Velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum)

[Cherie cook]

Yes, this is what I use when I have a fish with velvet to experiment on.

I just saved my tiny two spot bristletooth tang with a soak in Rally...he was still in quarantine and stopped eating/ had rapid breathing and twitching. After the Rally he is back to eating like a champ and breathing is normal!

 

[Kyl]

But with the copper fish (wrasses, anthias, Hippo Tangs) I drop them into QTs predosed with chelated copper @ 1.0ppm. Most seem to handle sudden exposure to that concentration fine, eating the same day. I then ramp the Cu level up to minimum therapeutic (1.5 ppm) over a 48 hour period; before finally (and slowly) settling at 1.75ppm over the next 4-5 days.

Really liking that methodology, especially since we can now accurately test in such incremental steps.

 

[svogun]

@Humblefish info I could have use on Saturday! Are you drip acclimating because of the copper or just matching s.g. and temp?

 

[Humblefish]

@Humblefish info I could have use on Saturday! Are you drip acclimating because of the copper or just matching s.g. and temp?

Just floating the bags (SG is prematched) and releasing. A LFS I advise is drip acclimating his incoming fish straight into 1.5ppm chelated copper.

 

[PGT253]

@Humblefish I'm just curious, are you treating all wrasses with Copper exclusively? I've seen some people successfully putting fairy wrasses through CP so do you think it's safer to use Copper or CP for fairy wrasses?

 

[svogun]

Just floating the bags (SG is prematched) and releasing. A LFS I advise is drip acclimating his incoming fish straight into 1.5ppm chelated copper.

They are drip acclimating for 60 minutes?

 

[DieHardPhotog-Reefer]

I'm still boggled by that, but velvet does do a tremendous amount of damage to the fish's skin/gills. So I guess every little bit helps. I think many times people eradicate velvet with just copper, but the fish still dies from the inevitable bacterial infection. Using acriflavine gives you a jump on this, as it contains both anti-parasitic and anti-bacterial properties.



I know, my wife thinks it's bizarre how I get all excited when I find a fish loaded with ich or velvet to experiment on. If you decide to do it, make sure you get at least 50% off the fish!

Is this the appropriate place to post for help with what I think is velvet? We've already lost 50% of our fish. My wife and kids are really emotionally torn over this.
Based on what I read in your post... the first fish to die last night were the Chromis (likely because they're top swimmers). The next was our Coral Beauty... this morning. Now 2 of our 3 clownfish are lethargic and look to be breathing really difficult. We never saw any signs of illness though. The chromis were very shy when we moved them from the QT to the main display. We've been treating the tank about twice a week with about 50 ml of Probiotic Marine Formula since the 1st fish was added on Jan 2 of this year.

These are photos, postmortem, of the Coral Beauty Angelfish and 1 of the 4 dead Chromis. I can't see any evidence of velvet nor any signs of ich but according to the writeup, that could be normal. All of these fish were eating and swimming normally (as much as we knew) up to a week ago.

 

[cmcoker]

Is this the appropriate place to post for help with what I think is velvet? We've already lost 50% of our fish. My wife and kids are really emotionally torn over this.
Based on what I read in your post... the first fish to die last night were the Chromis (likely because they're top swimmers). The next was our Coral Beauty... this morning. Now 2 of our 3 clownfish are lethargic and look to be breathing really difficult. We never saw any signs of illness though. The chromis were very shy when we moved them from the QT to the main display. We've been treating the tank about twice a week with about 50 ml of Probiotic Marine Formula since the 1st fish was added on Jan 2 of this year.

These are photos, postmortem, of the Coral Beauty Angelfish and 1 of the 4 dead Chromis. I can't see any evidence of velvet nor any signs of ich but according to the writeup, that could be normal. All of these fish were eating and swimming normally (as much as we knew) up to a week ago.

Probably better to start a new thread, in the fish disease forum, so people can help. Do you have a hospital tank?

 

[DieHardPhotog-Reefer]

Probably better to start a new thread, in the fish disease forum, so people can help. Do you have a hospital tank?

OK. Will do. Yes, we have 2 twenty gallon tanks that are kept for QT (each tank divided into about 2 7-8 gallon sections).

 

[Humblefish]

@Humblefish I'm just curious, are you treating all wrasses with Copper exclusively? I've seen some people successfully putting fairy wrasses through CP so do you think it's safer to use Copper or CP for fairy wrasses?

I've been treating more & more Cirrhilabrus (Fairy) & Halichoeres genus wrasses successfully with Chloroquine @ 40mg/gal. I also just recently successfully treated my first Possum Wrasse (Wetmorella tanakai) with Chloroquine @ 40mg/gal.

