Massive velvet outbreak in a 220

HighChiefKC

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So I will start off by saying, I’ve been in and out of the hobby for 15 years, have never quarantined and never had any disease issues. But I’ve learned my lesson after I’ve lost over $1,000 worth of fish over the past few weeks.
So my tank has been going awesome since spring. Slowly added fish every couple of months. My last of my stocking list purchases was made in August. I got a Naso, kole, yellow, and powder brown tang gang. Things were amazing for several weeks. I also had 3 bimac anthias, a Foxface, 4 chromis, 2 clowns, male blue throat trigger, Melanarus wrasse, royal gramma, and a diamond goby/pistol shrimp.
My tang gang was doing great to start and they spent all day picking at the rocks. Then one day I came home and the naso was dead. No signs of anything, just looked super skinny all of a sudden. Then a bimac anthia just up and disappeared. Still no physical signs of anything that I could tell. Then the yellow stopped eating. Then I started to notice some white dots on his fins. And I found out about Velvet. The powder brown was covered in dots a few days later and he didn’t last very long. Then I found a bimac dead. I started to notice more fish getting velvet on them. Then I came home one day and the royal gramma who id Had from a previous tank was stuck to the side of an mp40. He showed no signs and was a healthy eater. I then ordered some RubyPro because it said you could treat in tank if no QT. I turned off skimmer and UV.
I came home today from being out of town this weekend and one clown was dead, the last tang is dead and stuck in some rocks being eaten by crabs and the last bimac has disappeared.
And the saddest thing to me personally is now the blue throat has it all over him. He was my favorite.
So as of writing this, all I have left is one clown, the Melanarus, the goby, and 4 chromis. One chromis is breathing heavy. The Foxface is hiding and the blue throat is heavily coated with it.
As easy as it is to say to setup a QT and get them out, how do I catch these fish in such a big tank with rock and some coral? I can’t even get to the dead fish to get it out, let alone one that can dart across tank.
So what are my options? Will they all die from it? I’ve read about going fallow, but what if they all don’t die?
thanks for any help. It’s been a really devastating month.
 

EmdeReef

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Sorry to hear that!
Can you try trapping the fish? With triggers that’s always a challenge but if you can get a fish trap maybe try that.
 

LovesDogs_CatsRokay

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I went through this recently too. Using a net and flash light after lights out seems to help if they aren’t hiding. The flash light will stun them for a second like a deer in headlights and give you a chance to scoop them out. We also used egg crate to section off the tank so they had less space to escape in.
 

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So I will start off by saying, I’ve been in and out of the hobby for 15 years, have never quarantined and never had any disease issues. But I’ve learned my lesson after I’ve lost over $1,000 worth of fish over the past few weeks.
So my tank has been going awesome since spring. Slowly added fish every couple of months. My last of my stocking list purchases was made in August. I got a Naso, kole, yellow, and powder brown tang gang. Things were amazing for several weeks. I also had 3 bimac anthias, a Foxface, 4 chromis, 2 clowns, male blue throat trigger, Melanarus wrasse, royal gramma, and a diamond goby/pistol shrimp.
My tang gang was doing great to start and they spent all day picking at the rocks. Then one day I came home and the naso was dead. No signs of anything, just looked super skinny all of a sudden. Then a bimac anthia just up and disappeared. Still no physical signs of anything that I could tell. Then the yellow stopped eating. Then I started to notice some white dots on his fins. And I found out about Velvet. The powder brown was covered in dots a few days later and he didn’t last very long. Then I found a bimac dead. I started to notice more fish getting velvet on them. Then I came home one day and the royal gramma who id Had from a previous tank was stuck to the side of an mp40. He showed no signs and was a healthy eater. I then ordered some RubyPro because it said you could treat in tank if no QT. I turned off skimmer and UV.
I came home today from being out of town this weekend and one clown was dead, the last tang is dead and stuck in some rocks being eaten by crabs and the last bimac has disappeared.
And the saddest thing to me personally is now the blue throat has it all over him. He was my favorite.
So as of writing this, all I have left is one clown, the Melanarus, the goby, and 4 chromis. One chromis is breathing heavy. The Foxface is hiding and the blue throat is heavily coated with it.
As easy as it is to say to setup a QT and get them out, how do I catch these fish in such a big tank with rock and some coral? I can’t even get to the dead fish to get it out, let alone one that can dart across tank.
So what are my options? Will they all die from it? I’ve read about going fallow, but what if they all don’t die?
thanks for any help. It’s been a really devastating month.
+ @Jay Hemdal
 

Jay Hemdal

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Sorry to hear about this. The general rule is that once fish loss has begun, it is very difficult to stop the progression of protozoan diseases. Without pictures it is difficult to say, but many cases of what people think are velvet (Amyloodinium) and actually advanced cases of ich (Cryptocaryon). In fact, a cursory view of some of the sample "velvet" pictures here show fish that probably have ich, not velvet. Sometimes, you don't even see spots with velvet, and the fish all breath very rapidly and hang in the current. In most cases, a protozoan is a protozoan and you treat the same. However, with advanced velvet, the treatment is different.

The best course of action would be to catch all the remaining fish, give them a 150 ppm formalin dip with aeration for 45 minutes, then move them to a treatment tank and dose with copper. Without formalin, you might try a five minute freshwater dip instead, but it isn't as effective.

Jay
 
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HighChiefKC

HighChiefKC

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So let’s say I can get a hold of a qt tank. And by chance I could catch any fish still alive. Do I use water out of the tank and just treat it with medicine, or do I need to use fresh SW and cycle it first?
 

artieg1

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You've got to catch all the fish. Took me weeks, when I went through this 3 years ago. As a last resort, to catch two wrasses, I had to take all the water in my 180DT out (in several containers) until they were just flapping on the sand, then quickly refilled. But you should be able to use a fish trap for a trigger, they are aggressive about feeding.

