Massive velvet outbreak in a 220

[HighChiefKC]

So I got a 55g tank and stand from a friend. Got a filter and heater and air bubbler. Got all the medicine. But I can’t catch a dang fish to save my life.
the last clown died this morning

I have a Melanarus, Foxface, and 4 chromis left. There’s no way I’ll ever catch the goby that lives under the rocks.
What happens if one or two fish survive? How do I go fallow?

 

[josephxsxn]

You cant from what I read. Even 1 live fish will keep the problem going. I had to pull all of my rock to get all the fish caught including my 2 gobies at the time (now 1.)

 

[cshouston]

So I got a 55g tank and stand from a friend. Got a filter and heater and air bubbler. Got all the medicine. But I can’t catch a dang fish to save my life.
the last clown died this morning

I have a Melanarus, Foxface, and 4 chromis left. There’s no way I’ll ever catch the goby that lives under the rocks.
What happens if one or two fish survive? How do I go fallow?

You can’t go fallow if any fish stay in the tank. You’ll have to drain the tank and move rocks in a worst case scenario. Been there, done that. Sorry

 

[DrMMI]

I had a velvet outbreak in my 260g with a ton of rockwork in July. Luckily I was able to catch it in time. I took all my rocks out, caught every fish, put them in a 150g rubbermaid bin in the garage dosed with copper. I ramped up copper to 2.0 within 2 days. Not a single loss. I've now been fallow for 100 days (clock rest after my first two weeks because I added some new live rock and corals). Fish go back this weekend. Just be absolutely sure not to cross contaminate the display or treatment tank with wet hands, equipment, etc. And apparently the tanks have to be at least 10 feet apart.

 

[HighChiefKC]

Yikes. My rock is all glued too.

 

[HighChiefKC]

Would it be easier to take what little corals I have and put them in qt tank and treat the display? Is it even possible to do that? Does copper kill inverts?

Thanks everyone for all the help!!

 

[DrMMI]

Would it be easier to take what little corals I have and put them in qt tank and treat the display? Is it even possible to do that? Does copper kill inverts?

Thanks everyone for all the help!!

Copper kills inverts and the rock can absorb it so it will be hard for you to maintain therapeutic levels with the rock. Also, the rock can leach copper back into the system. Not to mention it's going to take a while to get the copper out of the rock completely. I put two small rocks in my hospital "tank" just to get the biological filtration seeded and a month after copper was done and after multiple large water changes, my copper still measured 0.3ppm

 

[Hugh Mann]

Copper will kill your inverts, yes.

The rock and sand will also absorb and release copper, making maintaining your exact dosage, and it has to be exact, very problematic at best. Not impossible, but very difficult. It will also be very difficult to remove the copper once done. If you want to treat your display, I'd recommend hyposalinity over copper, but it takes longer to achieve and by the sounds of it you don't have time to waste.

I've dealt with Velvet myself, but not in such a large tank, so I can only imagine your pain. I think what you're going to have to do is drain your water and catch the fish when they have nowhere to go. Unfortunately velvet is so deadly leaving them untreated they will almost certainly die.

 

[HighChiefKC]

Ok thanks.

 

[Privateye]

I have a UV and I’ve tried different flow amounts and it hasn’t done anything to help, or with algae lol

Which UV were you using? I can check to see if it's properly sized for your system. I can suggest others that are.

That being said, if it's cryptocaryon and not velvet (they can look very similar, but a microscope will tell you) then a UV is unlikely to do much of anything unless you're looking into some massive units. Not many UVs will deliver the 280 mJ required to sterilize it. However, that is based on "industry numbers". I have yet to see a real study that tests it.

 

[Scdell]

I bought two angels from an online store. They were doing fine for a day or so. I started noticing white spots on them. More and more spots in the next couple of days. No net, no place to put the fish even if i caught them. I got on here and searched for answers. I came upon a thread that suggested to raise the tank temp to 85 degrees for 4-5 days. I went for it. After a few days I noticed the spots getting less and less. After 5 days I slowly lowered the tank temp. That was a year ago. Never lost a fish. Maybe I got lucky? It's worth a shot.

