Treatment Plan

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

I wanted to run my proposed treatment plans by you'll just to make sure I'm not doing anything stupid!

I have what I believe to be velvet in my DT. I think it came in on a paracentropyge multifasciate that I elected not to QT (wanted to get him eating). Poor decision I know, but hey he eats like a champ. I've noticed my Scopas and Potters angel have been looking pale and have had erratic swimming behaviour. First thing in the morning and right before lights go out I can make out what looks to be the grainy spots of velvet on them. During the day the spots seem to fade, but their coloration remains pale. Their swimming has been erratic and breathing appears to be a bit more rapid. No other fish have shown any symptoms...yet. My plan is to remove all the fish and treat in a large rubbermade. I have biomedia I can use in the setup. I have an existing 20 gallon QT that has been running for about 6 weeks, but all 8 fish would not fit comfortably in there (or would they?). My current stock is: multibar angel, potters angel, scopas tang, swallowtail angel, picasso pair, black leopard wrasse, and a melanurus wrasse.

So on to some questions. Trying to treat them in the establish 20 would be pushing it correct? My thinking is that they'd be better off in a large rubbermade. I've got a mesh bag of biomedia in my sump as well as a marinepure media block I can place in there.

I have cupramine and New Life's Ich Powder coming in saturday morning. I believe what I have is velvet and was unsure of which product to use for treatment. I've read bad things about CP (active ingredient in New Life Ich Powder) and wrasses, and have heard bad things about copper and dwarf angels. Is cupramine not as bad as copper for dwarf angels? Am I better off splitting them up? Put the wrasses in one QT and the angels in anther and then treat independently?

melypr1985 · Jun 23, 2016

If your going to use copper I would have suggested coppersafe as it's more gentle on the angels and wrasses. I dont have any experience with CP as yet and definitely not new lifes ich powder. From what I understand, the CP in these types of meds are usually source from China and the purity is dubious at best. For it to be effective the CP needs to be medical grade pure and this is mainly for dosing accurately.

I think your better off using the rubbermaid as well. You can put a small bowl of sand in there for the wrasses to sleep in

Humblefish · Jun 23, 2016

If you suspect velvet, I would treat with CP as there is some evidence to suggest it works faster than copper for that particular disease. Velvet is a single celled organism, so I would bet even subpar CP would work to eradicate it. I would be much less confident in NLS Ich Shield if this were ich, a multicellular ciliated, protozoan parasite. Most of the Chinese CP failures I've read about involved ich.

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

Thank you for the information. I'm still on the fence whether it's velvet or flukes. I dosed my DT with PraziPro last night. Today the Scopas and potters look better. My wrasses seem unaffected, my Genicanthus is hiding but doesn't seem to be doing too poorly. My clowns are just kind of laying in their anemone and my Multibar is laying on his side in his cave breathing heavy.

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

The Multibar will get up and swim around and then go back to his cave and lay down. I'm going to try and get all of the fish out and into QT today but I fear it's already past the tipping point...

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

Ok so I just read a thread on another popular forum that makes me think it's flukes. It lists the following of major signs/symptoms of flukes:

Fish twitching head side to side

Dis colored blotchy skin

Frayed find or tails

Sudden loss of appetite

Cloudy eyes

Rapid breathing.

These are the exact symptoms I'm seeing. I dose PraziPro last night but after doing so most of my fish responded poorly.

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

I had turned the skimmer off when I added the PraziPro. I turned back on this afternoon. All the fish were breathing heavy so I was concerned the water wasn't being oxygenated enough. I was all out of airline tubing so I couldn't drop in a bubbler. I've seen all fish eat but the Multibar. He is still laying on his side but will get up periodically and swim around. He looks pretty good when swimming around just breathing heavy.

melypr1985 · Jun 23, 2016

spartanman22 said:
I had turned the skimmer off when I added the PraziPro. I turned back on this afternoon. All the fish were breathing heavy so I was concerned the water wasn't being oxygenated enough. I was all out of airline tubing so I couldn't drop in a bubbler. I've seen all fish eat but the Multibar. He is still laying on his side but will get up periodically and swim around. He looks pretty good when swimming around just breathing heavy.

You can just point a powerhead at the surface of the water to help add extra oxygen

Humblefish · Jun 23, 2016

spartanman22 said:
Thank you for the information. I'm still on the fence whether it's velvet or flukes. I dosed my DT with PraziPro last night. Today the Scopas and potters look better. My wrasses seem unaffected, my Genicanthus is hiding but doesn't seem to be doing too poorly. My clowns are just kind of laying in their anemone and my Multibar is laying on his side in his cave breathing heavy.

