InsaneClownfishPosse
New Member
Let me lay some groundwork here regarding this post. I don't post often but I thought this was worth the time to give back a bit to the community. I am also NOT a scientist, I’m a hobbyist like most of you. My intent here is to share my experience, strictly for learning purposes, in the hopes that someday others benefit from and continue to look into this approach. I’m personally convinced it’s effective but it needs more research, and with CP and copper affecting various fish, this might be a gentler solution. At the very least, it could be a tool to give us a little more time to react since velvet moves so fast, so it’s worth a discussion IMO.
Tank Spec for the purpose of this conversation:
300 gallon (total water volume, including displacement for rock/sand/etc.) (96”x24”x30” + sump) reef tank.
So here we go... A few weeks ago I noticed a dead fish, my nice ORA indigo dottyback. He was a longtime resident and I was a bit concerned but saw no outward signs of disease and reconciled myself to “stuff happens”. The next day, my very healthy long time resident watanabe angel was gasping on the bottom of the tank. Something was definitely wrong.
I started really looking at all the fish in the tank, 15 in total. I saw what I tragically misinterpreted as ich and began aggressively taking my display down to hyposalinity and migrating my inverts to avoid a huge die-off send my tank into a new cycle.
It’s worth noting WHY I went down this road;
1. I could not easily treat 15 fish, some large 6+ inches with my current qt equipment
2. I had very little in the way of inverts/coral at the time and they could easily fit in a 40 breeder
3. I am in the middle of a minor renovation with floors for the entire house and a few walls going up so it would be chaotic, to say the least, to manage the multiple hospital tanks I would need.
OK, so back to it. It’s no surprise I lost a few more fish as I transitioned to hypo. Let me say that getting to 1.009sg on a 300 gallon tank is not easy. It took a few days, it involved a lot of buckets of RO. I lost a few more fish and then some of the signs of what I was truly dealing with became known to me.
Ich is not this fast, I knew that. I began more research and concluded it was velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum). The signs were now easy to see. Fish swimming into powerheads, gasping, light sensitive, and lack of appetite were all there. And of course hypo does NOTHING for velvet, so I lost precious time going down the wrong road. Lesson learned.
Now I’m kind of of screwed because copper and Chloroquine Phosphate (CP) are the 2 main treatments and neither are going to work for a 300g tank.
First, I dont have access to CP, time is precious, and I have 2 wrasses, which don't do well in CP.
Second, copper would destroy my rocks and sand, it’s not a good solution for a DT.
Formalin is a third option but it isn’t a viable option for me either. With the tank in hypo I am seeing an ammonia spike from the die-off of worms and a few missed snails, its manageable with water changes and Prime but Formalin would have destroyed whatever biofilter that was protecting me currently.
So more research, there must be something else, right?
I started reading articles on some promising work with Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2). I dove deeper and it seemed to make sense. Velvet is a dinoflagellate, we use Peroxide for other dinoflagellate issues and algae, so I read on;
A purple tang rescue with some peroxide testing:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/petco-purple-tang-rescue-action.249943/page-2
A VERY informative article from Reefkeeping which included some peroxide info:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/index.php
Several articles that got a bit more specific on treatment options:
http://agrilife.org/fisheries/files...mportant-Parasite-of-Cultured-Marine-Fish.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2761.1980.tb00421.x
Im sure I read more than the above, but the bulk of information is in the articles I listed. Honestly, I was really surprised on how little info there was to read on the topic.
In the end, I learned that treatments ranging in the 50-300ppm had variable success/mortality rates with the most promising was in the 50-75ppm range, in my opinion. So I calculated my dosing, starting at the low end to see reactions. 50ppm.
I calculated what I needed as follows:
50ppm = .05 ml/l
300g = 1135.62 liters
1135.65 * .05 = 56.781 ml (I rounded to 57ml)
Prior to initial dosing the following notable symptoms were occuring:
Day 1 In the evening I dosed the 57ml into the main tank powerhead and watched for adverse reactions through the next day. The 3 fish I noted above were my litmus test, If I saw improvement in those 4, I would continue treatment.
