Saltwater velvet!!

[jimmytank]

So here is how the story goes. We have 3 tanks; 1 a 125 gallon display tank, #2 a 40 gallon tank started in September with a Leopard Wrasse, midnight Blenny, and a small peppermint shrimp, 55 gallon started Nov. 1 (started with 25 gallons of water from # 1, 5 gallons from #2 and about 20 gallons of fresh new water. A little back ground on my history. It’s been 12 years since I had a tank and much has changed, a wet to dry filter system is now called a Refugium. Under gravel filters are not talked about much and the hobby can still be expensive. I have at least 50 pnds of gravel ( and a UG filter) with another 60 pnds probably of live rock, a HOB penguin bio wheel filter and a Cascade power filter. (Yes old school, but advancing).
pH 8.2
Ammonia-0 liquid
Nitrate- 0 to low strips
Nitrite-0 to low strip
Ca- not tested
Phos- not tested only wish I could
PWC every two to 3 weeks.
Mild mannered fish about 17, 3 to 4 inch fish.
I know some of you may say too many fish for the tank size. Argue all you want no one knows for sure and I use an accepted equation of 5 gallons of water/3” of fish with plenty of rock for hiding. The water has never tested bad the fish appear happy and filters do not seem stressed.

.

I was getting ready for my water Change when I noticed a dead fish our largest, Powder Brown Tang 4 inches. Previous night showed absolutely no problems swimming eating and appeared healthy. Still did not appear to have anything wrong visibly just thought maybe the infamous tang death. As the day went on upon close inspection of the fish we noticed that a Damsel was acting funny stressed with color faded swimming a bit radically. We noticed it swimming into the flow of the power head which was odd. We then saw it on our Hawaiian Trigger a dust coat with tiny whitish spots. Then on our bicolor Angel a dusty film. Research ensued. After awhile of reading we determined a poor dx of SALTWATER VELVET. Nothing good. No good out comes. We began to scramble and talk with the LFS who we have a great relationship with.

 

[jimmytank]

So here is how the story goes. We have 3 tanks; 1 a 125 gallon display tank, #2 a 40 gallon tank started in September with a Leopard Wrasse, midnight Blenny, and a small peppermint shrimp, 55 gallon started Nov. 1 (started with 25 gallons of water from # 1, 5 gallons from #2 and about 20 gallons of fresh new water. A little back ground on my history. It’s been 12 years since I had a tank and much has changed, a wet to dry filter system is now called a Refugium. Under gravel filters are not talked about much and the hobby can still be expensive. I have at least 50 pnds of gravel ( and a UG filter) with another 60 pnds probably of live rock, a HOB penguin bio wheel filter and a Cascade power filter. (Yes old school, but advancing).
pH 8.2
Ammonia-0 liquid
Nitrate- 0 to low strips
Nitrite-0 to low strip
Ca- not tested
Phos- not tested only wish I could
PWC every two to 3 weeks.
Mild mannered fish about 17, 3 to 4 inch fish.
I know some of you may say too many fish for the tank size. Argue all you want no one knows for sure and I use an accepted equation of 5 gallons of water/fish with plenty of rock for hiding. The water has never tested bad the fish appear happy and filters do not seem stressed.

. View attachment 304917

I was getting ready for my water Change when I noticed a dead fish our largest, Powder Brown Tang 4 inches. Previous night showed absolutely no problems swimming eating and appeared healthy. Still did not appear to have anything wrong visibly just thought maybe the infamous tang death. As the day went on upon close inspection of the fish we noticed that a Damsel was acting funny stressed with color faded swimming a bit radically. We noticed it swimming into the flow of the power head which was odd. We then saw it on our Hawaiian Trigger a dust coat with tiny whitish spots. Then on our bicolor Angel a dusty film. Research ensued. After awhile of reading we determined a poor dx of SALTWATER VELVET. Nothing good. No good out comes. We be fan to scramble and talk with the LFS who we have a great relationship with.

Over the next few days I will continue with a step by step of what we have done so far with outstanding success!

