Velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum)

[JudyJudyJudy]

Just noticed some tiny dots on my firefish and pink streaked wrasse. Wrasse was the last in on Dec 30th. No prior quarantine. Tail spot blenny has no visual symptoms. None are showing behavioral symptoms of velvet, and I don’t have the eyesight to tell the difference. Going to move forward with velvet protocol (but don’t have reef rally for second bath.) On my way now to get supplies. So, couple questions at this point.
-What do I need to match before dropping fish in? SG & temp?
- How do you deal with evaporation in the hospital tank?
- Should I do the reef rally dip in a couple of days when I’m able to get it?

Thanks peoples!

 

[drawman]

Just noticed some tiny dots on my firefish and pink streaked wrasse. Wrasse was the last in on Dec 30th. No prior quarantine. Tail spot blenny has no visual symptoms. None are showing behavioral symptoms of velvet, and I don’t have the eyesight to tell the difference. Going to move forward with velvet protocol (but don’t have reef rally for second bath.) On my way now to get supplies. So, couple questions at this point.
-What do I need to match before dropping fish in? SG & temp?
- How do you deal with evaporation in the hospital tank?
- Should I do the reef rally dip in a couple of days when I’m able to get it?

Thanks peoples!

1. Yes to SG and temp although depending on how far apart SG is you may be fine just floating the bag.
2. Add RODI water back daily if possible. You could also use a lid on the tank to help minimize evaporation. This may sound paranoid but I would be mindful of any containers you use as you could potentially contaminate your RODI water vessel (I believe @Humblefish stated that velvet can live for an extended period of time in RODI water). I would let any containers thoroughly dry out after use.
3. What will you use to treat copper, CP, or TTM with H202? I guess I would gauge how the fish are responding if you are in the middle of treatment.

 

[JudyJudyJudy]

1. Yes to SG and temp although depending on how far apart SG is you may be fine just floating the bag.
2. Add RODI water back daily if possible. You could also use a lid on the tank to help minimize evaporation. This may sound paranoid but I would be mindful of any containers you use as you could potentially contaminate your RODI water vessel (I believe @Humblefish stated that velvet can live for an extended period of time in RODI water). I would let any containers thoroughly dry out after use.
3. What will you use to treat copper, CP, or TTM with H202? I guess I would gauge how the fish are responding if you are in the middle of treatment.

So - in an interesting twist, all the spots were gone by Monday AM. I went ahead and set up a qt/hospital tank Sunday night, but did not transfer fish. I’m also just starting a tank upgrade (Red Sea nano to IM SR80.) Since the new tank is going where the nano is, I’m going to put them in the qt during the cycle. Was going to use cupramin, but have been reading up on the H2O2 over at that other place and LOVE the idea of not semi-poisoning the fish if they are asymptomatic. Thanks for the reply!

 

[tastyfish]

So - in an interesting twist, all the spots were gone by Monday AM. I went ahead and set up a qt/hospital tank Sunday night, but did not transfer fish. I’m also just starting a tank upgrade (Red Sea nano to IM SR80.) Since the new tank is going where the nano is, I’m going to put them in the qt during the cycle. Was going to use cupramin, but have been reading up on the H2O2 over at that other place and LOVE the idea of not semi-poisoning the fish if they are asymptomatic. Thanks for the reply!

Ciliate parasites including Amyloodinium (velvet) and Cyrptocaryon (Whitespot) have a lifecycle where feeding stage parasites drop off of the fish, encyst and reproduce, emerging 2-3 days (but potentially up to 70 days later). It's more common to see this with whitespot as the cycle for velvet is much shorter. However mine keep covering themselves in the dang super fine sand that I had the great idea to use, so often freak me out...

Keep an eye on them

 

[AnneO]

Hello everyone!

This is my first post, I have been in the hobby for 2.5 years and have had my Red Sea Reefer 250 setup for a year. I am currently battling Marine Velvet – for the first time and with no recent additions to the tank - and thought I would share my experience and what I have learnt so far. It’s a long post but I hope it is of interest.

The first fish to show signs of a white powder dusting was my Coral Beauty angelfish ‘Sonic’. I saw it in the morning while the lights were coming on, it seemed to disappear when the lights ramped up, but I had previously done some research on fish diseases and knew I needed to act quickly. I set up my old 50 litre nano as a hospital tank and attempted to remove him from the tank for a good hour, but gave up as he was just too quick and my rock work has too many ins and outs.

Apparently my fish are also too clever / cautious for traps and I think I would never be able to remove my Yellow watchman goby ‘Angela Merkel’ who always stays in the cave with her shrimp ‘Macron, or “Shrimpy”’. Copper therefore was not an option for me.

