Velvet in my new 150

[AquaAndrew]

Tank has need running for 3 months, stocking is 2 clown fish 1 royal gramma, 1 vagabond butterfly, cleaner shrimp, hermits and snails
water parameters 0 ammonia 0 nitrite less then 5 ppm nitrate
I had a blue spot toby puffer for about 2 weeks that was eating and swimming normal, i made a post about it when he started flashing on the rocks and sand, he lasted about 4 days and passed away.
my vagabond butterfly is now flashing/rubbing, i believe im dealing with velvet.
I have a qt tank im going to move the fish to and treat with copper. my questions are.
How long should i run my system before reintroducing fish back in? should i treat my display tank with anything? obviously not copper due to the inverts. and if i move some live rock to the qt tank am i correct that it can never go back to the display?

thank you

 

[Reef AquaCult]

Copper power @ 2ppm for 2 weeks then into sterile QT or copper power x 4 weeks then 90-100% water change and keep in QT until fallow period over. DT fallow x 6 weeks or 76 days if you want to be 100% sure ich will be eradicated too.

from now on QT all fish the same way and QT everything else in fallow tank for 6 weeks to keep your existing livestock safe

 

[AquaAndrew]

ok so your saying i could transfer fish to qt and treat with copper for 4 weeks and then waiting another 2 weeks before putting fish back in DT? what about the live rock i put in QT? dont put back in DT right? I have a few bags of seachem matrix, i could use that for the cycle and not move rock at all

 

[Reef AquaCult]

ok so your saying i could transfer fish to qt and treat with copper for 4 weeks and then waiting another 2 weeks before putting fish back in DT? what about the live rock i put in QT? dont put back in DT right? I have a few bags of seachem matrix, i could use that for the cycle and not move rock at all

Yes whatever has copper touch it never put back into DT. Moving the matrix over sounds good. And yes keep DT fallow for total 6 weeks is correct!

 

[Millwright]

Reef Aquacult you mentioned ich. He is looking for info on velvet. Is the fallow period the same for ich and velvet? I don’t know the fallow period for velvet as I have never treated for it or researched it.

 

[MERKEY]

Reef Aquacult you mentioned ich. He is looking for info on velvet. Is the fallow period the same for ich and velvet? I don’t know the fallow period for velvet as I have never treated for it or researched it.

6 weeks for velvet

76 days for all strains of ich.

 

[Big G]

The complete guide on velvet by Humblefish:

Velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum)

Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum) What You Need To Know: * Fast killing parasite capable of wiping out most of your fish in just a matter of days. Sometimes there are survivors, sometimes not. * Can be treated in a quarantine tank using Chloroquine phosphate or Copper. A 5...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Big G]

Keep a close eye on the butterfly. Sometimes when treating for velvet, butterflies will develop "red sores" on their sides. These sores are usually the beginning of a bad bacterial infection. Highly recommend you treat the fish with antibiotics "while" treating with copper, as it will suppress the fish's immune system, potentially allowing the above bacterial infection to get started. That's why it's important to consider Humble's Emergency Treatment for Velvet:

Freshwater dip, then immediately into a bath of Ruby Reef Rally (this step greatly increases survival rates), then into pre dosed to 1.0 ppm of Copper Power and within 24 hours get to therapeutic levels of 2.0 using small regular doses spread out throughout the day instead of big doses. And treat with antibiotics. Spectrogram is great for this; kanaplex + Furan2 works well too.

 

[AquaAndrew]

Update. I got home and have been watching the butterfly for about an hour. He is now showing no symptoms, eating normal and not rubbing/ flashing. No other fish are showing any symptoms. Not sure what to do. Would rather not move them if I dont have to... I'm not wondering if its not velvet, the puffer died about 3 days after symptoms started. He had heavy breathing, was laying on the bottom of the tank and was rubbing on rocks. He didnt loose any color untill the last day. Could I be dealing with something else?