 

[54seaweed]

this article may give you more pointers on how to treat
http://www.liveaquaria.com/pic/articlesaltwatervelvet

 

[jimmytank]

this article may give you more pointers on how to treat
http://www.liveaquaria.com/pic/articlesaltwatervelvet

So on Wednesday Nov. 1, we headed to the LFS to see what they had. We had not made a positive ID of anything yet. They suggested a natural pharmaceutical that they said they were not as familiar with but trusted the company that made it. It was Protoshield. It’s rated as tank safe so I felt fine with treating my display tank until we had a positive on the disease. Twice a day every other day. Turn your carbon off. On Nov. 2 we were able to notice dusty appearing resin on 3 fish for sure with a damsel swimming into the power head (classic symptom of velvet ) as well we noticed a couple of more fish scratching more than usual. A white clown now showed signs of gills maybe swollen and definite additional spots on a black clown. At this point we were just one dose into the medicine and wanted to give it a chance to work. So patience was applied while we continued research. All the research we read was negative which is why I really wanted to write bc we actually were afraid we were about to lose everything.

 

[jimmytank]

So on Wednesday Nov. 1, we headed to the LFS to see what they had. We had not made a positive ID of anything yet. They suggested a natural pharmaceutical that they said they were not as familiar with but trusted the company that made it. It was Protoshield. It’s rated as tank safe so I felt fine with treating my display tank until we had a positive on the disease. Twice a day every other day. Turn your carbon off. On Nov. 2 we were able to notice dusty appearing resin on 3 fish for sure with a damsel swimming into the power head (classic symptom of velvet ) as well we noticed a couple of more fish scratching more than usual. A white clown now showed signs of gills maybe swollen and definite additional spots on a black clown. At this point we were just one dose into the medicine and wanted to give it a chance to work. So patience was applied while we continued research. All the research we read was negative which is why I really wanted to write bc we actually were afraid we were about to lose everything.

We dosed again for the second day which brought us to Nov. 3 Friday. We could not tell if the medicine was working or not and still not sure what it was that completely worked, but I have no reason to believe that it may not have cured the velvet but I believe more than half of our stock were not infected and never became infected so I hope this helped out. Saturday morning between 5am and 9am we lost our White clown who had also began swimming in the current with the damsel. We were not sure if things were working or not so we had devised a back up plan of water change and treating our new fish only 55 gallon tank with copper. As we caught the fish we were also going to institute the old school fresh water dip for 3 to 5 min. We knew this would stress the fish but according to all that we read they were going to die anyway so give them a chance.

So recommended treatment for a velvet outbreak is 100% removal of fish for 8 weeks to break and kill the life cycle of the disease. Many suggest 10 weeks bc reinfection has happened after 8 on occasion. We are going with 10 weeks so Jan 14, 2018 our fish can return to our display tank. As well as treatment with some antibiotics such as Copper. In a quarantine tank.

This is our plan at present.
This is now what the tank looks like.

 

[jimmytank]

We dosed again for the second day which brought us to Nov. 3 Friday. We could not tell if the medicine was working or not and still not sure what it was that completely worked, but I have no reason to believe that it may not have cured the velvet but I believe more than half of our stock were not infected and never became infected so I hope this helped out. Saturday morning between 5am and 9am we lost our White clown who had also began swimming in the current with the damsel. We were not sure if things were working or not so we had devised a back up plan of water change and treating our new fish only 55 gallon tank with copper. As we caught the fish we were also going to institute the old school fresh water dip for 3 to 5 min. We knew this would stress the fish but according to all that we read they were going to die anyway so give them a chance.

So recommended treatment for a velvet outbreak is 100% removal of fish for 8 weeks to break and kill the life cycle of the disease. Many suggest 10 weeks bc reinfection has happened after 8 on occasion. We are going with 10 weeks so Jan 14, 2018 our fish can return to our display tank. As well as treatment with some antibiotics such as Copper. In a quarantine tank.

This is our plan at present. View attachment 304979
This is now what the tank looks like.

So we had to remove all the LR to catch the fish and we dipped them all FW for 3 min at least and added them to our fish only 55 gal. Treated now with coppersafe the 30 day version.

We lost the black clown on Sunday Nov 5 after it had seemed to make it through our use of The dip and transfer. Monday Nov. 6 all fish has resumed normal movement and activity with the dusty velvet completely off the fish. We did run a 40 gallon sterilizer on both tanks for several days but as of now 0 signs of infection and no more fish have been lost. So the disease when caught early is treatable. Even the Damsel that I thought for sure was a goner is fine with no s or s. Day 6 and counting.

 

[jimmytank]

this article may give you more pointers on how to treat
http://www.liveaquaria.com/pic/articlesaltwatervelvet

Read this article and used and applied it thanks.

 

[Sniperhank]

Hopefully things work out. Velvet wiped out my tank and those ‘all natural’ treatments are garbage, especially with something as deadly as velvet.