Outbreak: marine velvet or something else?

[AVamosi]

Unfortunately I lost my favorite fish to velvet today. My partner is under the assumption that Aquarium Pharmaceutical Melafix and feeding them Seachem Metroplex and Focus is the cure. They were both recommended by our LFS. We were told it was “too late” to QT and treat with copper. We have invertes and coral too. So they basically have a, “don’t even bother,” kind of attitude...

What are your thoughts? Does this look like velvet??? The Powder Brown looked the worse, the others are still eating but not too interested in coming out much (light sensitive).
The team: two gladiator clowns, two mandarins (very fat from all our pods), pajama cardinal, stary goby, Tomini tang, blue hippo tang, engineer goby (MIA for one week), two bubble tip anemones and a few crabs, snails and coral. Six months into the hobby now and feeling super defeated by this and just emotionally crushed.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Were/are any fish continually swimming into a powerhead? Also, the statement that it’s ‘too late to use Copper— but use this instead’ strikes me odd. I can only think they are implying your fish won’t live long enough for a 3-4 day Copper ramp-up... but if the situation is that desperate, you wouldn’t waste time with a slow ramp-up anyway. You’d probably put them right into 1/2 therapeutic level today, and raise to full therapeutic level tomorrow, if it were really an acute Velvet outbreak. Those are my thoughts, anyway.

 

[Hydrored]

Do you have a quarantine tank? Hard to tell from the pic but if they have velvet like @JumboShrimp said you can ramp copper over 24 hours.

Time is of the essence with velvet

Edit: I see you are in Dallas, I have ruby reef rally, quarantine tanks, copper power, Hanna copper tester on hand if you need help. Who was this LFS so I ensure I never give them a dollar

 

[AVamosi]

Do you have a quarantine tank? Hard to tell from the pic but if they have velvet like @JumboShrimp said you can ramp copper over 24 hours.

Time is of the essence with velvet

Edit: I see you are in Dallas, I have ruby reef rally, quarantine tanks, copper power, Hanna copper tester on hand if you need help. Who was this LFS so I ensure I never give them a dollar

Dallas north Aquarium. Which I feel like they are reputable but now I’m doubting everything. All of our fish minus the original four came from them, and the other four came from Exotic Aquatic in Plano. Two Biota Mandarin came in the mail and have grown big and fat off our tens of PODS. Can velvet come in from coral? I have not found a definitive answer

Our tank gets serviced by them every two weeks. About six weeks ago the Powder Brown Tang was swimming against the wave maker over and over and he saw it, I commented that it was very cute of him to do this. I thought he was getting exercise and the service guy said, “fish do the funniest things LOL.” Now I’ve learned that it is a sign of velvet. At the time he was slightly hazey but not ich like, but lightly textured and he pointed out on at least two visits he was fine and his looked like that too. Two days after putting him in he got lightly textured but it went away. I’m wondering if the PBT brought in a disease and fought it for weeks but than he couldn’t fight it anymore? Either way I know for a fact for the past four weeks (two cleanings) he looked like he had water bubbles on him than he looked very crystal like and then it got bad. But I’m upset he saw this and said it was NORMAL!!

PBT was a voracious pig eater and greedy but the past three days he slowed down and stopped eating 24 hours before his death. I knew something was wrong probably Sunday when I noticed the nori was not being finished on the clip. Can fish live and fight velvet for over six weeks???

I don’t know what I’m facing but my partner is insisting on listening to DNA when ALL I read is too remove, dip and treat with copper. DNA says it will be too much stress and kill the others. But they are still eating but everyone is hiding in the shadows and I’ve turned the white lights off and the blue to 20% for the coral at least. Apparently everyone who works at DNA says they don’t QT there fish!! I’m wondering if it’s because they secretly QT and treat at the store but not at home. Either way it seems irresponsible and from now on we will QT. But to sit there and tell us to do nothing but use these medications seems like bad advice. I’ve read everything. The last new addition was a green clown goby 2/11 and he died after four days. Our royal gamma died suddenly 36 hours before PBT died and now the pajama cardinal is breathing heavily.

Sorry for the novel and rant but I want to save my tank but my partner keeps listening to DNA and I’m over them. They keep saying they’ll refund us the dead fish but it’s like YOURE NOT FIXING THE PROBLEM. I think the service guy will come out Tomorrow but honestly I have lost all faith in them.

 

[AVamosi]

Were/are any fish continually swimming into a powerhead? Also, the statement that it’s ‘too late to use Copper— but use this instead’ strikes me odd. I can only think they are implying your fish won’t live long enough for a 3-4 day Copper ramp-up... but if the situation is that desperate, you wouldn’t waste time with a slow ramp-up anyway. You’d probably put them right into 1/2 therapeutic level today, and raise to full therapeutic level tomorrow, if it were really an acute Velvet outbreak. Those are my thoughts, anyway.