Not enough data yet to evaluate Paracheilinus, Pseudocheilinus and Macropharyngodon's tolerance to Chloroquine.

They are drip acclimating for 60 minutes?

Yes

 

[foxt]

A UV or diatom filter will filter out the free swimming stage of parasites, worms, harmful free floating bacteria, etc. Basically, it eliminates everything (both good & bad) in the water column. However, it’s exact effectiveness is determined by a number of factors: How bad of an infestation you have in your tank i.e. how many free swimmers are active in the water, which pathogen are you trying to manage (e.g. velvet dinospores are more numerous than ich theronts), the size of the UV/diatom being used in relation to the water volume of your aquarium...

In the end, I feel it is unrealistic to expect 100% eradication from a UV or diatom filter. A few free swimmers are always going to make their way onto a fish before they can be filtered out. However, the following greatly increases your chances of successfully managing disease via a UV or diatom filter:

1. The larger the tank, the more diluted the parasites will be, the more likely they will not come into contact with a fish in lethal concentrations.
2. Buy the biggest UV/diatom you can. Bigger is better here and you want as many GPH as possible, because an oversized UV/diatom will more effectively/more quickly eliminate pathogens from the water.
3. Have a backup UV/diatom, because the moment your primary unit breaks your shield goes down.
4. When running a UV, change out the lamp every 6 months for maximum effectiveness and make sure GPH is slow enough to effectively zap parasites. Most UVs have different flow rates for removing algae spores and parasites (slower).
5. The small diatom filter I use (this one) for water clarity purposes clogs after just a few days. So, I take it apart, rinse everything out and recharge with new diatomaceous earth. I can do this whenever I have time because I am not depending upon it for disease management purposes. However, if that was it’s primary function then you would want a backup on standby or clean it/get it back online ASAP so there wasn’t much “down time” for removing parasites.
6. You are far more likely to be successful managing ich or preventing a bacterial infection from spreading with this approach. IMO/E; velvet dinospores are usually too numerous to be effectively managed. Brook, uronema and worm infestations all have a direct lifecycle i.e. they never leave the fish, so running a UV/diatom might only protect other fish from getting the disease.

This really needs to be a thread of it’s own. There are so many conflicting posts about UV being “junk” vs. a cureall, with information scattered everywhere. Your input is valuable, trusted, and detailed to the point where the key variables are helpful to know. A basic primer, in one thread, on the relationship of UV size, flow, and efficacy - just as you have laid it out here - would be incredible! The additional info on diatom filters would also be great to consolidate; I had read enough from you and Paulb to drag my ancient diatom out of storage and put it back into action.

Thanks for everything you do for us!

 

[Humblefish]

This really needs to be a thread of it’s own. There are so many conflicting posts about UV being “junk” vs. a cureall, with information scattered everywhere. Your input is valuable, trusted, and detailed to the point where the key variables are helpful to know. A basic primer, in one thread, on the relationship of UV size, flow, and efficacy - just as you have laid it out here - would be incredible! The additional info on diatom filters would also be great to consolidate; I had read enough from you and Paulb to drag my ancient diatom out of storage and put it back into action.

Thanks for everything you do for us!

Maybe a thread entitled, "The truth about UV sterilizers"

Nothing is all good or all bad. Everything has upsides & downsides to it. A UV/diatom is a useful piece of equipment when properly utilized; its just not a "cure all" for fish disease woes.

 

[jasonrusso]

I think that people buy cheap UV that doesn't work and then believe that it is junk. If you research UV, you will learn about the "good" ones. Most are marketed as UV clarifiers, not sterilizers. I bought a TMC Vectron 600. It does actual level 2 sterilization (none of the coral vue units do), and is 25 watts. Why would someone need an 80 watt monster that just kills algae?

This really needs to be a thread of it’s own. There are so many conflicting posts about UV being “junk” vs. a cureall, with information scattered everywhere. Your input is valuable, trusted, and detailed to the point where the key variables are helpful to know. A basic primer, in one thread, on the relationship of UV size, flow, and efficacy - just as you have laid it out here - would be incredible! The additional info on diatom filters would also be great to consolidate; I had read enough from you and Paulb to drag my ancient diatom out of storage and put it back into action.

Thanks for everything you do for us!

 

[PGT253]

I've been treating more & more Cirrhilabrus (Fairy) & Halichoeres genus wrasses successfully with Chloroquine @ 40mg/gal. I also just recently successfully treated my first Possum Wrasse (Wetmorella tanakai) with Chloroquine @ 40mg/gal.

Not enough data yet to evaluate Paracheilinus, Pseudocheilinus and Macropharyngodon's tolerance to Chloroquine.

