Velvet... how to treat with Live Rock
- Thread starter street fish
- Start date
Sadly, there's nothing that will be a reliable cure if you have coral and other inverts in your tank that wouldn't harm the coral and other inverts. If your tank is a fish-only with live rock, then there is effective and safe application, which contains copper and will not effect the bacteria in your live rock but would kill all worms, snails, crabs, etc. that might be in the rockwork. I've very effectively used Coppersafe by Mardel. Follow the instructions very carefully when you use it and don't be tempted to apply any more than the instructions direct. But, again, only use this med if you have no coral or other inverts that you care for. Incidentally, if you use this or any other copper treatment, it's best to never use the rock for a reef tank or any tank that contains inverts in the future.
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- Location
- poughquag, ny
best thing to do is take all fish out if it really is marine velvet, let the tank go without fish for a month or longer, as stated no treatment that you can do in the tank if you ever plan to add corals and treatments will kill off all inverts, i do a 5 min freshwater bath with temp and ph adjusted and then a 15 min dip in my tank water with procure
Well, I can tell you from personal experience that I had a series of deadly velvet outbreaks in my FOWLR and lost some very beautiful fish.
I finally decided to quarantine all the fish in the tank and treat with the copper treatment. I kept the FOWLR fish-free for seven weeks and the fish in the QT survived and did very well in the there. I then returned, after the seven weeks, all the fish to the FOWLR...didn't add any other fish and had an outbreak of velvet once again.
Just exactly what this means I'm not completely certain. It appears to me that the velvet parasite remains alive for a lot longer than the popular wisdom suggests. But I do know that from here on in, there'll be a low level of copper treatment in the tank itself.
- Location
- Wallingford, CT
Velvet or amyloodinium is much deadly then ick. Velvet will kill fish in about 3 days. Formalin with malachite green is a better treatment but again, this can only be used outside of your display tank.
I won't even use this stuff in a QT, but rather get the fish into a low salinty QT so that they can be netted out daily for the formalin bath of about 1 hour. Also wise to have an air stone going with the formalin bath.
I won't even use this stuff in a QT, but rather get the fish into a low salinty QT so that they can be netted out daily for the formalin bath of about 1 hour. Also wise to have an air stone going with the formalin bath.
Yeah...I have to agree completely. By the way, in one of the previous outbreaks that I had before the most recent bout with velvet, I did use a formalin/malechite green treatment that the proprietor of a marine fish store near me gave me that he put together for treating his fish. I did use it in my QT in accordance with his instructions and it worked very well. But, again, so did the Coppersafe. In the most recent outbreak, I removed an Emperor Angelfish, a Tassled Filefish, a Rabbitfish and an Undulatus Angelfish and put them into the QT with Coppersafe and in, literally just over an hour, they were clear of the velvet so far as it being visable on them...and they took food again. But, the bottom line for me is, like pecan says, velvet is very lethal to fish and they must be treated effectively to be assured survival.
DITTO
What size fish are we talking about anyway? If they are small enough you can have a 10 gallon or even a rubbermaid bin.
But what ever you do, Do Not Medicate your display tank.....................................................................
I have to agree...once again...this time with Awi. I set up a 15-gallon tank a long time ago as a quarantine tank and never used it because I figured that being in such small quarters would stress any sizeable fish I put in there. Also, I never had a problem with velvet or even ick (which if it showed up as it did once or twice, went away on its own without any treatment) in my 6-year old full reef. But, once I set up the FOWLR about a year and a half-ago I had so much...and repeated...difficulty with parasitic illnesses that I've now started using the 15-gallon QT. I've had what we'd call "way too many" fish in there including a 5-inch Rabbitfish and a 5.5-inch Emperor Angelfish along with others, too, for as much as 7-weeks with excellent results. As long as you make sure you have adequate filtration....which means a fully cycled filter like a hang-on filter, for example...and keep an air-stone on all of the time and don't overfeed, Awi's suggestion is a very good one...One that would save an infected fish's life.
While velvet is extremely aggressive and will kill a fish in just a matter of days, it is very quickly brought under control on an individual fish if you get it treated with copper before it reaches the deadly stage. I currently have four fish that were in an infected tank...three of the four were showing the give-away signs of the disease...but now, are in perfect (albeit cramped) condition in my QT, with no signs of the infection. They've cleared up completely. So even if you see the distinctive signs of velvet, it's still important to treat the fish properly to save it.
Thank you everyone for all the information.
I am having difficulty diagnosing my stock's ailment.
It seems the Niger Triger has a thin coat of "bubbles", which I assumed was velvet. It seems as if the water is being repelled from his skin. Therefore, I assumed the white layer to be velvet...
Upon reading further into velvet, it notes a diminished appetite. In my case, the Niger continues to eat as if it is his last meal...
Can anyone offer a diagnosis? Could it be velvet? It has been like this for over 7 days...
I am having difficulty diagnosing my stock's ailment.
It seems the Niger Triger has a thin coat of "bubbles", which I assumed was velvet. It seems as if the water is being repelled from his skin. Therefore, I assumed the white layer to be velvet...
Upon reading further into velvet, it notes a diminished appetite. In my case, the Niger continues to eat as if it is his last meal...
Can anyone offer a diagnosis? Could it be velvet? It has been like this for over 7 days...
Diminished appetite isn't always a tell-tale sign. The sloughing off of the slime coat is also often frequently associated with oodinium, and I've had fish eating fine and the very next day, die. So, IMO, the best thing you can do is to immediately get the fish into a medicated environment as we've discussed above.
If you treat the tank, so long as there's one fish in the tank showing signs of parasitic disease, just follow the instructions on the med's bottle. All the fish in the tank will be protected that way.
Aiptasia is an invertebrate, just like coral, shrimp, snails, etc. and no inverts can tolerate any level of copper so you'd be killing off the unwanted Aiptasia if you have any.
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