Can velvet remain in a tank for weeks at a time and can fish live with it until they can’t anymore? The powder brown tang was swimming into the wave maker starting six weeks ago. Honestly the service guy saw it then but he said LOL fish do the funniest things.
The last fish added was about five weeks ago and the PBT was swimming into the wave maker at least a week or two before that. Whatever I have has been in the tank at least since the beginning of February.
I thought velvet was swift and deadly? Peramaters have been good. A few weeks ago nitrates were 50 and trace ammonia and nitrite. There was a three week long alkalinity spike over 12. But everything else is within stable tank ranges but it swings here and there but stays within range usually. We’ve added fish but they’ve all died and have had the original 11 plus the starry goby who has made it. QT any new fish now but have had no real guidance from our LFS who services our tank on how to get it stable and save everyone else.

 

[JumboShrimp]

From what I've picked up, it's true that certain types of healthy fish-- especially what one might consider a 'free ocean swimmer,' typically covering a lot of territory in nature-- will from time to swim in a powerhead for what we might call "exercise" or "fun." But when a fish does that AND you're looking at it, asking yourself, 'Hey, does that look like a dusting of Velvet?,' then you most definitely have a problem. Velvet will most likely wipe out an entire tank. ;Dead I can see maybe a first fish lasting 6 weeks like yours may have, but the deaths could pick up speed from there.

 

[vetteguy53081]

This is highly likely not anything pathogenic (i.e. caused by a biological agent), but a reaction to something too much (or possibly too little) in the water here. If it were my fish, and I had another established system, I'd move it there. If I didn't, I'd look into water quality such as we have tests for ammonia, nitrate, salinity, ph and nitrites.
Are you using RODI water or ta water from the faucet?
What test kits are you using ?

 

[JumboShrimp]

I certainly agree that nothing about that PBT photo screams "Marine Velvet."

 

[Hydrored]

Send me a pm if you want and I can get you in touch with a couple different people to take care of your tank. I have personally treated multiple fish that I have purchased from there as well as two other local reefers. Personally I think DNA is a bunch of uneducated people slinging fish, and their tanks show it.


nothing is perfect, I have treated all of my fish or have purchased from a highly regarded source of pre treated fish and some how still ended up with flukes.

I agree nothing screams marine velvet

I would still treat them but it’s a pain in the butt since you’ve had all those deaths

@Jay Hemdal

 

[AVamosi]

This is highly likely not anything pathogenic (i.e. caused by a biological agent), but a reaction to something too much (or possibly too little) in the water here. If it were my fish, and I had another established system, I'd move it there. If I didn't, I'd look into water quality such as we have tests for ammonia, nitrate, salinity, ph and nitrites.
Are you using RODI water or ta water from the faucet?
What test kits are you using ?

We use water from the aquarium service. And test it every two weeks at least. Today the service came and everything was perfect. The LFS suggested contamination of frozen food we buy but that seems weird because we’ve been using the same cubes forever, like the various brands they sell. Apparently some of our euphellia had parasites so they thought. No “real answers.” It’s just weird the powder brown tang got the worst of it but everyone else seems pretty normal so far.
thoughts?

 

[AVamosi]

From what I've picked up, it's true that certain types of healthy fish-- especially what one might consider a 'free ocean swimmer,' typically covering a lot of territory in nature-- will from time to swim in a powerhead for what we might call "exercise" or "fun." But when a fish does that AND you're looking at it, asking yourself, 'Hey, does that look like a dusting of Velvet?,' then you most definitely have a problem. Velvet will most likely wipe out an entire tank. ;Dead I can see maybe a first fish lasting 6 weeks like yours may have, but the deaths could pick up speed from there.

But does the picture look like velvet or some other disease or parasite infection and why does he look so bad compared to the others?

 

[DaddyFish]

The PBrT in the picture does not look like Marine Velvet.
I'm treating a PBrT right now that has had flukes for several weeks. Tank-wide treatments with Prazipro hasn't eradicated them. So I've dropped back to Formalin dip(s) and so far that appears to be doing the trick. I share this with you because we probably bought our PBrT's around the same time, and it's been my experience that many of these fish originate from the same sources. Your PBrT and my PBrT may very well have the same strain of flukes resistant to Prazipro.

 

[vetteguy53081]

We use water from the aquarium service. And test it every two weeks at least. Today the service came and everything was perfect. The LFS suggested contamination of frozen food we buy but that seems weird because we’ve been using the same cubes forever, like the various brands they sell. Apparently some of our euphellia had parasites so they thought. No “real answers.” It’s just weird the powder brown tang got the worst of it but everyone else seems pretty normal so far.
thoughts?

What type of test or method did they use ? I sense false readings from testing. Powder brown and blue seem more susceptible to parasites

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Can velvet remain in a tank for weeks at a time and can fish live with it until they can’t anymore? The powder brown tang was swimming into the wave maker starting six weeks ago. Honestly the service guy saw it then but he said LOL fish do the funniest things.
The last fish added was about five weeks ago and the PBT was swimming into the wave maker at least a week or two before that. Whatever I have has been in the tank at least since the beginning of February.
I thought velvet was swift and deadly? Peramaters have been good. A few weeks ago nitrates were 50 and trace ammonia and nitrite. There was a three week long alkalinity spike over 12. But everything else is within stable tank ranges but it swings here and there but stays within range usually. We’ve added fish but they’ve all died and have had the original 11 plus the starry goby who has made it. QT any new fish now but have had no real guidance from our LFS who services our tank on how to get it stable and save everyone else.

Just off the cuff, velvet is much faster than that, have you thought about gill flukes?
Jay