Is this ich or velvet?

reefz

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I just recently bought a beautiful purple tang. Ive placed him into my 60g copper tank for qt procedure. About 24 hours later, he was covered head to toe in white spots, almost like salt. I’m familiar with ich, but not 100% sure if this is ich or velvet. He’s still alive, and had the spots for almost 6 days. All of the fish at my lfs i got the tang from now has these white spots just like mine. They told me it’s ich, but i’m not too sure. What do you experts say?

01ADCA01-B20E-4F43-8136-43B2761A01AE.jpeg
 

Jay Hemdal

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Has it had this same number of spots for six days? What copper level is it at and what are you testing with?

With ich,the spots come and go at first, but then increase in number until the fish eventually dies.

The primary symptom of velvet is rapid breathing followed closely by death. Only in the final stages will you see dusting on the skin.

Jay
 

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Velvet. Most common treatment: Do a FW bath for some temporary relief, then treat with copper. That guy might be too far gone though.
 
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reefz

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Has it had this same number of spots for six days? What copper level is it at and what are you testing with?

With ich,the spots come and go at first, but then increase in number until the fish eventually dies.

The primary symptom of velvet is rapid breathing followed closely by death. Only in the final stages will you see dusting on the skin.

Jay
Yes some spots have fallen off. But it basically is the same. The fish isn’t rapid breathing. Its pretty lethargic
 
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reefz

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Velvet. Most common treatment: Do a FW bath for some temporary relief, then treat with copper. That guy might be too far gone though.
Ive done fw baths, and he’s in copper currently. I don’t understand how he got more of it even in copper
 

Jay Hemdal

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Yes some spots have fallen off. But it basically is the same. The fish isn’t rapid breathing. Its pretty lethargic
That what I’m trying to drill down to - what copper are you using and what level?
This isn’t velvet.
Jay
 
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reefz

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That what I’m trying to drill down to - what copper are you using and what level?
This isn’t velvet.
Jay
It’s between 2.5 - 2.6 ppm. Anything under doesn’t work with copper power. So are you saying this is ich?
 

Jay Hemdal

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It’s between 2.5 - 2.6 ppm. Anything under doesn’t work with copper power. So are you saying this is ich?
It is either ich or it is a really bad case of idiopathic mucus plugs. These show up on purple tangs pretty often, especially when treating with copper. However, the fish would still be feeding if that’s what they are.

I have to say, as unlikely as it seems given the copper treatment, this looks like ich.

Velvet will always cause rapid breathing and death within 72 hours, so that isn’t it.

Jay
 

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What are your parameters? In my experience, some medications didn’t have that big of an effect on the diseases under poor water parameters.
 
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reefz

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What are your parameters? In my experience, some medications didn’t have that big of an effect on the diseases under poor water parameters.
like I said, all the other fish at the lfs i got this from has these spots, like mine. So peramiters are not the issue here obviously. The qt tank it’s in has had dozens of fish pass through it with no issues. Do you know what parasite this might be?
 

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This isn’t velvet.
Jay
The photo is pretty much a textbook image of velvet so I'm curious, how are you ruling out velvet exactly? A lack of heavy breathing? The OP states they did a FW bath. According to Dr. Floyd at Texas A&M FW baths are effective against Amyloodinium because the FW can diffuse into the trophonts in gill tissues due to the thin nature/gas exchange functionality and kill them, thus providing respiratory relief (FW baths do nothing for the trophonts on the rest of the body because they are more protected by thicker tissue and mucus). Therefore, a lack of heavy breathing or not being dead yet in this case shouldn't rule out velvet.
 

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Regardless if it's ich or velvet, copper is a proven treatment that works against both. Just need to make sure you have an accurate test kit like a Hanna tester (the API ones are garbage) to ensure you remain at a therapeutic level.
 

Jay Hemdal

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The photo is pretty much a textbook image of velvet so I'm curious, how are you ruling out velvet exactly? A lack of heavy breathing? The OP states they did a FW bath. According to Dr. Floyd at Texas A&M FW baths are effective against Amyloodinium because the FW can diffuse into the trophonts in gill tissues due to the thin nature/gas exchange functionality and kill them, thus providing respiratory relief (FW baths do nothing for the trophonts on the rest of the body because they are more protected by thicker tissue and mucus). Therefore, a lack of heavy breathing or not being dead yet in this case shouldn't rule out velvet.
It’s simply not velvet. The spots are way too large and Amyloodinium is primarily a gill disease, you won’t see it without rapid breathing. Late stage velvet will show glassy eyes and a light dusting on the skin, but until then, respiration greater than 180 BPM is diagnostic.

There are a bunch of pictures here that all misdiagnose velvet - I need to take them down, too confusing for people.

Jay
 

DaddyFish

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like I said, all the other fish at the lfs i got this from has these spots, like mine. So peramiters are not the issue here obviously. The qt tank it’s in has had dozens of fish pass through it with no issues. Do you know what parasite this might be?
Do you mean all the fish at the LFS have these spots??? Known before you purchased the fish or after?

Is the picture Before the fw dip or After?
 

Reeffraff

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It’s simply not velvet. The spots are way too large and Amyloodinium is primarily a gill disease, you won’t see it without rapid breathing. Late stage velvet will show glassy eyes and a light dusting on the skin, but until then, respiration greater than 180 BPM is diagnostic.

There are a bunch of pictures here that all misdiagnose velvet - I need to take them down, too confusing for people.

Jay

Agree to disagree I guess. To me the spots are way too small for Cryptocaryon irritans. Here's a pic of a severe ich infection. You can see the spots are much larger than the ones in the OP's picture.
powder-brown-tang-ich_474x300.jpg
 

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OP says spots present for 6-days now. No way Velvet would take that long to kill. It must be something else, although I agree the spots in the photo appear too small for typical Ich.
Any chance this is some type of water quality irritant and not a parasite at all?
 

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