Hydrogen Peroxide and Velvet

[Nelliy]

I wanted to get peoples thoughts on this experience of mine. I'm not sure if I just got lucky or this actually did work!

Now before people mention any negative comments I want to say this was a first for me as I never experienced marine velvet, only Ich. This was an experiment I had to undertake in a rush.

My parameters was all good. I have no QT tank and didn't have time or resources to set one up quickly. At first I thought it was Ich then I soon quickly caught on that it was velvet and I was running out of time. I somehow contracted velvet in my reef tank and I am assuming it was from a new addition I added two weeks prior.

I did as much research I could and given the lack of resources I had, I made an executive decision to try something taking in everything I had read. I couldn't find any info the internet of someone doing exactly what I did but I was willing to experiment.

Every single fish in my tank was absolutely covered in velvet and lethargic and I thought there is no way they are going to return to normal. There was little hope and time. I had come to terms that I might loose all my fish or at least some.

I started dosing Hydrogen peroxide at 1ml per 3 gallons every 12 hours. I covered the tank in black cloth to let zero light in and raised the temp by 2 Degrees Celsius.

On day 3 I removed the cloth but still left the light off and started dosing hydrogen peroxide every 24 hours.

The first fish to show signs of getting better were my pair of maroon clowns.

Then all my fish starting showing the good signs. At the end of it all they were all happy and swimming around and only my niger triger had signs of velvet on his body, however it was heavily improved to what it was when I started.

I did loose one fish and that was my bird nose wrasse.

I know the velvet is probably still current in the tank and may come back and I'm not in the safe zone yet.

I just wanted to see what other peoples thoughts were regarding this. I feel like I just got lucky as I know velvet can kill in a matter of days.

I should mention in regards to lack of resources. I am in a heavy lockdown area, no stores I could go to for resources and everything online would of taken too long to deliver. I had to work with what I had on hand.

 

[Timfish]

Interesting! Thanks for relating your experiences!

 

[F i s h y]

I agree. Interesting idea. Can you tell us a little more about your tank. How large is it and what kind of equipment are you running. Would be interested to know what the ratio of hydrogen peroxide was. Do you have coral? What about inverts?

 

[Miami Reef]

A study shows that hydrogen peroxide when used 2 weeks apart reduced velvet to a non detachable level. Humblefish recommends the use of h202 for the treatment of velvet. While it won’t completely eradicate it in a DT, it will help in management.

However, I personally would recommend saving the fish and treating them + fallow. Velvet is super deadly and you wouldn’t want that parasite sneaking up on you and whipping all your fish.

 

[Nelliy]

Yes sorry! I should of added this.

75 Gallon Reef tank (fish, coral, live rock, inverts, the lot)

My skimmer, funny enough, did break a few days before this all happened. I have a new one now that I was waiting to be delivered at the time. So throughout this experiment I had no skimmer.

I was dosing 1ml per 3 gallons. In total the dose each time was 25ml. Sometimes I added a couple ml extra as I knew this wouldn't be too harmful as I have read people dosing way more. The peroxide was 3% that you can get over the counter in many stores.

I had no fancy equipment. Just the standard heater, wave makers, and sump filtration. My lighting equipment is 4 x t5 globes, 2 white and 2 blue plus 2x LED strips. However, during this experiment lighting was off. I only put the light on for about 5 minutes during feeding then shut it all off again. The first three days the tank was completely blacked out with clothing.

I have LPS coral and Inverts. Elegances, hammers, frogspawns and torches. I have a tiger cucumber, 3 sand sifting starfish and a few yellow footed hermit crabs. I did have banded shrimp but I moved them to my other tank as my triger liked to pick on them and he picks on the crabs too, I've been removing the yellow foots as I see them to the other tank because of my trigger. They tend to hide very well so I just wait till they are out and grab them.

My stock for fish are:

- 2x Maroon clowns
- Niger triger
- Valentini puffer (aka saddle puffer)
- Female bird nose wrasse (sadly died during this experiment)
- Male Lunare wrasse
- Antennata lionfish
- Lawnmower blenny

 

[Nelliy]

I might add.

