Advice needed, how to move forward from velvet/brook outbreak

[salty_noob]

So I have a 180G system approaching a year old and unfortunately (and covered here before) I chose to add fish without quarantine and had an outbreak of either velvet or brook that wiped out more than half of my fish. The survivors were a foxface, azure damsel and 2 cardinals. Since then, with QT tanks I had successfully added a 2 clowns, a white tail tang, melanurus wrasse, sailfin tang and lastly 3 square back anthias, all was starting to look quite good and I was pretty well happy with a moderate stocking level for now. Then last week the male anthias which had always been acting peculiar compared to the others became listless other than during feeding and over the course of a few days basically died, no signs of anything external other than color fading on the last day or so. Almost immediately the white tail got spots, starting shedding slime coat and stopped eating, died, followed by the other 2 anthias just seeing to give up and die, the sailfin broke out in spots and I was sure I would lose him.

Now my tank has extensive cave systems in the rocks and some established corals and anemones, catching all of the fish seems impossible without a complete tear down, I managed to catch the clowns and they are in a QT tank with copper, I was unable to catch anything else and I am worried about stressing them all further by chasing them around. I treated the main tank with prazipro and nothing else has died. The sailfin, remarkably, is improving with fewer spots and all remaining fish are eating well. The clowns seem fine in QT.

So of the fish I added since the last outbreak, everything but the wrasse and the clowns have either died or been infected with something that looks like velvet in the last 2 weeks. Is it possible that velvet is in the tank but that the fish that survived last time and the tougher fish that I bought since are somehow able to live with it? Strangely the clowns and sailfin that are doing OK came from petco, the anthias and white-tail (all dead) came from a well regarded LFS.

I have ICP tests from before and after the outbreak but other than increasing iodine levels (for my corals and inverts), nothing was changing much and everything is quite well in range.

It feels like I have 2 choices :

1) strip the whole thing down, put all the fish in QT and do a fallow period for the tank (would this have to include the nem's?)
2) continue to add QT'd fishes again with the expectation that some will not make it when introduced to the main tank.

maybe an option to use water from the main tank after QT to introduce individual fish to the "infected" system before they go in and cause an outbreak?

Any thoughts, opinions, advice?

Thanks

 

[fishguy242]

@Jay Hemdal #fishmedic

 

[vetteguy53081]

So I have a 180G system approaching a year old and unfortunately (and covered here before) I chose to add fish without quarantine and had an outbreak of either velvet or brook that wiped out more than half of my fish. The survivors were a foxface, azure damsel and 2 cardinals. Since then, with QT tanks I had successfully added a 2 clowns, a white tail tang, melanurus wrasse, sailfin tang and lastly 3 square back anthias, all was starting to look quite good and I was pretty well happy with a moderate stocking level for now. Then last week the male anthias which had always been acting peculiar compared to the others became listless other than during feeding and over the course of a few days basically died, no signs of anything external other than color fading on the last day or so. Almost immediately the white tail got spots, starting shedding slime coat and stopped eating, died, followed by the other 2 anthias just seeing to give up and die, the sailfin broke out in spots and I was sure I would lose him.

Now my tank has extensive cave systems in the rocks and some established corals and anemones, catching all of the fish seems impossible without a complete tear down, I managed to catch the clowns and they are in a QT tank with copper, I was unable to catch anything else and I am worried about stressing them all further by chasing them around. I treated the main tank with prazipro and nothing else has died. The sailfin, remarkably, is improving with fewer spots and all remaining fish are eating well. The clowns seem fine in QT.

So of the fish I added since the last outbreak, everything but the wrasse and the clowns have either died or been infected with something that looks like velvet in the last 2 weeks. Is it possible that velvet is in the tank but that the fish that survived last time and the tougher fish that I bought since are somehow able to live with it? Strangely the clowns and sailfin that are doing OK came from petco, the anthias and white-tail (all dead) came from a well regarded LFS.

I have ICP tests from before and after the outbreak but other than increasing iodine levels (for my corals and inverts), nothing was changing much and everything is quite well in range.