Day 2, in the morning I observed some slight improvement, or what I perceived to be improvement in behavior. There were no adverse reactions, so I dosed another 57ml.
I continued to read some of the scientific research into Amyloodinium ocellatum because, aside from the issue at hand, this is a dang interesting parasite. One thing that popped into my head was that, as a dinoflagellate, it was photosynthetic and could use light for some nourishment. But what really struck me was that when Amyloodinium ocellatum reach the trophant stage, they tend to swim toward the light and then infect fish. Now I also started reading into the reaction times of peroxide, and how long it lasts in the water. As an oxidizer, its not long, a few hours by some estimates.
I decided I could turn this into an advantage in two ways. First, I surmised that if I treat with peroxide in the AM, maybe 30-40 min after lights come on, I could maximize the effect on the trophants, which is the only stage peroxide will work on btw. Second, given the lifespan of peroxide, I could possible double dose; once in the AM and once at night to further increase effectiveness.
Day 2, in the evening, with no losses or negative effects, I upped the dose to 75ppm (86ml), after the initial morning dose of 57ml. The next day, I saw very notable improvement. The naso was out and showing interest in food (but not eating yet), the clowns were still showing signs of white patches and lack of appetite, the remaining fish actually ate!!
Day 3, I continued the 86ml dose for both the morning and evening.
Each day, I saw some improvement and the appetite and behavior of the fish trended closer to normal. Except for the clowns, who died. I surmise, based on their advanced symptoms, were too far gone for this, or any other treatment, to help.
I continued the 86ml dosing over the next several days until all visible symptoms also disappeared. At this point, the fish are symptom free, I have stopped dosing 2 days ago and I am observing. I know this is not a definitive cure, I cannot perform a gill biopsy to confirm, and even if no further symptoms present themselves, I plan on doing a full quarantine after the renovations are complete before any new fish or coral will be considered. I am also upping my QT game for all additions; 6 weeks for everything, no exceptions. I am NOT doing this again, velvet is no joke.
Tank Spec for the purpose of this conversation:
300 gallon (total water volume, including displacement for rock/sand/etc.) (96”x24”x30” + sump) reef tank.
So here we go... A few weeks ago I noticed a dead fish, my nice ORA indigo dottyback. He was a longtime resident and I was a bit concerned but saw no outward signs of disease and reconciled myself to “stuff happens”. The next day, my very healthy long time resident watanabe angel was gasping on the bottom of the tank. Something was definitely wrong.
I started really looking at all the fish in the tank, 15 in total. I saw what I tragically misinterpreted as ich and began aggressively taking my display down to hyposalinity and migrating my inverts to avoid a huge die-off send my tank into a new cycle.
It’s worth noting WHY I went down this road;
1. I could not easily treat 15 fish, some large 6+ inches with my current qt equipment
2. I had very little in the way of inverts/coral at the time and they could easily fit in a 40 breeder
3. I am in the middle of a minor renovation with floors for the entire house and a few walls going up so it would be chaotic, to say the least, to manage the multiple hospital tanks I would need.
OK, so back to it. It’s no surprise I lost a few more fish as I transitioned to hypo. Let me say that getting to 1.009sg on a 300 gallon tank is not easy. It took a few days, it involved a lot of buckets of RO. I lost a few more fish and then some of the signs of what I was truly dealing with became known to me.
Ich is not this fast, I knew that. I began more research and concluded it was velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum). The signs were now easy to see. Fish swimming into powerheads, gasping, light sensitive, and lack of appetite were all there. And of course hypo does NOTHING for velvet, so I lost precious time going down the wrong road. Lesson learned.
Now I’m kind of of screwed because copper and Chloroquine Phosphate (CP) are the 2 main treatments and neither are going to work for a 300g tank.
First, I dont have access to CP, time is precious, and I have 2 wrasses, which don't do well in CP.