I know this wont cure velvet or make it go away for good. However the state of my fish were terrible. Some were lying on the floor some were up trying to get oxygen and all hope was lost I thought they weren't going to make it. This experiment has done a miracle as the fish are now very active and behaving as normal and they are surviving showing no visible signs of velvet nor behaving sickly. They also had lost a lot of colour during the process but now have returned to normal.

 

[Simon Reefing]

No ich in my tank but beat dinos the same way you described. Turned my skimmer off, dosed hydrogen peroxide, raised temps. Only difference is I did not switch lighting schedule. Glad you were able to beat velvet!

 

[Wyvern]

I almost believe fish immunity, constant dosing and UV will probably eradicate velvet in a few months time.

I would be worried about new fish for a while however.

 

[dbarter8872]

Peroxide can completely eradicate velvet. I have done it 3 times in the last 4 years successfully. The most recent time complete success was tested with the new microbiome/edna testing. This is in a 500 gallon system with over 40 fish. The forum that humblefish started has lots of success stories. Just wanted to add my 2 cents for anyone that finds this thread. I discovered peroxide for velvet on my own out of desperation based on fish hatchery experiments that tested lethal dosage.

 

[Wyvern]

Peroxide can completely eradicate velvet. I have done it 3 times in the last 4 years successfully. The most recent time complete success was tested with the new microbiome/edna testing. This is in a 500 gallon system with over 40 fish. The forum that humblefish started has lots of success stories. Just wanted to add my 2 cents for anyone that finds this thread. I discovered peroxide for velvet on my own out of desperation based on fish hatchery experiments that tested lethal dosage.

Wow! By chance do you remember the H2O2 PPM and whether or not you used carbon/UV?

 

[beardedjack]

I wanted to get peoples thoughts on this experience of mine. I'm not sure if I just got lucky or this actually did work!

Now before people mention any negative comments I want to say this was a first for me as I never experienced marine velvet, only Ich. This was an experiment I had to undertake in a rush.

My parameters was all good. I have no QT tank and didn't have time or resources to set one up quickly. At first I thought it was Ich then I soon quickly caught on that it was velvet and I was running out of time. I somehow contracted velvet in my reef tank and I am assuming it was from a new addition I added two weeks prior.

I did as much research I could and given the lack of resources I had, I made an executive decision to try something taking in everything I had read. I couldn't find any info the internet of someone doing exactly what I did but I was willing to experiment.

Every single fish in my tank was absolutely covered in velvet and lethargic and I thought there is no way they are going to return to normal. There was little hope and time. I had come to terms that I might loose all my fish or at least some.

I started dosing Hydrogen peroxide at 1ml per 3 gallons every 12 hours. I covered the tank in black cloth to let zero light in and raised the temp by 2 Degrees Celsius.

On day 3 I removed the cloth but still left the light off and started dosing hydrogen peroxide every 24 hours.

The first fish to show signs of getting better were my pair of maroon clowns.

Then all my fish starting showing the good signs. At the end of it all they were all happy and swimming around and only my niger triger had signs of velvet on his body, however it was heavily improved to what it was when I started.

I did loose one fish and that was my bird nose wrasse.

I know the velvet is probably still current in the tank and may come back and I'm not in the safe zone yet.

I just wanted to see what other peoples thoughts were regarding this. I feel like I just got lucky as I know velvet can kill in a matter of days.

I should mention in regards to lack of resources. I am in a heavy lockdown area, no stores I could go to for resources and everything online would have taken too long to deliver. I had to work with what I had on hand.

How long did you dose. I can’t seem to find it. One of my large deep tanks is currently in an outbreak and there is no possible way for me to remove all of the fish so this seems like my best option. I had never had velvet before but my sailfin tang seems to have an outbreak infecting my large reef when I moved him from one of my smaller tanks which he out grew. I dosed H2O2 until he got better and then quite as I didn’t like the effect it was having on my coral (not my brightest moment) and now every other fish in the tank is showing signed of it also looks like it might be coming back on my sailfin. Any info would be appreciated

 

[vic5hands]

I had an outbreak of velvet on my 215 gallon tank. I removed all the fish and started to dose 200 ml per day dosing heavily at night. I waited the full 90 days before putting any fish back in the tank. This happened in July of last year. To this day I still dose Hydrogen Peroxide except I only dose 30 ml daily. Prevention. It also helps with algae control. I have a dominate SPS tank and have no discoloration problems