It feels like I have 2 choices :

1) strip the whole thing down, put all the fish in QT and do a fallow period for the tank (would this have to include the nem's?)
2) continue to add QT'd fishes again with the expectation that some will not make it when introduced to the main tank.

maybe an option to use water from the main tank after QT to introduce individual fish to the "infected" system before they go in and cause an outbreak?

Any thoughts, opinions, advice?

Thanks

At this point do not add fish especially until the issue is fully identified and fish are secured with quarantine process. Understand even though fish are quarantines, they are QT at facility but once in transit are subject to stress, ammonia in the bag and other factors and assume fish have something and do a short term QT for 14 days in the future. Tangs can but rarely get brook however velvet they do.
Its helpful if you can post a couple of pics and even video under white lighting of the fish for further assessment.
If velvet, some signs besides the heavy powdery dot effect will be fish will scratch body against hard objects, lethargic behavior, Loss of appetite and weight loss, Rapid, labored breathing, Fins clamped against the body, and typically stay at the surface of the water, or remain in a position where a steady flow of water is present in the aquarium.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

So I have a 180G system approaching a year old and unfortunately (and covered here before) I chose to add fish without quarantine and had an outbreak of either velvet or brook that wiped out more than half of my fish. The survivors were a foxface, azure damsel and 2 cardinals. Since then, with QT tanks I had successfully added a 2 clowns, a white tail tang, melanurus wrasse, sailfin tang and lastly 3 square back anthias, all was starting to look quite good and I was pretty well happy with a moderate stocking level for now. Then last week the male anthias which had always been acting peculiar compared to the others became listless other than during feeding and over the course of a few days basically died, no signs of anything external other than color fading on the last day or so. Almost immediately the white tail got spots, starting shedding slime coat and stopped eating, died, followed by the other 2 anthias just seeing to give up and die, the sailfin broke out in spots and I was sure I would lose him.

Now my tank has extensive cave systems in the rocks and some established corals and anemones, catching all of the fish seems impossible without a complete tear down, I managed to catch the clowns and they are in a QT tank with copper, I was unable to catch anything else and I am worried about stressing them all further by chasing them around. I treated the main tank with prazipro and nothing else has died. The sailfin, remarkably, is improving with fewer spots and all remaining fish are eating well. The clowns seem fine in QT.

So of the fish I added since the last outbreak, everything but the wrasse and the clowns have either died or been infected with something that looks like velvet in the last 2 weeks. Is it possible that velvet is in the tank but that the fish that survived last time and the tougher fish that I bought since are somehow able to live with it? Strangely the clowns and sailfin that are doing OK came from petco, the anthias and white-tail (all dead) came from a well regarded LFS.

I have ICP tests from before and after the outbreak but other than increasing iodine levels (for my corals and inverts), nothing was changing much and everything is quite well in range.

It feels like I have 2 choices :

1) strip the whole thing down, put all the fish in QT and do a fallow period for the tank (would this have to include the nem's?)
2) continue to add QT'd fishes again with the expectation that some will not make it when introduced to the main tank.

maybe an option to use water from the main tank after QT to introduce individual fish to the "infected" system before they go in and cause an outbreak?

Any thoughts, opinions, advice?

Thanks

I think a more positive diagnosis is needed here. When I hear "spots" I don't think of velvet OR Brook. Velvet's main symptoms are: rapid breathing, hanging out in water currents and not eating. Brooklynella shows more as a general "white body slime", with rapid breathing and poor swimming. Marine ich shows as pinhead white spots, the locations of which and their numbers, seems to change day to day, but usually increasing. Eventually, the ich gets bad enough that the fish stops feeding, their eyes get cloudy, they get white mucus all over and the individual spots are not as distinct.

It also may well be that the fish losses are not all related. I normally advise people not to keep multiple male squareback anthias together - were yours female or male?

Can you post a video of the remaining fish?

Jay

 

[salty_noob]

I think a more positive diagnosis is needed here. When I hear "spots" I don't think of velvet OR Brook. Velvet's main symptoms are: rapid breathing, hanging out in water currents and not eating. Brooklynella shows more as a general "white body slime", with rapid breathing and poor swimming. Marine ich shows as pinhead white spots, the locations of which and their numbers, seems to change day to day, but usually increasing. Eventually, the ich gets bad enough that the fish stops feeding, their eyes get cloudy, they get white mucus all over and the individual spots are not as distinct.