Thank you! Just about time to test CP on a Radiant Wrasse (Halichoeres Iridis) that has not stopped scratching for a single day.

 

[Aliasger]

You spoke about marine velvet and said that the fish would die in like less than 12 hours. I have, about 20 pruple tang in my tank and all were feeding, about 3 weeks earlier i saw one fish with spots and thought it would be ich but after few hours i came to know it is not ich and velvet and had covered the entire fish with it. The thing is all my purple tang has got velvet, but they haven't lost interest in feeding and yet are feeding heavily, I feed my tank 4 times a day and run ozone along with the skimmer. Could you tell me what is this?? I mean i still see these on their body but all are doing good and eating. 2 of them lose there color when there is no light and i feel that it would die but in the evening all looks good and healthy.

 

[BedrockIOMC]

You spoke about marine velvet and said that the fish would die in like less than 12 hours. I have, about 20 pruple tang in my tank and all were feeding, about 3 weeks earlier i saw one fish with spots and thought it would be ich but after few hours i came to know it is not ich and velvet and had covered the entire fish with it. The thing is all my purple tang has got velvet, but they haven't lost interest in feeding and yet are feeding heavily, I feed my tank 4 times a day and run ozone along with the skimmer. Could you tell me what is this?? I mean i still see these on their body but all are doing good and eating. 2 of them lose there color when there is no light and i feel that it would die but in the evening all looks good and healthy.

My viral beauty did that. Right after the white spots shown they went away for about a week. Then it came back even worst then before. I now have my angel in a 5 gal at tank trying to treat him. I hope it works.

 

[Humblefish]

You spoke about marine velvet and said that the fish would die in like less than 12 hours. I have, about 20 pruple tang in my tank and all were feeding, about 3 weeks earlier i saw one fish with spots and thought it would be ich but after few hours i came to know it is not ich and velvet and had covered the entire fish with it. The thing is all my purple tang has got velvet, but they haven't lost interest in feeding and yet are feeding heavily, I feed my tank 4 times a day and run ozone along with the skimmer. Could you tell me what is this?? I mean i still see these on their body but all are doing good and eating. 2 of them lose there color when there is no light and i feel that it would die but in the evening all looks good and healthy.

Various fish have different tolerances to the pathogen. Also, if you have 20 Purple Tangs in your tank it must be a large system. More water volume dilutes the concentration of parasites, which makes it easier for fish to cope with the number of free swimmers that survive & latch on.

 

[jasonrusso]

You spoke about marine velvet and said that the fish would die in like less than 12 hours. I have, about 20 pruple tang in my tank and all were feeding, about 3 weeks earlier i saw one fish with spots and thought it would be ich but after few hours i came to know it is not ich and velvet and had covered the entire fish with it. The thing is all my purple tang has got velvet, but they haven't lost interest in feeding and yet are feeding heavily, I feed my tank 4 times a day and run ozone along with the skimmer. Could you tell me what is this?? I mean i still see these on their body but all are doing good and eating. 2 of them lose there color when there is no light and i feel that it would die but in the evening all looks good and healthy.

My porcupine puffer lived for weeks while I got my HT and meds ready. He never stopped eating or smiling.

 

[cody hendrix]

Has anyone ever seen fish make it through velvet untreated even if they showed sigh of infestation?

I made the mistake of not qting a banna eel that I just got. They guy said he had him for 6 months and went through full CP. Well now a week later I'm seeing what looks like velvet ( white sugar like spots.) Definitely to small for ick. The wierd thing is other then the spots no fish are acting weird. They are all still very active and eating great no scratching or any other sign of anything other then the spots. Another weird thing is there is a yellow Tang in the tank and I would think he would be the first to show any signs.

The bird Wrasse has some on his nose. I am away the bird is getting beat up by someone in the tank just haven't been able to find out who it is.

I have attached some pictures, it seems very hard to see but on the lion and the broomtail you can kinda see what I'm seeing

 

[jasonrusso]

Has anyone ever seen fish make it through velvet untreated even if they showed sigh of infestation?

I made the mistake of not qting a banna eel that I just got. They guy said he had him for 6 months and went through full CP. Well now a week later I'm seeing what looks like velvet ( white sugar like spots.) Definitely to small for ick. The wierd thing is other then the spots no fish are acting weird. They are all still very active and eating great no scratching or any other sign of anything other then the spots. Another weird thing is there is a yellow Tang in the tank and I would think he would be the first to show any signs.

The bird Wrasse has some on his nose. I am away the bird is getting beat up by someone in the tank just haven't been able to find out who it is.

I have attached some pictures, it seems very hard to see but on the lion and the broomtail you can kinda see what I'm seeing

The tang would usually be the first to show it. Lions shed their slime coat if they get irritated.