I think it is fine to use tank water for your QT, as you will be quickly adding copper or CP to it. Fresh SW won't do anything special. Copper kills the parasite in its free swimming stage; it doesn't do much to embedded parasites on the fish. Your goal is to prevent re-infection; that is how the fish get cleaned. Of course, they've got to survive the initial bout, so consider Jay's protocol above for initial treatment. But for me, I found that once you get to this stage, there's not much you can do. Some will survive, and most won't. Plan for the next stage: fallow period and QT of fish.

Good luck! There's light at the end. No fish goes in my DT without spending the appropriate time period in therapeutic copper. No problems for 3 years, knock on wood.
 

Trembz

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Any corals? Would you consider treating the display?
Inverts can be removed for treatment. Its another direction to go but ...
 
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HighChiefKC

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All I have is a plate coral, torch, gonipora,
A monti and an acro frag.
Ive already dosed ruby pro. I have 5 shrimp and snails and crabs
 

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I also recently pulled all my fish. I knew there would be no simple way to catch them all with the rocks and coral in the tank. With the help of 2 other people we planned out what to do on my 167gal. In less then 15 minutes we removed the rock (sitting out of the tank exposed to air), caught the fish, put rock back into the tank (now wet). It was much less stressful then expected for everyone people, coral, and fish involved. The key is to really think through your process and steps to prep everything before doing it. Of course if you glued your rock you may not be able to do this. Also when I say rock back in the tank, I just mean wet and corals getting light and flow.. It took the next day to aquascape everything again. Lucky for me I acted fast enough that so far all of my Tangs are ok in QT.

 

Privateye

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Honestly if I were you (and I have been in similar situations) I would get a UV sterilizer if you can afford to now. Marine velvet isn't too tough to kill with one as long as you get a unit that is properly sized for it. The kill dose for Amyloodinium ocellatum is listed here:

https://pentairaes.com/uv-information

It's 105 mJ, or 105,000 microwatts if you find manufacturers using that unit of measure. It would be one way to avoid removing any of the fish, but it might take a couple of days for your fish to show improvement.
 

Mical

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My condolences, I went through this on a 60 gal long when I introduced a Harlequin Tusk, less than a week later everything was dead. Tried treatments mentioned above but the velvet was too far along. It was painful - I feel what you're going through.
 
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HighChiefKC

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Not the best pics, but it’s all I could get. Came home to a dead trigger. Last clown has it pretty bad. Bought a used 55 gal and stand off of a friend tonight
13AF294F-6F7D-4877-8312-47BCA77F8CB2.jpeg
273DD3AE-143F-470B-B691-E34677FAE4AD.jpeg
 

Jay Hemdal

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Hard to see, but if there is rapid breathing I would say it is velvet. Tough issue to deal with.
Jay
 

cshouston

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So sorry for your losses :( I had to evacuate my tank to treat ich. I drained water into buckets and bins, then pulled all the rock into those containers. Once the rock was out, I used a very large net that I used for monster freshwater fish and scooped everyone out and straight into quarantine tanks. Hopefully, you can save whomever is left, and just quarantine all new fish going forward.
 
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HighChiefKC

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Ironically the four fish that are fairing the best are the cheapest, the blue/green chromis. I shall name them the 4 horsemen.
diamond goby and Melanarus are still ok. Will try to catch as soon as I get qt going
 

Darrell Brady

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So I will start off by saying, I’ve been in and out of the hobby for 15 years, have never quarantined and never had any disease issues. But I’ve learned my lesson after I’ve lost over $1,000 worth of fish over the past few weeks.
So my tank has been going awesome since spring. Slowly added fish every couple of months. My last of my stocking list purchases was made in August. I got a Naso, kole, yellow, and powder brown tang gang. Things were amazing for several weeks. I also had 3 bimac anthias, a Foxface, 4 chromis, 2 clowns, male blue throat trigger, Melanarus wrasse, royal gramma, and a diamond goby/pistol shrimp.
My tang gang was doing great to start and they spent all day picking at the rocks. Then one day I came home and the naso was dead. No signs of anything, just looked super skinny all of a sudden. Then a bimac anthia just up and disappeared. Still no physical signs of anything that I could tell. Then the yellow stopped eating. Then I started to notice some white dots on his fins. And I found out about Velvet. The powder brown was covered in dots a few days later and he didn’t last very long. Then I found a bimac dead. I started to notice more fish getting velvet on them. Then I came home one day and the royal gramma who id Had from a previous tank was stuck to the side of an mp40. He showed no signs and was a healthy eater. I then ordered some RubyPro because it said you could treat in tank if no QT. I turned off skimmer and UV.
I came home today from being out of town this weekend and one clown was dead, the last tang is dead and stuck in some rocks being eaten by crabs and the last bimac has disappeared.
And the saddest thing to me personally is now the blue throat has it all over him. He was my favorite.
So as of writing this, all I have left is one clown, the Melanarus, the goby, and 4 chromis. One chromis is breathing heavy. The Foxface is hiding and the blue throat is heavily coated with it.
As easy as it is to say to setup a QT and get them out, how do I catch these fish in such a big tank with rock and some coral? I can’t even get to the dead fish to get it out, let alone one that can dart across tank.
So what are my options? Will they all die from it? I’ve read about going fallow, but what if they all don’t die?
thanks for any help. It’s been a really devastating month.
I feel your pain im going through the same thing. PS I tried the rubu reef it did nothing.
 

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