Marine Velvet

So recently I lost an emperor angelfish to marine velvet, and I have now lost two anthias and a copperband as well. The remaining fish seem fine, but I'm worried nonetheless. I can't catch them without completely destroying my rockwork, so doing a freshwater dip treatment is almost out of the question. I feed with garlic, and try to maintain a stress-free environment for the fish. Is there anything more I can do?

chuckfu wrote: Be worried! It wipped out my tank once and all that survived was a damsel. Is it killing them one by one? It was horrible watching my clowns go. Good luck.

Is there anything I can do for my fish???  

Already have one

Can you do a larger partial water change so that the fish have less swim room/ places to hide in the rock work to catch them and dip or quarantine? that or fish trap.

Where did u get the angel from?

Alright I'm going to move the fish into quarantine this week. Here's my treatment plan... Let me know what you think.

Day 1:
-Perform a 10 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue. Move fish directly into quarantine tank with copper.

Day 2:
-Perform a 100% water change on quarantine tank meanwhile doing a 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue. Move fish back into quarantine tank with copper.

Day 3:
-Perform a 100% water change on quarantine tank meanwhile doing a 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue. Move fish back into quarantine tank with copper.

Day 5:
-Perform a 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue.

Day 7:
-Perform a 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue.

Day 10:
-Perform a 100% water change on quarantine tank meanwhile doing a 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue. Move fish back into quarantine tank with copper.

Day 17:
-Perform a 100% water change on quarantine tank meanwhile doing a 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue. Move fish back into quarantine tank with copper.

Day 24:
-Perform a 100% water change on quarantine tank meanwhile doing a 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue. Move fish back into quarantine tank with copper.

Day 31:
-Perform a 100% water change on quarantine tank meanwhile doing a 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue. Move fish back into quarantine tank WITHOUT copper.

Day 45:
-Perform a 50% water change on quarantine tank.

Day 59:
-Move fish back to display tank (assuming treatment has gone well and no fish are showing signs of MV).

Edited by Ann_A - April 21 2013 at 9:33am

Hey Ann...this is what I'd suggest based on our earlier discussions:

Day 1: 5 minute freshwater dip in methylene blue, then into a tank with copper.

Day 2: 5 minute freshwater dip in methylene blue, then back into the same tank with copper (No 100% water change. The copper will handle any dislodged parasites. I think the water change would be too much stress, and it'll use more copper.)

Day 3: 5 minute freshwater dip with methylene blue, then back into the same tank with copper.

Day 4-21: Copper treatment

I still don't like copper for this parasite since it has such a small range of effectiveness. I'd rather see you do the tank transfer method with freshwater dips between rather than returning the fish to an infectious tank. Also, I wouldn't do more than 3 freshwater dips since they are rather stressful. The initial 3 will knock off the vast majority (if not all) the trophonts so that the fish can begin to heal. This is where I like to run an antibiotic (but I don't think most are compatible with copper.) The copper will hopefully keep the fish from getting reinfected if it is kept at the proper dosage (hope you have a copper test kit.)

Copper only targets the dinospores (the free-swimming stage).
Freshwater dips target the trophonts (the attached-to-the-fish stage).
Tank transfers target the dinospores and tomonts (reproductive stage).

Tomonts are pretty much entirely drug-treatment-resistant. That's why I like the tank transfers in combination with freshwater dips for this parasite.

Last note...I decreased the time on the first freshwater dip to 5 minutes. Looking back through my notes, I don't think 10 minutes is necessary.
   

Edited by ReefdUp - April 21 2013 at 9:44am

Here are some good articles...

This one is just a summary of the disease and options...but it's kinda old (2004.)
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/

This one is more up-to-date and helpful (IMO):
https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/227/

Sent you a text. No need to go to Day 58 with copper (in fact, that can cause serious health issues in fish.) The freshwater dips will knock out nearly 100% of the velvet parasite, which will shorten your required treatment time.