I think I have Velvet. Setting up quarintine... need help (1 Viewer)

[alstang1]

My fish have not been doing well. I have lost 2 fish in 5 days. I think it may be velvet. I am setting up a quarintine tank today. Will a 10 or 20 gal be big enough? For emergancy purposes to save my angel, how little sand and live rock can I get away with? How soon can I put the fish in the tank.

The symptoms I have been seeing is a powdery slime on the fish. Eyes starting to white out. Water checks show water quality to be fine. Salinity has been 1.024 but temp has been getting up to about 84. I can not seem to keep it any lower than 80 (thus the chiller).

Any help or advice is appreciated. I am going to go buy a small tank now.

Al

 

[ShaneV]

ON a hospital tank, you really dont want sand or rock in it. You want it to stay as clean as possible. For the fish to feel comfortable you can use a piece of clean PVC pipe, so they can have somewhere to hide.

If your trying to start one in a hurry, a 10 or 20 will be fine. What I would do is do a water change in your main tank equal to the size of the QT. Then use the water from the main tank you take out as your QT water.

 

[Guest]

What kind of fish do you have, and how many?

 

[alstang1]

KK got the tank set up. Should I put my 1 cleaner shrimp and 1 fire shrimp in there to help battel any unknown parasites?

Al

 

[Guest]

If it is velvet, the only readily available treatment is copper, so you don't want any inverts in the tank. To check for velvet, do a 10 minute freshwater dip, then check the water you dipped the fish in. If there is a white powder on the bottom of the bowl, then it is most likely velvet.

With this being a new QT, the biological filter will be pretty much non existant. Even with an established bio filter, the copper will make it unstable, so be prepared to do a lot of water changes. As long as you are detecting any ammonia, do 50% water changes daily.

One of those quick cycle products should help you get past the ammonia spike quicker. Last time I did it, I used Cycle and the ammonia was gone in 2 days. The quick cycle stuff doesn't do much for nitrite, but that isn't as toxic. Continue doing 50% water changes every 1-2 days, and you can use some Prime to lower the toxicity of the nitrite (read the bottle, but you can use something like 5x the normal dose in this case).

The other thing you will need to monitor is your copper. The only surefire way to do this correctly is to buy a test kit from the same manufacturer as your copper. For example, if you use Cupramine (highly recommended - it's a little gentler on the fish), be sure to use a copper test from the same company. You will have to test and dose copper at least once a day at first, then after a week or two it will stabilize, but you will still have to dose it to account for all the water changes you are doing.

Velvet is a witch to deal with, and a lot of work. I went through a wipeout last year, and it took 7 of 9 fish in about a 10 day period, and a lot of work to save the other two. Good luck.

 

[ChrisB]

Is this a fish borne disease? Since i am now adding fish to my tank does this come from new fish you are introducing into your tank?

 

[alstang1]

Well in three days I have lost everything except the flame angel and a dominol. The flame is gasping for air now. Not looking good. Guess the medic tank was not all that much help. Guess I will see what happens. Only thing I can see that was a problem is the temp variance. All chem tests came out to be satasfactory. When I put them in fresh water dip I did not get powder falling off. Still not sure what my problem is.

Al

 

[Guest]

What was the last fish you added, and when?

 

[alstang1]

The flame was the last "fish" added. It has been in there for about 3 weeks. A week prior to that was a powder blue tang. Both were in very healthy tanks prior to comming to me. I have since put about 20 snails and 10 mini crabs in there. What ever is going on is not affecting the corals, shrimp, crabs, or snails.

Well, the flame "may" pull through. Not sure yet.

Al

 

[djreef]

If it is velvet, you're going to have to wait weeks before adding anymore fish to your rig. You've got to let it burn itself out. Meltdowns like this are ugly, and are only cured through patience. Mikester nailed everything else. Velvet don't play, so don't be in any hurry to dump anymore fish in their any time soon.

DJ
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