Ich / Velvet for a day???

Joe Batt

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Hi everyone

I added some new fish to my aquarium 11 days ago, all healthy and eating. They had been in quarantine in an existing tank at my LFS for 6 weeks (no new fish added) was one of their display tanks and not using UV. I am setting up a new tank and I didn't have a quarantine tank large enough for the 5 new fish and as such trusted my LFS.

Two days ago I added a couple of trays of CaribSea mud with a sand topping to the huge.

Yesterday morning, I noticed white spots on my hippo tang and a few spots on my sail fin and also the yellow tang. They were still swimming around fine and eating like pigs. The remainder of the fish looked fine. I was going to get all the fish out today and use the tank transfer method and a fallow period on the tank. However, this morning everything looks fine, no spots and fish as normal.

Is it possible it is something else? Can the fish just have a days virus? Could the addition of the trays of mud irritate the fish? I find it hard to believe that Ich would have all encrusted and fallen off in just one day. I use a large UV steriliser on the tank, and feed fresh food, spinach clips, and pellets daily.
 

Crabs McJones

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I'm not 100% positive, but the ich/velvet latch onto the fish, and then drop off into the "free floating" stage where they reproduce. I wouldn't be surprised if in a day or so your fish are covered again. Lets ask @HotRocks @4FordFamily how close I am to right just to be sure lol
 

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Might of just been particles of sand that you just added on the fish.
 
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Joe Batt

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I'm not 100% positive, but the ich/velvet latch onto the fish, and then drop off into the "free floating" stage where they reproduce. I wouldn't be surprised if in a day or so your fish are covered again. Lets ask @HotRocks @4FordFamily how close I am to right just to be sure lol
Yes that was my understanding as well, but thought it would take much longer. I have re-examined the fish and there are still some white spots so I have them in a quarantine tank now and doing the 12 day TTM. Fortunately the display tank is new so no corals it it yet so its less frustrating to do the 72 day fallow period. Will add the fish to the 350 when the 12 days is up until the fallow period is done...
 

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Yes that was my understanding as well, but thought it would take much longer. I have re-examined the fish and there are still some white spots so I have them in a quarantine tank now and doing the 12 day TTM. Fortunately the display tank is new so no corals it it yet so its less frustrating to do the 72 day fallow period. Will add the fish to the 350 when the 12 days is up until the fallow period is done...
Awesome! yeah lucky on the no corals, im struggling a little bit, and my fallow period is up in three weeks, but a couple corals look deeply upset with the lack of fish in the system.
 

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Awesome! yeah lucky on the no corals, im struggling a little bit, and my fallow period is up in three weeks, but a couple corals look deeply upset with the lack of fish in the system.

Are you dosing Nitrates at all? This stuff looks like it would work pretty well:
5e09656bb77cb5b164a666e718ce2e48.jpg
 

ngoodermuth

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Yes that was my understanding as well, but thought it would take much longer. I have re-examined the fish and there are still some white spots so I have them in a quarantine tank now and doing the 12 day TTM. Fortunately the display tank is new so no corals it it yet so its less frustrating to do the 72 day fallow period. Will add the fish to the 350 when the 12 days is up until the fallow period is done...

This thread has a full run-down of the ich life-cycle. Just remember the “spots” aren’t the actual parasites... just excess mucous at the insertion sites. So, spots going away doesn’t necessarily mean that the parasites have even dropped off... just the mucous has dissipated.

Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans)
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sh...-(Cryptocaryon-irritans).191226/&share_type=t
 

Crabs McJones

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Are you dosing Nitrates at all? This stuff looks like it would work pretty well:
5e09656bb77cb5b164a666e718ce2e48.jpg
I tried it, and they actually got more upset, I lost my walt disney and a birdsnest colony is about gone :( I stopped dosing and everything else actually got better.
 

ngoodermuth

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I tried it, and they actually got more upset, I lost my walt disney and a birdsnest colony is about gone :( I stopped dosing and everything else actually got better.

Oh weird, I guess no substitute for the real stuff :( I dosed when I was fallow, but not regularly. I might have added a capful every couple of weeks... mostly just fed phytoplankton and oyster feast for the corals every few days and sprinkled some pellets for the crabs daily.
 

4FordFamily

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I'm not 100% positive, but the ich/velvet latch onto the fish, and then drop off into the "free floating" stage where they reproduce. I wouldn't be surprised if in a day or so your fish are covered again. Lets ask @HotRocks @4FordFamily how close I am to right just to be sure lol
This exactly. Velvets life cycle is very short. 1-3 days from now they’ll be covered even worse. It grows almost exponentially. You’ll want to treat it with copper or CP ASAP.
 
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Joe Batt

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093E9871-AC35-41DA-9D9A-B28BAB006C29.jpeg


It’s difficult to get a picture now the fish are in the quarantine tank (well a 55 litre storage box) The hippo was the worst of the fish, with a good scattering of white spots, but not thousands. The Yellow and the Sailfin had much less.

My water transfers are going to be a bit irregular over the 12 days since I work away, but will never be greater than 72 hrs apart.

Today all still seems well with the fish still happily eating and active. There appears to be less spots but its not easy to tell in the box since the light isn’t great.

Will keep you updated.
This exactly. Velvets life cycle is very short. 1-3 days from now they’ll be covered even worse. It grows almost exponentially. You’ll want to treat it with copper or CP ASAP.

You may want to post some photos. If it's ich, the TTM method will work, but for velvet you would need to use copper.
 

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093E9871-AC35-41DA-9D9A-B28BAB006C29.jpeg


It’s difficult to get a picture now the fish are in the quarantine tank (well a 55 litre storage box) The hippo was the worst of the fish, with a good scattering of white spots, but not thousands. The Yellow and the Sailfin had much less.

My water transfers are going to be a bit irregular over the 12 days since I work away, but will never be greater than 72 hrs apart.

Today all still seems well with the fish still happily eating and active. There appears to be less spots but its not easy to tell in the box since the light isn’t great.

Will keep you updated.
You should really split those guys up in some separate tanks, you're going to have ammonia build up really, really fast with a small water volume like that. If you're dealing with velvet then the ttm treatment won't help. Take a look at this link, you should consider using copper or chloroquine phosphate for treatment. You also need to be using biospira and have an ammonia alert badge if you aren't already, ammonia can kill just as quickly as velvet


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/treatment-options-index.247573/

Also, don't use cp on the hippo, they don't do well with it

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-and-treatment-guidelines-with-chart.283450/
 
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bluprntguy

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You should really split those guys up in some separate tanks, you're going to have ammonia build up really, really fast with a small water volume like that. If you're dealing with velvet then the ttm treatment won't help. Take a look at this link, you should consider using copper or chloroquine phosphate for treatment. You also need to be using biospira and have an ammonia alert badge if you aren't already, ammonia can kill just as quickly as velvet

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/treatment-options-index.247573/

Agree with this. That container is about 15 gallons and that’s a ton of fish for that volume of water.

You’ll need to vacuum poop up continuously before it breaks down.
 

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