First post! Please be gentle.
I've been running my tank for several months now and it's doing fantastically, but I recently got some sort of parasite.
Although I have a green machine UV light installed, I still picked something up.
I've treated where I can without completely removing all fish and breaking down my tank (which my LFS recommended against doing). This has been going on for about three weeks now.
There has been SOME scraping from one or two fish. I lost my two longfin clowns at the beginning of the outbreak (no scraping with them, just sudden loss of energy and heavy breathing, then belly up) and my bi-color blenny has been MIA for about three days now so I imagine he became crab food (he was doing quite a bit of scraping) but otherwise there have been no deaths. I did remove my other two clowns and quarantine them at my LFS and medicated them, definitely did pull some sort of parasite out (gross little black spots on their skin for a good day then all clear!)
Everyone is extremely active, eating and picking, and I've only really seen my lemon wrasse doing continued flashing. I've installed another UV in the sump for absolute overkill.
The main question is this: I think I see what looks like velvet (yellow-ish film) on my pygmy angel, but I've seen no other symptoms of the disease for him. No scraping or flashing, no heavy breathing, he's eating and active and acting no differently than he normally does. From what I'm reading, if I can see the film already I'd also see a lot of other signs of velvet, wouldn't I? Heavy breathing and lethargy?
Am I being a paranoid fish parent? Should I continue to let my UV do the best I can? I have inverts in my tank, so dosing the whole tank is not an option (four BTAs and a shrimp that I'm quite fond of). I tried to get pictures but he won't sit still long enough/what pictures I did get don't show anything. I really only notice when shining a flashlight on him.
As far as water parems, I don't remember the exact numbers but they checked out fine when I ran the tests at my LFS earlier.
I've been running my tank for several months now and it's doing fantastically, but I recently got some sort of parasite.
Although I have a green machine UV light installed, I still picked something up.
I've treated where I can without completely removing all fish and breaking down my tank (which my LFS recommended against doing). This has been going on for about three weeks now.
There has been SOME scraping from one or two fish. I lost my two longfin clowns at the beginning of the outbreak (no scraping with them, just sudden loss of energy and heavy breathing, then belly up) and my bi-color blenny has been MIA for about three days now so I imagine he became crab food (he was doing quite a bit of scraping) but otherwise there have been no deaths. I did remove my other two clowns and quarantine them at my LFS and medicated them, definitely did pull some sort of parasite out (gross little black spots on their skin for a good day then all clear!)
Everyone is extremely active, eating and picking, and I've only really seen my lemon wrasse doing continued flashing. I've installed another UV in the sump for absolute overkill.
The main question is this: I think I see what looks like velvet (yellow-ish film) on my pygmy angel, but I've seen no other symptoms of the disease for him. No scraping or flashing, no heavy breathing, he's eating and active and acting no differently than he normally does. From what I'm reading, if I can see the film already I'd also see a lot of other signs of velvet, wouldn't I? Heavy breathing and lethargy?
Am I being a paranoid fish parent? Should I continue to let my UV do the best I can? I have inverts in my tank, so dosing the whole tank is not an option (four BTAs and a shrimp that I'm quite fond of). I tried to get pictures but he won't sit still long enough/what pictures I did get don't show anything. I really only notice when shining a flashlight on him.
As far as water parems, I don't remember the exact numbers but they checked out fine when I ran the tests at my LFS earlier.
