Sigh so I had the biggest fail ever. I have the most strict QT process, and my tanks are ALWAYS disease free. But not this time.
I haven't posted about the tank lately mainly to two things. One is bryopsis issue. I made sure to scrub all my corals as I never trust sources. Ended up getting it anyways. Right now I am treating with Fluconazole so it ain't really a big deal, just an inconvenience.
The second one however, was a big oops. Two weeks ago, my Moorish Idol got velvet. I use ionic copper at 0.5-0.6 ppm for qt (or CP depending on species), pretty strong at that concentration. But it was all for nothing when I completely forgot that I put a small pinfish in my refugium just for fun, this was when I just had the sump running and still setting up my display tank. He's now quintuple the size. He also ate my candy basslet. And worst of all, he wasn't qted.
It's been two weeks now and at least my story had a happy ending. Moorish Idol is still alive somehow. Two weeks ago he was just covered in powdery dust and white spots all of a sudden, however his appetite was only slightly affected. So I was able to feed him metroplex soaked foods. Even though Seachem said it cured ich and velvet, I knew metroplex was only for internal parasites (Seachem doesn't state this however) and catching him was near impossible without moving rocks and breaking corals as he would just dash into the cave. But I had to do something, this was at least better than nothing, and I am so glad it worked.
He was after a week of being covered, he was finally velvet free. I couldn't believe it, normally velvet kills in a day or so but it was been 2 weeks since symptoms and it is all gone from his body for a week. None of my other fish showed velvet though, but that's because I only have wrasses and a red mandarin, which are somewhat disease resistant.
Unfortunately, I have velvet in my tank now that I have to deal with, and perhaps ich, but at least I am now ready to manage it when they attack my fish again. I will post more updates as soon as I get rid of bryopsis. I like to write about ugly, but not take pictures of it. But this build is a very important experiment with livestock worth thousands of dollars, so might as well tell you all about my journey with this tank, whether good or bad.
