- Joined
- Oct 15, 2018
- Messages
- 9
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TL/DR: What is the likelihood that parasites can survive, feed, and reproduce by hosting on asymptomatic fish over 9 months after an outbreak?
Hi, new member here. I'd like to get some opinions on my situation. I started a 150g tank in September of last year, and all was good for the first 3 months. At the beginning of January my fish started dropping one by one, almost certainly by a parasite. Between the guys at my LFS and members of another forum, we determined it was likely either velvet or brooklynella. Based on the fishes' behavior and symptoms I'm leaning towards velvet as the culprit. I set up an emergency hospital tank and managed to get 3 fish in there and treated before they became symptomatic, but they ended up dying anyway.
All but 2 of my fish died from the outbreak - one blue sapphire damsel (out of 3) and one blue-green chromis survived and never showed any symptoms or unusual behavior. My husband and I tried numerous methods to trap them in order to move them to the hospital tank and let the DT go fallow, but short of tearing down the tank it wasn't happening. We added nothing (including inverts & coral) for 7 months, then started very slowly adding fish again. All have been fine so far, but now I've been reading and wondering if it was a horribly unwise decision to add these fish since we didn't actually go fallow. What is the likelihood that the parasites were able to survive, feed, and reproduce on one or both of the original fish over the course of 7 (now 9) months?
Hi, new member here. I'd like to get some opinions on my situation. I started a 150g tank in September of last year, and all was good for the first 3 months. At the beginning of January my fish started dropping one by one, almost certainly by a parasite. Between the guys at my LFS and members of another forum, we determined it was likely either velvet or brooklynella. Based on the fishes' behavior and symptoms I'm leaning towards velvet as the culprit. I set up an emergency hospital tank and managed to get 3 fish in there and treated before they became symptomatic, but they ended up dying anyway.
All but 2 of my fish died from the outbreak - one blue sapphire damsel (out of 3) and one blue-green chromis survived and never showed any symptoms or unusual behavior. My husband and I tried numerous methods to trap them in order to move them to the hospital tank and let the DT go fallow, but short of tearing down the tank it wasn't happening. We added nothing (including inverts & coral) for 7 months, then started very slowly adding fish again. All have been fine so far, but now I've been reading and wondering if it was a horribly unwise decision to add these fish since we didn't actually go fallow. What is the likelihood that the parasites were able to survive, feed, and reproduce on one or both of the original fish over the course of 7 (now 9) months?