 

[HighChiefKC]

Which UV were you using? I can check to see if it's properly sized for your system. I can suggest others that are.

That being said, if it's cryptocaryon and not velvet (they can look very similar, but a microscope will tell you) then a UV is unlikely to do much of anything unless you're looking into some massive units. Not many UVs will deliver the 280 mJ required to sterilize it. However, that is based on "industry numbers". I have yet to see a real study that tests it.

I have the Pentair Aquatics Smart UV 40 W

 

[cshouston]

Don’t raise the temperature... doing so will just speed the progression of the parasites, probably kill the surviving fish faster, and stress out your corals.

 

[ThRoewer]

I bought two angels from an online store. They were doing fine for a day or so. I started noticing white spots on them. More and more spots in the next couple of days. No net, no place to put the fish even if i caught them. I got on here and searched for answers. I came upon a thread that suggested to raise the tank temp to 85 degrees for 4-5 days. I went for it. After a few days I noticed the spots getting less and less. After 5 days I slowly lowered the tank temp. That was a year ago. Never lost a fish. Maybe I got lucky? It's worth a shot.

You likely had Cryptocaryon (Ick), not Amyloodinium (Velvet).

Fish can live with low level infections of Cryptocaryon and will often eventually acquire enough immunity against it to be symptom free. Immune or partially immune fish will kill off the parasites that try to infect them and therefore reduce the number of infectious stages. This explains why new fish may have bouts of it but it then goes away.

This will rarely work with Amyloodinium and when you have massive die-offs it's usually this parasite you are dealing with.
The best treatments against Amyloodinium are Chloroquine or copper (though there are some copper tolerant Amyloodinium strains that tolerate up to 50% more than the lethal dose for fish).

In my experience, Amyloodinium is rather rare in fish that make it to fish stores (it kills so fast that exporters and wholesalers usually treat against it) and most people are usually encountering Cryptocaryon.
Things look different if you get fish via mail order. There you may get fish that are infected and for that reason all fish you get shipped should go through a minimum of 6 weeks of quarantine.

 

[ThRoewer]

Don’t raise the temperature... doing so will just speed the progression of the parasites, probably kill the surviving fish faster, and stress out your corals.

Yes, bad idea to dial up the heat. It was done in the old days to speed up the life cycle and get the vulnerable stages killed faster. It doesn't really do that well and just causes additional strain on the already weakened fish.

 

[ThRoewer]

I have the Pentair Aquatics Smart UV 40 W

You would need a 400W UV and pump the entire tank volume through it 7x per hour! UV only works in bare bottom and undecorated wholesale and dealer tanks, not in tanks with rocks and sand.

 

[HighChiefKC]

You would need a 400W UV and pump the entire tank volume through it 7x per hour! UV only works in bare bottom and undecorated wholesale and dealer tanks, not in tanks with rocks and sand.

Guess all those BRS videos lied to me!

 

[Privateye]

I have the Pentair Aquatics Smart UV 40 W

Honestly, that's a decent UV. For velvet you would want to send no more than 420 GPH through it, and no less than 50% of your water volume per hour. That is assuming at least 90% UV transmittance in your water (often not an issue in reef tanks). If your tank is over 800 gallons, it is undersized for velvet.

If this has not worked for you, and you have a UV lamp <1 year old and a clean quartz sleeve, then you might have cryptocaryon. It is much more common and is harder to treat with UV. I recommend chemical treatments as mentioned, and leaving the tank without fish for at least 45 days depending on the temperature.

 

[HighChiefKC]

Ok so I’ve got a 55g setup, ready to take all the dang rock out tonight if I can. Couple of questions.
What’s my first step? Should I do a freshwater dip first or just put them in 55 and slowly start to add copper?
Also I bought a tidal 55 hob filter. Do I run that empty until I’m ready to remove copper?

 

[Hugh Mann]

I'd recommend a freshwater dip between moving. It will help keep them alive until the copper gets ramped up.

You can use purely mechanical filtration, like a sponge or regular filter floss. I did with coppersafe and I had no issues.