Marine Velvet- What Now?

[4FordFamily]

Velvet is a nasty parasite and I have not known a tank infected with it that was able to maintain resistance. Typically fish start spontaneously dying one by one. Resistance is truly rare. Good luck on treatment, it seems daunting but once you go through it you will have a parasite free home for your current fish and future additions.

I agree. I managed velvet in a wrasse tank for about one year before I fully quarantined everything, which even featured a very rare gem blonde naso that kept it at bay— and even still some wrasse would succumb when added, and some residents slowly died out. Over that year I probably lost 30-45% of my resident wrasses, namely fairy and flasher wrasses. Of my new additions, only a few halichoeres and leopards survived, but with thick slime coats, mucous cocoons, and sleeping under the sand I hypothesize that this makes building a resistance (incorrectly referred to many, even me, as “immunity”) easier for them.

The reality, is that IMO this is not an ethical way to run a tank, and I very much regret doing it now based on this and the financial/emotional losses of my fish. I guess the only point I wanted to make is that though VERY uncommon and difficult for a tank to reach a total level of resistance to velvet whereby it doesn’t implode — it IS technically possible in rare cases. There have even been studies whereby fish were repeatedly introduced to velvet in small amounts then rid of it, repeated again and again which eventually led to a strong resistance. But the huge issue with this is that it’s not practical at a hobbyist level, perhaps not very ethical (subjective), and you would have to do the same for all new additions.

All it takes is one weak addition, and it’ll be a sitting duck for exponential reproduction of velvet which will bombard and likely kill otherwise hardy fish that had a decent enough resistance prior. This is a virulent parasite that reproduces much quicker than ich. And like managing ich, a stress event such as dosing failure, equipment failure, power outage, or any number of things can weaken the immune systems of the fish in the system leading to the parasite suddenly grabbing the upper hand and wiping the tank out rather quickly.

If I’ve learned anything in this hobby, it’s not if, but when, disaster or failure strikes.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Not to hijack a thread but I have two reef tanks which I didn't practice a solid QT process and thus assume I have some disease in both tanks. Would you recommend going fallow in both tanks, even though everything is happy and don't plan any new additions, just to eradicate? Would a full QT process for any new additions help at all given that these parasites are already in my tank?

I have been playing around with the idea of doing a solid fallow period in both tanks just to be sure...

EDIT: Reading your above post, it seems like this would be the "best" way to go despite everything in a healthy state.