Help with Velvet Diagnosis of Black Tang

[imagineapuddle]

Hi, I had a black tang shipped to me and received on Wednesday. Wasn't moving too much, but I figured it was stress from shipping and the quarantine/observation tank isn't too big for it's size. Tried feeding nori and some mysis shrimp Thursday, it ate a few bites of both, but continued to not move around too much. Friday it wouldn't eat nori or anything else and still wasn't moving from the spot it's in. Yesterday I started to get worried and upon inspecting it closely, he finally turned around and I was able to see on the other side what looked like dusting and a fair amount of white spots. This is my first time dealing with velvet, but from what I understand it matches the description, although he isn't hanging out in front of a power head.

I gave him a 5 min freshwater bath(didn't have Acriflavine or Formalin on hand to do anything else) and began dosing Cupramine at Seachem's recommendation. Today is the next day, the white spots and the dusting are no longer there, but he continues to not eat and is moving very little. Does anyone have any thoughts if my diagnosis of velvet is correct? I've been searching through threads and have found images of black tangs with similar pictures that were not velvet. I don't think he's taking to the copper treatment well even at the low levels it's at now and the seller had mentioned he had tried a prophylactic copper treatment previously, but had to stop due the tang not eating. If it is velvet, is there anything else I can do for him or to help him eat again?

Thanks

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Velvet is actually rarer than people often think, one key diagnostic is rapid breathing, greater than about 180 beats per minute. Given their color, black tangs show a lot of skin issues really easily, but I do see spots on this fish. Could be ich or velvet.
Low level copper should not be causing this fish any issue, so the lack of feeding is probably due to the parasites.

Jay

 

[polyppal]

The parasite would kill him before not eating would. I would keep treating him for the velvet/ich, while offering him foods. I found that a tang I was treating for velvet was more likely to eat within a few hours after doing a dip (I did 30m H202 dips, not freshwater) when he was prob feeling some temporary relief.

 

[artieg1]

Fish can survive a long time without eating, or eating very little. It is not ideal. But based on my experience, I would power through with copper at therapeutic levels for the prescribed time period, then move to a new sterile QT/observation and see if he has freshened up. I think that makes more sense than the alternative, which is to let the parasite remain while you try to perk up his appetite.

 

[imagineapuddle]

Thanks for all the advice. I'll be increasing to the final dose of cupramine tomorrow according to the instructions, I would prefer to go more slowly, but due to thinking it is velvet, I was going with Cupramine's directions of reaching the final dose in 48 hours. Hopefully he'll pull through at this point. I do find it strange that he doesn't seem to be doing some of things associated with velvet, he doesn't appear to have rapid breathing, he has heavy breathing, but nowhere near 180 beats per minute and he isn't hanging out in high flow. It really doesn't look like ich to me, but I think I'd much prefer that