It also may well be that the fish losses are not all related. I normally advise people not to keep multiple male squareback anthias together - were yours female or male?

Can you post a video of the remaining fish?

Jay

Thanks all for the quick responses, some answers to your questions:

when I say spots, it looks more like a dusting of powdered sugar, on the white tail (and on the powder brown that started the original outbreak) it started like this and then quickly transitioned to what I can only describe as a shedding of the slime coat, rapid breathing and death within a day or so. I'll grab some video of the remaining fish but you will (i hope) see that this is only just still visible on the sailfin (and he's 4 days in now).

Squarebacks were 1 male and 2 female, the females seemed fine initially, the male was skinny when he arrived and swam funny for a while in QT but with plenty of feeding he became more normal, just occasionally swimming vertically.

I'll get the vids up as soon as I can

 

[salty_noob]

At this point do not add fish especially until the issue is fully identified and fish are secured with quarantine process. Understand even though fish are quarantines, they are QT at facility but once in transit are subject to stress, ammonia in the bag and other factors and assume fish have something and do a short term QT for 14 days in the future. Tangs can but rarely get brook however velvet they do.
Its helpful if you can post a couple of pics and even video under white lighting of the fish for further assessment.
If velvet, some signs besides the heavy powdery dot effect will be fish will scratch body against hard objects, lethargic behavior, Loss of appetite and weight loss, Rapid, labored breathing, Fins clamped against the body, and typically stay at the surface of the water, or remain in a position where a steady flow of water is present in the aquarium.

vid's

 

[MnFish1]

vid's

FYi - some people cannot view the videos - unless on Youtube. Can you do that?

 

[MnFish1]

Spots suggest Ich - depending on the size. My guess - is that there are residual parasites (pick one - Ich/velvet, etc) - in your tank - that have lived with your fish at a low level. My suggestion (no matter what the cause)

1. Catch the fish (and you can use fish traps for this - often they are borrowable from an LFS)
2. Quarantine them per protocol - and leave your tank fallow per protocol.

-OR-

1. Use an in tank option ( like Ruby Rally Reef Pro) - watching your inverts carefully

 

[vetteguy53081]

vid's

The worse thing you can do is feed the fish while one is trying to see the body. I was able to freeze the frames and this is cryptocaryon which is Marine ich. Unfortunately, you will need in the best interest of treatment move all the fish to a separate treatment tank and treat with Coppersafe or Copper Power at therapeutic level 2.25-2.5 For a FULL 30 days (do not interrupt this 30 day period) monitored by a reliable Copper Test kit such as Hanna Brand- No API brand. Also monitor Ammonia levels while in quarantine with a reliable test kit and add aeration during treatment using an air stone.
The display tank will have to be kept fishless (FALLOW) for 6-8 weeks to assure the existing parasites go through their life cycle without a host fish and die off
A quarantine tank can be as simple as a tank from a second hand store or a starter kit from Walmart which most of the needed essentials.

 

[MnFish1]

The worse thing you can do is feed the fish while one is trying to see the body. I was able to freeze the frames and this is cryptocaryon which is Marine ich. Unfortunately, you will need in the best interest of treatment move all the fish to a separate treatment tank and treat with Coppersafe or Copper Power at therapeutic level 2.25-2.5 For a FULL 30 days (do not interrupt this 30 day period) monitored by a reliable Copper Test kit such as Hanna Brand- No API brand. Also monitor Ammonia levels while in quarantine with a reliable test kit and add aeration during treatment using an air stone.
The display tank will have to be kept fishless (FALLOW) for 6-8 weeks to assure the existing parasites go through their life cycle without a host fish and die off
A quarantine tank can be as simple as a tank from a second hand store or a starter kit from Walmart which most of the needed essentials.

can't see anything. if ich agree

 

[salty_noob]