I researched and found that Esha Oodinex is about the only medication that is supposed to be coral and invert safe, so I thought I would give it a go. I also considered making a Chloroquine phosphate + gelatine mix to soak the food in (to try and avoid getting too much into the water as this is kills corals and inverts), but gave up as I couldn’t source the compound here in Switzerland.

Using Oodinex, I followed the instructions and turned off my UV (category c = clears algae but I read it is not effective in killing off the free-swimming dinospores) because this can react with the medicine and make it poisonous. I also turned off the skimmer and removed my bag of activated carbon (no GFO or other absorbent media) as instructed. I dosed around midday and according to the size of my display tank, because I estimate that the gravel and live rock I have (on the higher end vs most displays I see) is roughly equal to the volume of the sump. This was 43 drops, then 20 for the subsequent 2 days.

After a few hours everyone was gasping so I added an airstone to the sump in the hope of raising oxygen levels. It didn’t really help so overnight I turned the skimmer back on. The next day, I only left the skimmer off for 3 hours after adding the medicine and then turned it back on for better oxygenation, but on a low level so it wasn’t actually producing skimmate.

Even so, my 2 Banggai cardinal fish ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and my sea urchin ‘Karl the Great’ succumbed overnight, so on day 3 I left the skimmer running normally. I noticed it was not producing regular foam and I set it so the cup (500ml) would fill with greenish water about once a day.

During this process, the Coral Beauty angelfish started looking better, it was still very pale but they eyes cleared up and the sugar dusting was slowly disappearing and so my intermediate conclusion is that Oodinex does work against marine velvet and it’s the lack of oxygen that causes so many people to lose a lot of livestock. I did not see any adverse effects on corals, anemones or tube worms apart from shrinking (bloating in the case of the elegance coral) for a few hours after the first day’s dose.

A day after I finished the 3 treatment days I noticed that ‘Lady’ my Royal Gramma who insists on excavating her cave all day was flashing a lot and breathing rapidly. Probably hoovering up those tomonts! The next day she had gotten so weak she was no longer staying in her cave but resting by a powerhead which allowed me to catch her and put her in a bowl which I set on a place where my floor is warm due to heating pipes running underneath (I had already taken down the hospital tank) I added a hiding place, a very small, thin slice of fresh garlic, an airstone and then I added 1 drop of Oodinex to the bowl (only 2 litres! In hindsight that was very risky but I didn’t think to draw it into a syringe with a tip that would dose a much smaller drop). To my surprise she survived the night and looked a lot better the next day, although she wouldn’t eat. I repeated the process with new water and another whole drop of Oodinex for 3 days and she was looking better every day. Over that time I did a 20% water change in the main tank another course of Oodinex in the tank and this time I lost 1 bisma worm – this was possibly due to the medication or due to ‘Sonic’ who tries to pick at them all the time and was obviously feeling better. Unfortunately 'Sonic' is the tank jerk so he constantly shimmies up to everyone to bully them (including ‘Winston’ the snail!) which obviously made me quite nervous.

I put ‘Lady’ back in the tank after 3 days because she was looking really healthy again, but hadn’t eaten in the bowl and was strong enough to threaten jumping out. I continued dosing the 20 drops of Oodinex in the tank daily (it says you can continue the treatment if you see no adverse effects) and left the skimmer on, but the UV has been off the entire time.

A week later and ‘Sonic’ is looking a lot better, fins back out and regrowing where they had frayed, colouration getting deeper and completely clear eyes, as is ‘Lady’ who is getting her colour back around the face and is now eating and excavating again… but yesterday ‘Rocky’ my Salarias lawnmower blenny started acting skittish and today I noticed my clownfish ‘Benson and Hedges’ looking unhappy and with a little bit of mucus on their fins and back that reminded me of a bacterial infection that I had once when I had pretty dirty water in the old nano tank. So far there are no visible velvet spots, it could be either. The only fish that appear completely unaffected throughout all of this are the mandarins ‘Janet Yellen and Joey from Friends’ even though ‘Sonic’ also tries to pester them by shimmying up whenever they inspect ‘his’ rock. They’re both very chilled and just ignore him.

I tested and sure enough phosphates were at 1ppm from a usual reading around 0.1ppm (from only a week earlier and despite another 15% water change since I last tested) although nitrates were still near zero. I then tested a quarter drop of Oodinex in tank water and this made the Phosphate reading shoot up to something that looked like 6ppm (my test kit only goes to 3ppm)

My intermediate conclusion: Oodinex is effective at killing dinospores of marine velvet, but it contains phosphate which will build up in the tank over the course of giving the medicine, especially since the skimmer is off. High phosphates always resulted in sickly fish for me when I was still on the nano. Up to now they were always very low on the 250.

