatohnic so i dumped them back into the QT tank. i don't have the Acriflavine for what you listed in step 2 but i added more copper to the QT this morning, the 6 line wrasse is looking the worst of the bunch but i read that they have a less than ideal reaction to copper, so idk what do do with him. the two clowns are both lethargic and huddled in the corner, the fire fish is doing okay moving around and the diamond goby seem content to hide in the pic tubes i put in there.

 

[Rcpilot]

So sorry to read this. Hope you get them all treated and can save some.

Do you think it's possible the "newish" kole tang had velvet and slowly succumbed to it, while spreading the disease to the rest of the tank?

 

[HotRocks]

Here is the deal with velvet.

It attacks the actual gills of the fish. The "white spots" are entrance wounds.

So you can certainly have velvet afflicting fish gills without the entrance wounds or white spots. Especially on fish with a thicker mucus layer.

Once a fish has enough of the parasites invading the gills they can no longer breathe.

Your description above shouts velvet and now after seeing pics of the fish I think it's safe to say it is what you are dealing with.

 

[Big G]

^^^ +1 The unseen damage to their gills as @HotRocks pointed out is tough on fish. That's why the freshwater dip is so important. It causes a considerable number of the nasty parasites to drop off. And then IMMEDIATELY followed by the acriflavine (Ruby Reef Rally is the easiest to get) bath helps by giving the fish a bit of antibiotic and antiseptic treatment for the tremendous number of parasite insertion wounds. These two steps greatly increase the survival rate. Sorry for your losses. Been there done that with velvet. No fun. Lost a whole tank one by one. Really hard to watch. Now I QT everything "wet", fish, corals, inverts, everything. Takes the instant gratification out of rapidly adding new fish, and actually makes my tank kinda boring now. They all live happy and healthy lives.

 

[scott4077]

well, all good information thank you guys. however unfortunantly i have two fish left 1 clown and 1 purple fire fish. I'm assuming they won't last the next 48 hours as they are both on the bottom of the tank... with that in mind i have two questions..

1) what is the process for making the QT tank "clean" again so that i can put fish when i attempt to restock the tank eventually.

2) do you QT corals? what kind of light do i need to throw on there and how long should i keep them in there?

 

[Old Fritz]

an easy way to tell the difference between the spots is if you can count the amount of white spots then its probably ich, if there are too many to count then its probably velvet. There are other things like the spots being smaller in velvet and obviously the appearance of the fish's slime coat.

 

[Rcpilot]

well, all good information thank you guys. however unfortunantly i have two fish left 1 clown and 1 purple fire fish. I'm assuming they won't last the next 48 hours as they are both on the bottom of the tank... with that in mind i have two questions..

1) what is the process for making the QT tank "clean" again so that i can put fish when i attempt to restock the tank eventually.

2) do you QT corals? what kind of light do i need to throw on there and how long should i keep them in there?

There is at least one really good thread on this forum, about setting up and maintaining a QT tank. Do a simple search.

YES, you absolutely QT corals. They carry all kinds of pests that will spread to your other corals in the display tank.

Some people actually run 2 QT tanks. One for corals and the other for fish.

Having a QT tank is IMO, part of the "required for reefing" equipment list.

QT tanks
RO unit

^^^ The 2 most important pieces of equipment any reefer SHOULD own ^^^ (in my humble opinion)