Figuring out which it is, is critical, as flukes can be treated right in the DT using Prazipro. No need to tear up the DT, go fallow, etc. If it is flukes and you dosed Prazipro last night, you should be seeing much improvement soon.

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

Humblefish said:
Figuring out which it is, is critical, as flukes can be treated right in the DT using Prazipro. No need to tear up the DT, go fallow, etc. If it is flukes and you dosed Prazipro last night, you should be seeing much improvement soon.

I've seen improvement from my Scopas tang which had the worst symptoms prior. However fish that looked totally fine prior to prazi dosing were struggling today. My clowns and Multibar reacted the worst. The fish have all the symptoms I listed above which were described as symptoms of flukes on another forum. However, at times it still looks like there's some really fine white spots on areas of a few fish. Very small though and hard to tell.

My concern is that I dosed PraziPro and several fish that showed no symptoms yesterday look pretty poor today. Heavy breathing m, laying on their sides. The good news is they all are when fed. They all improved once the skimmer was turned back on as well.

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

melypr1985 said:
You can just point a powerhead at the surface of the water to help add extra oxygen

I had done that but maybe it wasn't enough? All fish were breathing heavily after treating with prazi.

melypr1985 · Jun 23, 2016

spartanman22 said:
I had done that but maybe it wasn't enough? All fish were breathing heavily after treating with prazi.

Could have just been a reduction in oxygen causing this, but keep a close eye on them. They may look better now that the skimmer is back on pumping O2 into the tank, but if they start doing poorly again and you keep seeing the "velvet dusting" then treatment for that should be considered. Velvet can heavily effect the gills and the fish's ability to breath causing heavy breathing. Sometimes you wont even see outward symptoms like the dots, they will just asphyxiate from the velvet and build up of mucus in their gills.

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

Ya the heavy breathing is why I turned the skimmer back on I thought there may have been some oxygen depletion. I'm going to pull all fish and treat with cupramine. I ordered some from Amazon. It'll be here Sunday. No LFS had it locally. So I'm going to freshwater dip them in hopes of buying me couple days. I'll unfortunately have to treat them in batches because some will be easier to catch than others. So my treatment window will likely reset a few times.

melypr1985 · Jun 23, 2016

spartanman22 said:
I'll unfortunately have to treat them in batches because some will be easier to catch than others. So my treatment window will likely reset a few times.

Just be careful doing it this way. You'll want to leave the display fallow for 6 weeks minimum so you wont be able to treat a batch then put them back in the display to treat the next batch. Assuming it's velvet anyway.

Triggreef · Jun 23, 2016

spartanman22 said:
Ya the heavy breathing is why I turned the skimmer back on I thought there may have been some oxygen depletion. I'm going to pull all fish and treat with cupramine. I ordered some from Amazon. It'll be here Sunday. No LFS had it locally. So I'm going to freshwater dip them in hopes of buying me couple days. I'll unfortunately have to treat them in batches because some will be easier to catch than others. So my treatment window will likely reset a few times.

Just pull the cup and leave the skimmer on for air....

spartanman22 · Jun 23, 2016

melypr1985 said:
Just be careful doing it this way. You'll want to leave the display fallow for 6 weeks minimum so you wont be able to treat a batch then put them back in the display to treat the next batch. Assuming it's velvet anyway.

Right, they'll go into a holding tank after treatment.

Humblefish · Jun 23, 2016

spartanman22 said:
However, at times it still looks like there's some really fine white spots on areas of a few fish.

FWIW; this is something other than flukes. Marine flukes are naturally clear in SW; they only turn white once exposed to FW.

spartanman22 · Jun 24, 2016

At this point I agree I'm pretty confident it's velvet. Aside from my two wrasses, I've managed to catch all fish but one clown. I've freshwater dipped each one for 10 minutes and placed them into my cycled QT. Tomorrow I will start dosing cupramine. The two dwarfs don't look good. They are laying on their sides breathing heavily. The Scopas and swallowtail are up and swimming around.

spartanman22 · Jun 24, 2016

I unfortunately lost the two dwarfs. They did not look good, and I expected as much but still disappointing. The Multibar I had was such a perfect individual. Are extremely well and model reef citizen. I had gotten him so fat!