Velvet 90% tank crash - QT help

[Schlagel Bagel]

Long story short I had 2 clowns, tasha goby and pistol shrimp, emerald crab, added an un QT'd Royal Gramma. So no signs of issues but just died randomly 3 weeks in. 2 days later noticed white ich like spots on smaller clown, dead the next morning. Few days later after a hyrdogen bath the larger clown pasted.
Made the classic mistake of having a time bomb on QT'ing and got unlucky. Velvet is what I discoverd was the issue.

So on to the fix. Working on getting the QT up in a few days. I still have the Tasha Goby and pistol shrimp and emerald crab in my Display, along with various corals.
I plan to do the 6 week no fish display to kill the velvet.

Now my Goby has been doing just fine but plan to pull him out and QT for those 6 weeks. I can look up what I need to treat to make sure if he has or had velvet it is eliminated. Guessing the shrimp is helping him not contract the disease.

MAIN QUESTION: since the goby likes to burrow, and will be in a QT style tank for a long time. should I add a little substrate or will he be fine with a couple small PVC pipes.

Finally, Can I leave the pistol shrimp and emerald crab in the display and still ensure velvet is eliminated after that 6 week period. Thank you

Learned the hard way cause I was lazy

 

[Uncle99]

Long story short I had 2 clowns, tasha goby and pistol shrimp, emerald crab, added an un QT'd Royal Gramma. So no signs of issues but just died randomly 3 weeks in. 2 days later noticed white ich like spots on smaller clown, dead the next morning. Few days later after a hyrdogen bath the larger clown pasted.
Made the classic mistake of having a time bomb on QT'ing and got unlucky. Velvet is what I discoverd was the issue.

So on to the fix. Working on getting the QT up in a few days. I still have the Tasha Goby and pistol shrimp and emerald crab in my Display, along with various corals.
I plan to do the 6 week no fish display to kill the velvet.

Now my Goby has been doing just fine but plan to pull him out and QT for those 6 weeks. I can look up what I need to treat to make sure if he has or had velvet it is eliminated. Guessing the shrimp is helping him not contract the disease.

MAIN QUESTION: since the goby likes to burrow, and will be in a QT style tank for a long time. should I add a little substrate or will he be fine with a couple small PVC pipes.

Finally, Can I leave the pistol shrimp and emerald crab in the display and still ensure velvet is eliminated after that 6 week period. Thank you

Learned the hard way cause I was lazy

You can leave inverts in the DT during fallow, velvet can attach to corals and inverts but, cannot feed. They will fall off during the fallow period and seek a fish host, if none found will die. They must have a fish host. I went 10 weeks fallow, but maybe that’s overkill.

I would provide a dish of substrate in hoped that he feels more at home and less stress, always helpful.

Ruby Rally Pro can offer some short term relief as the infection, is a fast killer in contrast to ick, maybe 24-48hrs.

Depending on your state or country, a copper based product is all you may find for treatment.

Good luck.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Quick response here from me: the minimum is 45 days at 81F for the fallow (fishless) period (longer is safer, with 60-76 days typically being the recommendation).

You use copper medication to treat velvet (chelated copper meds like Coppersafe or Copper Power are recommended - the Hanna copper checker is typically recommended to monitor the copper levels; if you use Coppersafe or Copper Power, you'd want to get the dose up to 2.25-2.5ppm in 12 hours).

If you want to add some non-calcium carbonate based sand (i.e. if you want to add silica sand like the play sand you can buy at the local hardware store), then that's fine. It's not necessary, but it may help the fish feel less stressed.

Yes, the shrimp and crab can stay in the display and the velvet will still be eliminated - to be brief marine velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum) is a parasite with three life stages: a trophont stage (the adult stage that feeds on live fish), a tomont stage (basically the "egg"/reproductive stage), and a dinospore stage (the juvenile stage that swims around looking for a live fish to eat).

While inverts like shrimp and crabs can carry around the non-feeding tomonts, the dinospores and trophonts need fish to land on and eat in order to survive. So, if your aquarium only has inverts in it, the marine velvet parasites in the aquarium will die off, and your aquarium will be marine velvet-free.

 

[LPS Bum]

Sorry to hear that. We’ve all been there.

You can leave the inverts in the system during your fallow period.

I don’t see any issue adding a small dish of sand to the QT. IME I haven’t seen a small dish of sand absorb much, if any, of the copper meds. Live rock is a different story though, and can’t go into the QT. Nor any filter media that absorbs copper.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Add tupperware like bowl of aquarium sand and for the goby, I recommend coppersafe or copper power at therapuetic level 2.0 with added aeration. For display, leave it fishless (fallow) for 6-8 weeks at 80.5 degrees to assure the cells (assuming this is velvet ) to die off
How did you conclude velvet? (any pics under white light intensity you can furnish ?)

 

[Schlagel Bagel]

Add tupperware like bowl of aquarium sand and for the goby, I recommend coppersafe or copper power at therapuetic level 2.0 with added aeration. For display, leave it fishless (fallow) for 6-8 weeks at 80.5 degrees to assure the cells (assuming this is velvet ) to die off
How did you conclude velvet? (any pics under white light intensity you can furnish ?)

