Copper Resistant Velvet?

[SoFlo Reef]

I'm at a loss on this one. I posted the other day regarding what I believe was gill flukes (thanks Jay), and now those have cleared but I am dealing with another issue. I seem to have reinfection of velvet despite full strength copper. I have never seen this before in a QT.

Timeline:

Velvet (presumably) breakout in DT due to introduction of improperly Qt'd fish

5 fish transferred from DT, given 150 ppm peroxide bath then into QT @ 1 ppm Copper Power

Copper Power ramped up to 2.55 ppm over 48 hours (via Hanna Checker, confirmed with API)

On day 2 of full strength copper, new Midas Blenny added to QT

We are now at day 8 of full strength copper (day 7 for the blenny)

Yesterday, my fairy wrasse was covered in velvet again. Prior to this he hasn't shown any symptoms since reaching full strength copper 8 days ago (neither have any other fish).

I don't have any other explanation for this beyond reinfection, which shouldn't be possible given the copper level (now at 2.61 ppm due to evap). Level has not dropped below 2.55 ppm since reaching full strength 8 days ago. I'm curious to hear the experts thoughts on this one. There's been no crossover of tools/water from DT, and the fish haven't been removed from the copper at all. I'm hesitant to believe I'm dealing with a strain of velvet that is resistant to copper at these levels, but don't really have any other explanation than reinfection, given the short lifecycle of velvet and fact that the wrasse was fully symptom free prior to this.

I realize it is still early on in QT and plan to continue copper for 30 days, but believe I am correct in saying that at this point all fish should be clear of symptoms if the copper was effectively killing all dinospores. Given the degree of infection I am wondering if a different intervention may be necessary, as I am not comfortable raising copper any higher than it is now. Any help is appreciated, particularly from anyone who has experienced something similar.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

SoFlo Reef Welcome to the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Forum!

The #fishmedic team and other knowledgeable members of our community will do our best to help you resolve your questions. Please provide as much of the following as you are able:

• Brief description of the issue you are observing and answers to the following questions:
  • How long have you had the fish with the condition?
  • Did you quarantine with medication when you first acquired the fish? (If Yes, which medication?)
• Current water quality measurements
• Clear photos of the issue taken using WHITE light and/or a short video of any behaviors (post in your response or on YouTube).

If you can help us by providing as much of the above info as possible, it will make diagnosing and providing recommendations for treatment MUCH easier! The Fish Medic team will get back to you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, other members of our community may also share their experience with similar situations and advice that they may have regarding your situation.

You may also feel free to provide a more detailed description of the condition if you wish to share more info than the above list.

Additionally, these links may be useful while you await a response:

• CURRENT QT PROTOCOL LINK
• HOW TO ASK FOR DISEASE DIAGNOSIS HELP LINK

 

[Sharkbait19]

Could you attach the video as a YouTube link?
You usually won’t see spots with velvet, by the time that would show the fish have already succumbed and died. The fast breathing and swimming into flow will be much more prominent.

 

[SoFlo Reef]

Could you attach the video as a YouTube link?
You usually won’t see spots with velvet, by the time that would show the fish have already succumbed and died. The fast breathing and swimming into flow will be much more prominent.

I apologize for the poor video, he moves around a lot and it's tough to focus. In the beginning of the video you can see that he is covered in numerous small white dots on his fins and body.

This looks a lot more like what I have always treated as velvet (numerous small white dots that stay on the fish for 1-4 days) vs ich which in my experience is larger and less numerous. Ich also tends to stick around longer from what I've seen, although I could be wrong there. He was covered in these spots when I removed him from the DT, but after the peroxide bath and copper was showing no symptoms. Oddly, despite the spots he is not flashing or breathing rapidly.

I considered lympho but just based on the size, location, and how rapidly the spots changed I think that can be ruled out. Beyond velvet or ich (both of which copper should treat) I'm not sure.

 

[Sharkbait19]

It could be that there’s a bacterial issue - that often happens as a side effect of velvet or ich.
Ich can persist for a while in copper, but even by 8 days I’d expect that to have started to go away. I think I’ve seen upward of 10 days somewhere though.
@Jay Hemdal - have you heard of any strains of ich or velvet that will resist treatment this long?