My latest developments: Having read that higher temperatures quicken the lifecycle of Marine velvet, I am now trying to see if I can speed up the whole thing by raising the tank temperature to 28C, so that Oodinex can kill off the dinospores before phosphates become so high that the fish get ill from that. I just did a 25% water change to lower phosphates as my nitrates are still near-zero, meaning that NoPox won’t be effective. Given that the skimmer takes out some of the medicine I am now dosing 40 drops per day, 20 in the morning and 20 at night, the UV is staying off. Apart from the phosphate issue which I will manage with water changes I have seen no more adverse effects on corals or invertebrates and no other fish have perished since ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ which was now nearly 3 weeks ago. I plan to continue this regiment until either the fish get sick enough to catch (this time I will set up the hospital tank again) or until all the symptoms have disappeared (plus 15 days after). Then I plan to use lots of carbon, water changes and Easylife liquid filter medium to remove the built up medicine from the tank. Let’s hope everyone makes it that far!

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post. Questions or comments welcome!
Anne

 

[tastyfish]

Hello everyone!

This is my first post, I have been in the hobby for 2.5 years and have had my Red Sea Reefer 250 setup for a year. I am currently battling Marine Velvet – for the first time and with no recent additions to the tank - and thought I would share my experience and what I have learnt so far. It’s a long post but I hope it is of interest.

The first fish to show signs of a white powder dusting was my Coral Beauty angelfish ‘Sonic’. I saw it in the morning while the lights were coming on, it seemed to disappear when the lights ramped up, but I had previously done some research on fish diseases and knew I needed to act quickly. I set up my old 50 litre nano as a hospital tank and attempted to remove him from the tank for a good hour, but gave up as he was just too quick and my rock work has too many ins and outs.

Apparently my fish are also too clever / cautious for traps and I think I would never be able to remove my Yellow watchman goby ‘Angela Merkel’ who always stays in the cave with her shrimp ‘Macron, or “Shrimpy”’. Copper therefore was not an option for me.

I researched and found that Esha Oodinex is about the only medication that is supposed to be coral and invert safe, so I thought I would give it a go. I also considered making a Chloroquine phosphate + gelatine mix to soak the food in (to try and avoid getting too much into the water as this is kills corals and inverts), but gave up as I couldn’t source the compound here in Switzerland.

Using Oodinex, I followed the instructions and turned off my UV (category c = clears algae but I read it is not effective in killing off the free-swimming dinospores) because this can react with the medicine and make it poisonous. I also turned off the skimmer and removed my bag of activated carbon (no GFO or other absorbent media) as instructed. I dosed around midday and according to the size of my display tank, because I estimate that the gravel and live rock I have (on the higher end vs most displays I see) is roughly equal to the volume of the sump. This was 43 drops, then 20 for the subsequent 2 days.

After a few hours everyone was gasping so I added an airstone to the sump in the hope of raising oxygen levels. It didn’t really help so overnight I turned the skimmer back on. The next day, I only left the skimmer off for 3 hours after adding the medicine and then turned it back on for better oxygenation, but on a low level so it wasn’t actually producing skimmate.

Even so, my 2 Banggai cardinal fish ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and my sea urchin ‘Karl the Great’ succumbed overnight, so on day 3 I left the skimmer running normally. I noticed it was not producing regular foam and I set it so the cup (500ml) would fill with greenish water about once a day.

During this process, the Coral Beauty angelfish started looking better, it was still very pale but they eyes cleared up and the sugar dusting was slowly disappearing and so my intermediate conclusion is that Oodinex does work against marine velvet and it’s the lack of oxygen that causes so many people to lose a lot of livestock. I did not see any adverse effects on corals, anemones or tube worms apart from shrinking (bloating in the case of the elegance coral) for a few hours after the first day’s dose.

A day after I finished the 3 treatment days I noticed that ‘Lady’ my Royal Gramma who insists on excavating her cave all day was flashing a lot and breathing rapidly. Probably hoovering up those tomonts! The next day she had gotten so weak she was no longer staying in her cave but resting by a powerhead which allowed me to catch her and put her in a bowl which I set on a place where my floor is warm due to heating pipes running underneath (I had already taken down the hospital tank) I added a hiding place, a very small, thin slice of fresh garlic, an airstone and then I added 1 drop of Oodinex to the bowl (only 2 litres! In hindsight that was very risky but I didn’t think to draw it into a syringe with a tip that would dose a much smaller drop). To my surprise she survived the night and looked a lot better the next day, although she wouldn’t eat. I repeated the process with new water and another whole drop of Oodinex for 3 days and she was looking better every day. Over that time I did a 20% water change in the main tank another course of Oodinex in the tank and this time I lost 1 bisma worm – this was possibly due to the medication or due to ‘Sonic’ who tries to pick at them all the time and was obviously feeling better. Unfortunately 'Sonic' is the tank jerk so he constantly shimmies up to everyone to bully them (including ‘Winston’ the snail!) which obviously made me quite nervous.

