Marine Velvet - Should I still be worried?

[Devin Lange]

So about a month ago we moved a butterflyfish into the display tank. Was acting fine but 24 hours after we put in the main tank it started getting white spots all over it's body. 12 hours later after keeping a super close eye of the fish it died and we removed it immediately. We took it to a LFS and turns out it had marine velvet. We have been putting the tank on copper for over 2 weeks now and all the fish look fine. No labored breathing, no white spots, no swimming issues, etc. We're going to keep treating the tank with copper for a month but I still don't know how worried we should be.

 

[Josh Kraft]

Copper in your display tank? Is it fish only? Or do you have/plan on ever having corals? Do you have any live rock in there? How did the LFS identify velvet?

 

[HotRocks]

What level are you treating at? What kind of copper are you using?

 

[Mjrenz]

Copper is very bad to use in your dt. Your live rock and sand will absorb it making it nearly impossible to maintain therapeutic levels and it will kill corals and inverts
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/copper-treatment.193343/
You should still be worried if your fish aren't in qt

 

[Devin Lange]

We are using cupramine and it's a fish only tank (no inverts). Didn't want to use it but it was pretty last resort. I was told that if I moved the fish it would only cause them stress because they were already exposed. They found out it was velvet after we brought the dead butterfly into the store and they put it under a microscope.