 

[SoFlo Reef]

It could be that there’s a bacterial issue - that often happens as a side effect of velvet or ich.
Ich can persist for a while in copper, but even by 8 days I’d expect that to have started to go away. I think I’ve seen upward of 10 days somewhere though.
@Jay Hemdal - have you heard of any strains of ich or velvet that will resist treatment this long?

I hadn’t considered that. The majority of bacterial issues I’ve treated look more like sores/wounds than white spots, but who knows.

I also considered brook, but have been dosing metro along with copper, and the peroxide dip should’ve treated that as well so I’d be surprised.

Whatever it is, it looks exactly the same as what they had when pulled from the DT. The spots appeared overnight and today he has about half as many spots as yesterday, which still suggests velvet to me. Given that he was completely clean prior though it seems like reinfection would be the only possibility. Very strange.

 

[MnFish1]

I hadn’t considered that. The majority of bacterial issues I’ve treated look more like sores/wounds than white spots, but who knows.

I also considered brook, but have been dosing metro along with copper, and the peroxide dip should’ve treated that as well so I’d be surprised.

Whatever it is, it looks exactly the same as what they had when pulled from the DT. The spots appeared overnight and today he has about half as many spots as yesterday, which still suggests velvet to me. Given that he was completely clean prior though it seems like reinfection would be the only possibility. Very strange.

I agree with you - it does not seem to be bacterial - in a tank bacteria are not usually contagious - unless there are underlying wounds on both fish. Second - I would avoid dosing 2 separate medications together due to potential toxicity. Third - velvet is not always/usually a 'visible' illness (as compared to freshwater) - it can just cause rapid breathing then death. Ich spots and velvet will come and go. Lets pretend its velvet - to answer your thread - I would suggest - no, its not copper resistant velvet. Unfortunately, a far more likely issue COULD be misdoing of copper, mistaken copper test, etc. I am not trying to be ultra-direct - I'm sorry for your issue!!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I apologize for the poor video, he moves around a lot and it's tough to focus. In the beginning of the video you can see that he is covered in numerous small white dots on his fins and body.

This looks a lot more like what I have always treated as velvet (numerous small white dots that stay on the fish for 1-4 days) vs ich which in my experience is larger and less numerous. Ich also tends to stick around longer from what I've seen, although I could be wrong there. He was covered in these spots when I removed him from the DT, but after the peroxide bath and copper was showing no symptoms. Oddly, despite the spots he is not flashing or breathing rapidly.

I considered lympho but just based on the size, location, and how rapidly the spots changed I think that can be ruled out. Beyond velvet or ich (both of which copper should treat) I'm not sure.

I don't see any symptoms of velvet in these fish. True velvet will show as not eating, rapid breathing and hanging in the water currents. In very late stages, you sometimes see a sort of dusty look to the fish. The wrasse does have ich spots on it, or something mimicking that. I can also see some slight tail damage. Copper Power and Coppersafe can be slow to act, but typically, they clear the fish of trophonts in 5 days.

There is no such thing as "copper resistant" strains of protozoans. It is more of a direct poison to them, and that is likely to build up resistance like antibiotic do with bacteria.

As long as the symptoms don't suddenly worsen, I would be inclined to just watch this for now.

As a side note - take a look at this thread regarding your kind of skinny midas blenny:

Skinny Blenny issue

Skinny blennies: Midas blennies are much more difficult to maintain than their common presence in the pet trade would have you believe. They are very prone to starvation. It is unknown if this is due to not feeding them often enough, not feeding enough, feeding the wrong foods, or if internal...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[MnFish1]

I don't see any symptoms of velvet in these fish. True velvet will show as not eating, rapid breathing and hanging in the water currents. In very late stages, you sometimes see a sort of dusty look to the fish. The wrasse does have ich spots on it, or something mimicking that. I can also see some slight tail damage. Copper Power and Coppersafe can be slow to act, but typically, they clear the fish of trophonts in 5 days.

There is no such thing as "copper resistant" strains of protozoans. It is more of a direct poison to them, and that is likely to build up resistance like antibiotic do with bacteria.

As long as the symptoms don't suddenly worsen, I would be inclined to just watch this for now.