The worse thing you can do is feed the fish while one is trying to see the body. I was able to freeze the frames and this is cryptocaryon which is Marine ich. Unfortunately, you will need in the best interest of treatment move all the fish to a separate treatment tank and treat with Coppersafe or Copper Power at therapeutic level 2.25-2.5 For a FULL 30 days (do not interrupt this 30 day period) monitored by a reliable Copper Test kit such as Hanna Brand- No API brand. Also monitor Ammonia levels while in quarantine with a reliable test kit and add aeration during treatment using an air stone.
The display tank will have to be kept fishless (FALLOW) for 6-8 weeks to assure the existing parasites go through their life cycle without a host fish and die off
A quarantine tank can be as simple as a tank from a second hand store or a starter kit from Walmart which most of the needed essentials.

Sorry for the feeding, it's hard to keep him still enough any other way. Thank you for the analysis, any chance you could post the freeze frame you used, just for interest so I can see what I'm dealing with? I have 2 QT tanks already set up (the clowns are in one already in the other vid), they are only 10 and 20 gallons, with HOB filters and air stones, the 10 is already treated with coppersafe but only at 2.0 so far, using hanna checker. I'm monitoring ammonia only with the "alert" things, unfortunately only have API to test for ammonia.

If I can catch the other fish, do I need to put them in a tank and raise the copper slowly like I did with the clowns or can I dose it now, get the levels set and then move them straight into it?

 

[salty_noob]

Spots suggest Ich - depending on the size. My guess - is that there are residual parasites (pick one - Ich/velvet, etc) - in your tank - that have lived with your fish at a low level. My suggestion (no matter what the cause)

1. Catch the fish (and you can use fish traps for this - often they are borrowable from an LFS)
2. Quarantine them per protocol - and leave your tank fallow per protocol.

-OR-

1. Use an in tank option ( like Ruby Rally Reef Pro) - watching your inverts carefully

Will the Ruby Rally treatment actually eradicate it or just manage it?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

vid's

I got a brief glimpse of the sailfin tang at just the right angle, that has marine ich.

Jay

 

[salty_noob]

I got a brief glimpse of the sailfin tang at just the right angle, that has marine ich.

Jay

OK, thanks, so this (and given the same symptoms also the initial outbreak) is confirmed as Ich, then my options seem limited. I need to somehow catch all the other fish, copper them all for 30 days and leave the tank empty for 8 weeks. I have tanks set up that should be big enough for them all for a limited period, just going to need to watch the bio load.

 

[Lavey29]

You will never get relief from this problem unless you fallow the tank.

 

[salty_noob]

I got a brief glimpse of the sailfin tang at just the right angle, that has marine ich.

Jay

One further question, do nem's have to come out during the fallow period? obviously they don't go to a copper treatment but do I need to have them out of the DT?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

One further question, do nem's have to come out during the fallow period? obviously they don't go to a copper treatment but do I need to have them out of the DT?

Only fish can propagate ich on their bodies, other invertebrate animals can hold the resting tomonts, but they cannot reproduce. Eventually then, during the fallow period, all of the remaining tomonts die out due to lack of a host.
Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

Will the Ruby Rally treatment actually eradicate it or just manage it?

Ruby not for ich but will address velvet but take time

 

[vetteguy53081]

Sorry for the feeding, it's hard to keep him still enough any other way. Thank you for the analysis, any chance you could post the freeze frame you used, just for interest so I can see what I'm dealing with? I have 2 QT tanks already set up (the clowns are in one already in the other vid), they are only 10 and 20 gallons, with HOB filters and air stones, the 10 is already treated with coppersafe but only at 2.0 so far, using hanna checker. I'm monitoring ammonia only with the "alert" things, unfortunately only have API to test for ammonia.

If I can catch the other fish, do I need to put them in a tank and raise the copper slowly like I did with the clowns or can I dose it now, get the levels set and then move them straight into it?

Treat with copper yes but do not ramp slowly but rather get to treatment level within 24 hours

 

[salty_noob]

caught the sailfin, transferred to QT2 (20G) with Cu at 2.36 (Hanna), clowns are in QT1(10G) with Cu at 2.1, just upped the level a little for QT1, aiming to keep both above 2.25.