Second, copper would destroy my rocks and sand, it’s not a good solution for a DT.
Formalin is a third option but it isn’t a viable option for me either. With the tank in hypo I am seeing an ammonia spike from the die-off of worms and a few missed snails, its manageable with water changes and Prime but Formalin would have destroyed whatever biofilter that was protecting me currently.
So more research, there must be something else, right?
I started reading articles on some promising work with Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2). I dove deeper and it seemed to make sense. Velvet is a dinoflagellate, we use Peroxide for other dinoflagellate issues and algae, so I read on;
A purple tang rescue with some peroxide testing:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/petco-purple-tang-rescue-action.249943/page-2
A VERY informative article from Reefkeeping which included some peroxide info:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/index.php
Several articles that got a bit more specific on treatment options:
http://agrilife.org/fisheries/files...mportant-Parasite-of-Cultured-Marine-Fish.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2761.1980.tb00421.x
Im sure I read more than the above, but the bulk of information is in the articles I listed. Honestly, I was really surprised on how little info there was to read on the topic.
In the end, I learned that treatments ranging in the 50-300ppm had variable success/mortality rates with the most promising was in the 50-75ppm range, in my opinion. So I calculated my dosing, starting at the low end to see reactions. 50ppm.
I calculated what I needed as follows:
50ppm = .05 ml/l
300g = 1135.62 liters
1135.65 * .05 = 56.781 ml (I rounded to 57ml)
Prior to initial dosing the following notable symptoms were occuring:
- My naso was noticeable covered in spots, was not eating and was photosensitive.
- My copperband was swimming into the powerhead and staying at the top of the tank, also noticeably covered in spots.
- My tomato clowns were further along, with large white mucus patches.
- All fish were generally lacking in appetite.
Day 1 In the evening I dosed the 57ml into the main tank powerhead and watched for adverse reactions through the next day. The 3 fish I noted above were my litmus test, If I saw improvement in those 4, I would continue treatment.
Day 2, in the morning I observed some slight improvement, or what I perceived to be improvement in behavior. There were no adverse reactions, so I dosed another 57ml.
I continued to read some of the scientific research into Amyloodinium ocellatum because, aside from the issue at hand, this is a dang interesting parasite. One thing that popped into my head was that, as a dinoflagellate, it was photosynthetic and could use light for some nourishment. But what really struck me was that when Amyloodinium ocellatum reach the trophant stage, they tend to swim toward the light and then infect fish. Now I also started reading into the reaction times of peroxide, and how long it lasts in the water. As an oxidizer, its not long, a few hours by some estimates.
I decided I could turn this into an advantage in two ways. First, I surmised that if I treat with peroxide in the AM, maybe 30-40 min after lights come on, I could maximize the effect on the trophants, which is the only stage peroxide will work on btw. Second, given the lifespan of peroxide, I could possible double dose; once in the AM and once at night to further increase effectiveness.
Day 2, in the evening, with no losses or negative effects, I upped the dose to 75ppm (86ml), after the initial morning dose of 57ml. The next day, I saw very notable improvement. The naso was out and showing interest in food (but not eating yet), the clowns were still showing signs of white patches and lack of appetite, the remaining fish actually ate!!
Day 3, I continued the 86ml dose for both the morning and evening.
Each day, I saw some improvement and the appetite and behavior of the fish trended closer to normal. Except for the clowns, who died. I surmise, based on their advanced symptoms, were too far gone for this, or any other treatment, to help.
I continued the 86ml dosing over the next several days until all visible symptoms also disappeared. At this point, the fish are symptom free, I have stopped dosing 2 days ago and I am observing. I know this is not a definitive cure, I cannot perform a gill biopsy to confirm, and even if no further symptoms present themselves, I plan on doing a full quarantine after the renovations are complete before any new fish or coral will be considered. I am also upping my QT game for all additions; 6 weeks for everything, no exceptions. I am NOT doing this again, velvet is no joke.