As a side note - take a look at this thread regarding your kind of skinny midas blenny:

Skinny Blenny issue

Skinny blennies: Midas blennies are much more difficult to maintain than their common presence in the pet trade would have you believe. They are very prone to starvation. It is unknown if this is due to not feeding them often enough, not feeding enough, feeding the wrong foods, or if internal...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

I would say the yellow tang is in quite bad shape. ? Edit - I mean are you recommending not treating?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I would say the yellow tang is in quite bad shape. ? Edit - I mean are you recommending not treating?

There is a yellow tang in the video? I was talking about the wrasse.....

 

[SoFlo Reef]

I don't see any symptoms of velvet in these fish. True velvet will show as not eating, rapid breathing and hanging in the water currents. In very late stages, you sometimes see a sort of dusty look to the fish. The wrasse does have ich spots on it, or something mimicking that. I can also see some slight tail damage. Copper Power and Coppersafe can be slow to act, but typically, they clear the fish of trophonts in 5 days.

There is no such thing as "copper resistant" strains of protozoans. It is more of a direct poison to them, and that is likely to build up resistance like antibiotic do with bacteria.

As long as the symptoms don't suddenly worsen, I would be inclined to just watch this for now.

As a side note - take a look at this thread regarding your kind of skinny midas blenny:

Skinny Blenny issue

Skinny blennies: Midas blennies are much more difficult to maintain than their common presence in the pet trade would have you believe. They are very prone to starvation. It is unknown if this is due to not feeding them often enough, not feeding enough, feeding the wrong foods, or if internal...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

Thanks again for the help. That is interesting, I guess what I have treated as velvet in the past may also just have been ich. Is there significant variation between ich strains in terms of size/number? I have definitely teated cases of ich where the trophonts were much larger and more pronounced, but less numerous. I always thought numerous smaller, dusty looking spots suggested velvet.

If it is ich, wouldn't that still suggest that reinfection occurred? The wrasse was fully symptom free within the first two days of full strength copper, and only had spots reappear yesterday (day 8). I was under the impression that spots disappearing meant the trophonts had fallen off, and that reemergence of spots days later would have to be from new theronts latching on.

I appreciate the info regarding the blenny, I didn't realize that was a common issue with them. He has only been in the tank 6 days and I am feeding GC medicated food along with pellets which he is eating well, so hopefully he fattens up. The midas blenny I had before this one was in my tank for over 2 years and quite chubby. Unfortunately I inadvertently left the screen off for 20 mins and he jumped.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks again for the help. That is interesting, I guess what I have treated as velvet in the past may also just have been ich. Is there significant variation between ich strains in terms of size/number? I have definitely teated cases of ich where the trophonts were much larger and more pronounced, but less numerous. I always thought numerous smaller, dusty looking spots suggested velvet.

If it is ich, wouldn't that still suggest that reinfection occurred? The wrasse was fully symptom free within the first two days of full strength copper, and only had spots reappear yesterday (day 8). I was under the impression that spots disappearing meant the trophonts had fallen off, and that reemergence of spots days later would have to be from new theronts latching on.

I appreciate the info regarding the blenny, I didn't realize that was a common issue with them. He has only been in the tank 6 days and I am feeding GC medicated food along with pellets which he is eating well, so hopefully he fattens up. The midas blenny I had before this one was in my tank for over 2 years and quite chubby. Unfortunately I inadvertently left the screen off for 20 mins and he jumped.

Oh, don’t use General Cure in medicated food - it contains praziquantel and metronidazole in a ratio designed for use in water, not in food! Medicated food is a very complicated process to do correctly:

Proper Dosing of Medicated Foods

Proper Dosing of Medicated Foods Jay Hemdal c. 2020 Oral medications are an excellent way to target internal diseases of fishes. Marine fish absorb aquarium water, so in certain cases, they “drink” enough medication from the water to effect a cure. However, freshwater fish actively export...

www.reef2reef.com

There is some variation in size among ich strains, but much of the size variation seems to be more related to how long the infection has been going on. Late term ich is often misdiagnosed as velvet due to the small apparent size of the trophonts, or even lack of distinct spots.

In the end, copper works well for both ich and velvet, so a positive ID isn’t terribly important. It is vital though if TTM or hyposalinity is being used, as those don’t work on velvet.