Ich or Velvet

CableGuy84 · Mar 17, 2023

Looking for some thoughts on if this is Ich or Velvet. Been treating per sellers guidance for Ich for the last week using Metroplex, Focus, and flake food. The symptoms appeared to get better and then yesterday we lost three fish and I fear or Blue Hippo Tang and Foxface may be next. Both of our clown fish are absolutely covered in it. Everyone is eating as of last night.

Attached is a photo of our sailfin that died yesterday.

Jay Hemdal · Mar 17, 2023

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Yes, your fish have a severe case of Cryptocaryon, marine ich.

Metroplex + Focus won't work for marine ich,. It does help with internal protozoans, but it needs to be dosed carefully - 0.5% by weight in the food/focus mixture. It is old advice, based on an incorrect assumption, sorry.

What you saw where the spots got better and then worse again is part of the life cycle of the parasite, not any help from the Metroplex....when ich first gets started, the parasites are all the same age and are synced up to drop off the fish around the same time.

Once fish loss has happened with an outbreak, it is difficult to cure the rest of the fish before they are lost as well. There are no effective treatments that can be used at this point if there are invertebrates in the tank - you will need to move all fish out (or move the inverts out) and quickly treat the fish with coppersafe or hyposalinity.

Jay

CableGuy84 · Mar 17, 2023

Jay Hemdal said:
Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Yes, your fish have a severe case of Cryptocaryon, marine ich.

Metroplex + Focus won't work for marine ich,. It does help with internal protozoans, but it needs to be dosed carefully - 0.5% by weight in the food/focus mixture. It is old advice, based on an incorrect assumption, sorry.

What you saw where the spots got better and then worse again is part of the life cycle of the parasite, not any help from the Metroplex....when ich first gets started, the parasites are all the same age and are synced up to drop off the fish around the same time.

Once fish loss has happened with an outbreak, it is difficult to cure the rest of the fish before they are lost as well. There are no effective treatments that can be used at this point if there are invertebrates in the tank - you will need to move all fish out (or move the inverts out) and quickly treat the fish with coppersafe or hyposalinity.

Jay

Thanks Jay.