I do not have any pics unfortunatly but it basically over two days for the one clown went, day 1 noticed white spots like ich, especially under blue light but still noticable under white, as well as color loss some. Only saw it on him. The female clown then started developing it right after, that night after work it was pretty bad so I did the hydro bath/ dip. That made the mucus coat look terrible and a lot came off. But the next day it was back. Fins disintegrated and a 2-3 days went by from the time I did the dip and it was gone.

Goby still looks great fins are all good but hides the entire day except feeding time it pokes its head out. So that will be fun to catch once I get the QT setup.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I do not have any pics unfortunatly but it basically over two days for the one clown went, day 1 noticed white spots like ich, especially under blue light but still noticable under white, as well as color loss some. Only saw it on him. The female clown then started developing it right after, that night after work it was pretty bad so I did the hydro bath/ dip. That made the mucus coat look terrible and a lot came off. But the next day it was back. Fins disintegrated and a 2-3 days went by from the time I did the dip and it was gone.

Goby still looks great fins are all good but hides the entire day except feeding time it pokes its head out. So that will be fun to catch once I get the QT setup.

That doesn’t sound like velvet - with that disease, the primary symptom is not eating and very rapid breathing, soon followed by death. You will not see spots with velvet.
This sounds more like ich, and I’ve seen some cases where gobies survived an ich outbreak.
Peroxide dips don’t work for ich, and while they do work for velvet, you need to move the fish to a sterile tank after each dip or they just get reinfected.
Jay

 

[Schlagel Bagel]

That doesn’t sound like velvet - with that disease, the primary symptom is not eating and very rapid breathing, soon followed by death. You will not see spots with velvet.
This sounds more like ich, and I’ve seen some cases where gobies survived an ich outbreak.
Peroxide dips don’t work for ich, and while they do work for velvet, you need to move the fish to a sterile tank after each dip or they just get reinfected.
Jay

Perhaps it was Brook, as the photos I look at for the it closer resembles what the clowns had, and definitely did not have the “spots” ich would have.
I had some fresh water bettas that got ich and was able to have time to medicate and heal them. This I had no time.

Just interesting because I am certain this royal gramma had brought in the disease as all the other tank mates where in the tank for 3-4 months with no issues

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Perhaps it was Brook, as the photos I look at for the it closer resembles what the clowns had, and definitely did not have the “spots” ich would have.
I had some fresh water bettas that got ich and was able to have time to medicate and heal them. This I had no time.

Just interesting because I am certain this royal gramma had brought in the disease as all the other tank mates where in the tank for 3-4 months with no issues

Brooklynella causes more like sheets of mucus. I have seen some cases where the mucus was more spotted and looked more like it. Both clowns and gramma are very prone to Brook. With clowns that have Brook, they swim like they are “stiff”.

Jay

 

[Schlagel Bagel]

Mr. Yasha Goby has been retrieved and placed into a QT tank. I am going to follow the two weeks of Copper Power and nitrofurazone from some BRS videos I watched and then just leave him in the QT tank until mid Feb. in hopes whatever it was in the tank is eliminated.

This guy has never shown any signs of ich, velvet, etc. and was in the tank longer than the royal gramma. So hopefully he makes it through everything. If not I at least have a QT setup moving forward.

 

[Schlagel Bagel]

after adding the copper and nitrofurazone last night this morning the goby died. I definitly under powered the copper usage but guessing I still did something wrong as he was fine for 2 days (eating etc) in the QT while waiting for the copper power to arrive in the mail, and was fine in the main display when everything else died.

So idk beginner reefing is much harder than I thought. So many unknowns

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

after adding the copper and nitrofurazone last night this morning the goby died. I definitly under powered the copper usage but guessing I still did something wrong as he was fine for 2 days (eating etc) in the QT while waiting for the copper power to arrive in the mail, and was fine in the main display when everything else died.

So idk beginner reefing is much harder than I thought. So many unknowns

Sorry for your losses.

This sort of thing is why I personally suggest either carefully following Jay's current QT protocols (linked below) or buying pre-quarantined fish (like those offered by Dr. Reef) - preferably with pre-quarantined inverts and corals too. Some people are able to go without QT just fine with excellent care, feeding, and tank setup, but even in many of those cases they're always just one stressful event away from a potential, disease-related disaster.

Current Quarantine Protocol

2023 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed quarantine process can effectively eliminate these parasites before...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Schlagel Bagel]

Well with a few more weeks left to go with a fallow tank, I added a fire shrimp because of how boring the tank has been. But I have waited this long so mine as well do it right.

I have QT setup and plan to treat with copper for at least 2 weeks. So my plan is to get one fish and see how it goes, then a pair of clowns and leave it with that livestock for a time.

Now I just need to decide what to start with, the pistol shrimp is still going but when I had him and the yasha goby they would never come out, any other gobies that are a little less shy for a 20gal? I am thinking with starting with that. Or what catches my eye that will work with a pair of clowns.

Thanks!