zack1110fish
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- Joined
- Apr 8, 2025
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- Knoxville
- What state or country do you live in
- Tennessee
I wanted to get some thoughts on this situation. Hopefully Jay can chime in here with his expert opinion.
6 weeks ago I had an outbreak of what I am 99% sure was velvet/ich mix in my 200 gallon reef tank. (Check video clip for what my desjardini tang looked like). Upon noticing the first lesions on the fish, I decided to start treating with reef medic (and then switched to H2O2 on dosing pump) and was able to slow down (but ultimately not stop the progression) of the disease over 1-2 weeks time. I lost several fish quickly after the first week, so I then decided to give up on the H2O2 and just go for fallow.
After removing the last fish from the main display tank, I decided to go ahead and change out my entire sand bed (which I had been wanting to do anyway for sometime). The sand I had in there was ocean direct, and I never could get all of the silty particles out of it, and it was creating a cloudy mess every time a fish brushed against it. I switched it back to my old favorite ‘CaribSea Aragalive reef sand’. I also changed all of my porous bio media in my sump. The only thing that was retained in the tank was all of my live rock work and coral that is attached to it. I ended up doing about a 75% water change during that process as well.
All of the remaining fish that came out of the display tank were moved into quarantine… these fish have 100% completely recovered with nothing but three weeks of continuous 2.0ppm coppersafe. This pretty much solidified to me that I was dealing with either ich or velvet.
After three weeks of coppersafe, they were transferred to a completely new, sterile observation tank setup and have been there 1 week with no recurrence/signs of disease.
Of note, after one week of fallow in my display tank, I sent off one of the qPCR tests that are offered by DXAquaria. These test for ich, velvet, lymphocystis, and Uronema. I was expecting to see astronomical levels of velvet and/or ich however, this test came back negative for everything except for a very, very low level of ich DNA. It was also positive for subclinical levels of uronema (which Nick @ dxaquaria says is normal finding in most mature tanks). It was completely negative for the other parasites (velvet & lympho)
I repeated this exact same qPCR test 1.5 weeks later and got and even lower reading for ich (now subclinical) and no uronema detected at all in this sample.
Yesterday (5/16/26) marked 4 weeks of fallow so far.
My question is: given these DNA results that I am getting, what is the likelihood that I am safe if I return these fish (now healthy again) to the main display tank at 6 weeks? I mean in all reality, based on these results I’m seeing from the qPCR DNA tests, it would appear that my tank is already rid of whatever parasites it had.
Of course, I would continue to observe the fish for the next couple of weeks (in non-medicated water) to make sure there’s no return of any signs of disease.
Would there really be any benefit to extending the fallow out to 76 days? I just do not want this to happen again… it’s been enough of a nightmare of this go around to last me forever.
For reference, I’m attaching a video clip of what my desjardini tang looked like upon being removed from the display tank.
Thanks for any advice/input! :)
6 weeks ago I had an outbreak of what I am 99% sure was velvet/ich mix in my 200 gallon reef tank. (Check video clip for what my desjardini tang looked like). Upon noticing the first lesions on the fish, I decided to start treating with reef medic (and then switched to H2O2 on dosing pump) and was able to slow down (but ultimately not stop the progression) of the disease over 1-2 weeks time. I lost several fish quickly after the first week, so I then decided to give up on the H2O2 and just go for fallow.
After removing the last fish from the main display tank, I decided to go ahead and change out my entire sand bed (which I had been wanting to do anyway for sometime). The sand I had in there was ocean direct, and I never could get all of the silty particles out of it, and it was creating a cloudy mess every time a fish brushed against it. I switched it back to my old favorite ‘CaribSea Aragalive reef sand’. I also changed all of my porous bio media in my sump. The only thing that was retained in the tank was all of my live rock work and coral that is attached to it. I ended up doing about a 75% water change during that process as well.
All of the remaining fish that came out of the display tank were moved into quarantine… these fish have 100% completely recovered with nothing but three weeks of continuous 2.0ppm coppersafe. This pretty much solidified to me that I was dealing with either ich or velvet.
After three weeks of coppersafe, they were transferred to a completely new, sterile observation tank setup and have been there 1 week with no recurrence/signs of disease.
Of note, after one week of fallow in my display tank, I sent off one of the qPCR tests that are offered by DXAquaria. These test for ich, velvet, lymphocystis, and Uronema. I was expecting to see astronomical levels of velvet and/or ich however, this test came back negative for everything except for a very, very low level of ich DNA. It was also positive for subclinical levels of uronema (which Nick @ dxaquaria says is normal finding in most mature tanks). It was completely negative for the other parasites (velvet & lympho)
I repeated this exact same qPCR test 1.5 weeks later and got and even lower reading for ich (now subclinical) and no uronema detected at all in this sample.
Yesterday (5/16/26) marked 4 weeks of fallow so far.
My question is: given these DNA results that I am getting, what is the likelihood that I am safe if I return these fish (now healthy again) to the main display tank at 6 weeks? I mean in all reality, based on these results I’m seeing from the qPCR DNA tests, it would appear that my tank is already rid of whatever parasites it had.
Of course, I would continue to observe the fish for the next couple of weeks (in non-medicated water) to make sure there’s no return of any signs of disease.
Would there really be any benefit to extending the fallow out to 76 days? I just do not want this to happen again… it’s been enough of a nightmare of this go around to last me forever.
For reference, I’m attaching a video clip of what my desjardini tang looked like upon being removed from the display tank.
Thanks for any advice/input! :)