I put ‘Lady’ back in the tank after 3 days because she was looking really healthy again, but hadn’t eaten in the bowl and was strong enough to threaten jumping out. I continued dosing the 20 drops of Oodinex in the tank daily (it says you can continue the treatment if you see no adverse effects) and left the skimmer on, but the UV has been off the entire time.

A week later and ‘Sonic’ is looking a lot better, fins back out and regrowing where they had frayed, colouration getting deeper and completely clear eyes, as is ‘Lady’ who is getting her colour back around the face and is now eating and excavating again… but yesterday ‘Rocky’ my Salarias lawnmower blenny started acting skittish and today I noticed my clownfish ‘Benson and Hedges’ looking unhappy and with a little bit of mucus on their fins and back that reminded me of a bacterial infection that I had once when I had pretty dirty water in the old nano tank. So far there are no visible velvet spots, it could be either. The only fish that appear completely unaffected throughout all of this are the mandarins ‘Janet Yellen and Joey from Friends’ even though ‘Sonic’ also tries to pester them by shimmying up whenever they inspect ‘his’ rock. They’re both very chilled and just ignore him.

I tested and sure enough phosphates were at 1ppm from a usual reading around 0.1ppm (from only a week earlier and despite another 15% water change since I last tested) although nitrates were still near zero. I then tested a quarter drop of Oodinex in tank water and this made the Phosphate reading shoot up to something that looked like 6ppm (my test kit only goes to 3ppm)

My intermediate conclusion: Oodinex is effective at killing dinospores of marine velvet, but it contains phosphate which will build up in the tank over the course of giving the medicine, especially since the skimmer is off. High phosphates always resulted in sickly fish for me when I was still on the nano. Up to now they were always very low on the 250.

My latest developments: Having read that higher temperatures quicken the lifecycle of Marine velvet, I am now trying to see if I can speed up the whole thing by raising the tank temperature to 28C, so that Oodinex can kill off the dinospores before phosphates become so high that the fish get ill from that. I just did a 25% water change to lower phosphates as my nitrates are still near-zero, meaning that NoPox won’t be effective. Given that the skimmer takes out some of the medicine I am now dosing 40 drops per day, 20 in the morning and 20 at night, the UV is staying off. Apart from the phosphate issue which I will manage with water changes I have seen no more adverse effects on corals or invertebrates and no other fish have perished since ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ which was now nearly 3 weeks ago. I plan to continue this regiment until either the fish get sick enough to catch (this time I will set up the hospital tank again) or until all the symptoms have disappeared (plus 15 days after). Then I plan to use lots of carbon, water changes and Easylife liquid filter medium to remove the built up medicine from the tank. Let’s hope everyone makes it that far!

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post. Questions or comments welcome!
Anne

Sorry to hear this. But to be clear, Oodinex does not contain any active ingredients that will kill ciliate parasites, despite manufacturer claims that it will treat almost anything. It contains malachite green and acriflavine in small amounts, plus some herbal "stuff". Whilst these are useful to treat bacterial or fungal infections and can help as part of a freshwater dip as part of treatment, (although H2o2 and formaldehyde are more effective), they do not affect the ciliate parasites on the fish. I've personally tested Oodinex against both Marine whitespot and Marine velvet and confirmed the science that it is ineffective.

Raising the temperature is also not advised. This is a practice carried over from freshwater treatment of Ichthyophythirus multifiliis (Ich) and does NOT work on marine parasites such as Cryptocaryon irritans (Marine whitespot, sometimes mistakenly called "ich"). It will however stress the fish and reduce immuno-response, so may make the situation worse.

I would strongly advise removing fish to a QT tank for effective treatment with Copper or Chloroquine (the latter is superior for ciliate treatment) and leave the tank fallow for 12 weeks.
This will ensure that all fish are free of the parasite and all tomonts in the tank have ruptured and the feeding stage theronts) have died without finding a host.

