Treating wrasses for velvet

BantyRooster97 · Sep 11, 2019

So I think I have velvet, had another thread about a sick butterfly & tang (both died in 24hrs of noticing a problem).

So here's the situation, I set up a Red Sea Reefer 170 as a display tank & ordered fish (together) & was going to leave them all in there together as a QT. I usually only treat a QT tank if I see symptoms of an issue. I've had the fish (blue flasher wrasse, solar wrasse, exquisite wrasse, pyramid butterfly & 2 spot tang) for a month now & wham....

In the tank I have sand, live rock, a small frogspawn, a small candy cane coral, a minimal clean up crew & my sump with macro algae.

The wrasses aren't showing signs of the infection, but I bet it is there. How do I treat?

Can I treat this entire set-up? Should I take it down & set up an actual QT tank (I have several empty tanks). Then what do I do with the corals, sand and rock?

What do I treat with?

Thanks

Old Fritz · Sep 11, 2019

I'm stealing this from another thread but it's very accurate

5 minute freshwater dip
Immediately afterwards, perform a chemical bath (in saltwater matching SG/temp the fish came from). You have two options:

Acriflavine (preferred) - Do the bath for 75-90 minutes, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain acriflavine: Acriflavine-MS and Ruby Reef Rally. DO NOT mix acriflavine with any other chemicals.
Formalin - Do the bath for 30-60 minutes max, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain formalin: Formalin-MS, Quick Cure, Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, Kordon Rid-Ich Plus. Use protection (rubber gloves, face mask, eye protection, etc.) whenever handling formalin as it is a known carcinogen! However, you can add Methylene Blue to the formalin bath (1 capful per 2-3 gallons of bath water.)

After the bath, place the fish in a QT pre-dosed at 80mg/gal using Chloroquine phosphate. In theory, copper (exs. Cupramine, Coppersafe, Copper Power) should work just as well as CP. However, due to how fast velvet can reproduce you don’t have the luxury of slowly ramping up the copper level as is normally advised. Therefore, the fish needs to be placed in a QT with copper already at minimum therapeutic levels. This is the advantage CP has over copper in this particular situation.
While in QT, use a wide spectrum antibiotic (exs. Seachem Kanaplex, Furan-2) for the first week to ward off any possible bacterial infections. Secondary bacterial infections are very common in fish with preexisting parasitic infestations such as velvet.
Keep the fish in CP or copper (at therapeutic levels) for one month. However, you can transfer the fish into a non-medicated holding tank for observation after just two weeks (explained below). DO NOT lower the CP or copper level before transferring.

HotRocks · Sep 11, 2019

Old Fritz said:
I'm stealing this from another thread but it's very accurate

5 minute freshwater dip

Immediately afterwards, perform a chemical bath (in saltwater matching SG/temp the fish came from). You have two options:

Acriflavine (preferred) - Do the bath for 75-90 minutes, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain acriflavine: Acriflavine-MS and Ruby Reef Rally. DO NOT mix acriflavine with any other chemicals.

Formalin - Do the bath for 30-60 minutes max, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain formalin: Formalin-MS, Quick Cure, Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, Kordon Rid-Ich Plus. Use protection (rubber gloves, face mask, eye protection, etc.) whenever handling formalin as it is a known carcinogen! However, you can add Methylene Blue to the formalin bath (1 capful per 2-3 gallons of bath water.)

After the bath, place the fish in a QT pre-dosed at 80mg/gal using Chloroquine phosphate. In theory, copper (exs. Cupramine, Coppersafe, Copper Power) should work just as well as CP. However, due to how fast velvet can reproduce you don’t have the luxury of slowly ramping up the copper level as is normally advised. Therefore, the fish needs to be placed in a QT with copper already at minimum therapeutic levels. This is the advantage CP has over copper in this particular situation.

While in QT, use a wide spectrum antibiotic (exs. Seachem Kanaplex, Furan-2) for the first week to ward off any possible bacterial infections. Secondary bacterial infections are very common in fish with preexisting parasitic infestations such as velvet.

Keep the fish in CP or copper (at therapeutic levels) for one month. However, you can transfer the fish into a non-medicated holding tank for observation after just two weeks (explained below). DO NOT lower the CP or copper level before transferring.

Yes this is what I would do. Moving all of the fish to a QT to be treated.

The rest of the rock and coral/inverts can remain in the DT for fallow period.