 

[AnneO]

Sorry to hear this. But to be clear, Oodinex does not contain any active ingredients that will kill ciliate parasites, despite manufacturer claims that it will treat almost anything. It contains malachite green and acriflavine in small amounts, plus some herbal "stuff". Whilst these are useful to treat bacterial or fungal infections and can help as part of a freshwater dip as part of treatment, (although H2o2 and formaldehyde are more effective), they do not affect the ciliate parasites on the fish. I've personally tested Oodinex against both Marine whitespot and Marine velvet and confirmed the science that it is ineffective.

Raising the temperature is also not advised. This is a practice carried over from freshwater treatment of Ichthyophythirus multifiliis (Ich) and does NOT work on marine parasites such as Cryptocaryon irritans (Marine whitespot, sometimes mistakenly called "ich"). It will however stress the fish and reduce immuno-response, so may make the situation worse.

I would strongly advise removing fish to a QT tank for effective treatment with Copper or Chloroquine (the latter is superior for ciliate treatment) and leave the tank fallow for 12 weeks.
This will ensure that all fish are free of the parasite and all tomonts in the tank have ruptured and the feeding stage theronts) have died without finding a host.

Thank you for your input. I struggle to reconcile the notion that Oodinex does nothing against the ciliates with the fact that I a seeing noticeable improvement on all of my fish. It would suggest that I misdiagnosed the illness, although I would consider it a textbook example of the symptoms I have seen and read about for Marine Velvet.

I have continued the treatment as laid out above and have seen further steady improvements in the Coral beauty and Royal Gramma. The salarias has also stopped flicking and the clownfish looks to be over the hill, hopefully, her eyes have cleared up. Everyone is eating well. I agree that the higher temperature isn't too popular, and I have added an airstone to the sump despite the skimmer now running constantly. Phosphate (or perhaps silicate levels, I realised my test could be showing either) remain way too high at 1ppm and SPS are starting to suffer, so I am going to do a 50% water change today, run carbon and phosphate absorbing media for the rest of the day and then start the third, hopefully final bottle of medicine in the evening.

I may yet have to stress them out by trying to catch them all but so far so good..

 

[tastyfish]

Thank you for your input. I struggle to reconcile the notion that Oodinex does nothing against the ciliates with the fact that I a seeing noticeable improvement on all of my fish. It would suggest that I misdiagnosed the illness, although I would consider it a textbook example of the symptoms I have seen and read about for Marine Velvet.

I have continued the treatment as laid out above and have seen further steady improvements in the Coral beauty and Royal Gramma. The salarias has also stopped flicking and the clownfish looks to be over the hill, hopefully, her eyes have cleared up. Everyone is eating well. I agree that the higher temperature isn't too popular, and I have added an airstone to the sump despite the skimmer now running constantly. Phosphate (or perhaps silicate levels, I realised my test could be showing either) remain way too high at 1ppm and SPS are starting to suffer, so I am going to do a 50% water change today, run carbon and phosphate absorbing media for the rest of the day and then start the third, hopefully final bottle of medicine in the evening.

I may yet have to stress them out by trying to catch them all but so far so good..

There's a number of possibilities, including the natural lifecycle of the parasite, fish immunity (doubtful if velvet), misidentification etc.

Can you post some pics and video in a dedicated thread under white and blue light, noting behaviours and timings between noticing symptoms on one fish and them subsiding or appearing on others?

The efficacy or otherwise of the active ingredients has been scientifically tested and documented. Unfortunately in reef tanks we "see" lots of anecdotal evidence, which clouds the facts.

The only likely impact would be from acriflavine, which I use in a freshwater dip to help reduce the number of parasites, but I doubt this is either in high enough concentrations or works without the osmotic pressure from the freshwater dip.

Either way, this is not a cure or an effective treatment. It's a procedure on the way to QT to improve outcome by reducing parasite population on the fish.

I wish you luck, but I'm afraid it's not an approach which is likely to succeed against ciliates. I'm sure more learned fish health experts such as @Humblefish, @melypr1985 and @HotRocks would be able to give you their view.

 

[shookONES]

Stupid question. Would there be any detriment to switching from RODI to aged tap water to maintain a QT tank?

 

[shookONES]

...a few quick follow up questions as I dive deeper into my research:

It’s my understanding that velvet feeds on its host for a maximum of 4 days. Why do we advocate for a full 30 days in copper at therapeutic levels, when in theory after 4 days it should be eradicated?

It’s also my understanding that velvet can free swim for 14 days while searching for a host. I understand the potential for photosynthesis, but where did the 6 week recommendation come from?

Pardon the questions. I made the rookie mistake of ignoring QT and am paying the price with my dream stock list crammed jntk a 29g QT tank while my display remains fallow. I just want to have a proper understanding of what I’m dealing with.

 

[SeaDweller]

...a few quick follow up questions as I dive deeper into my research:

It’s my understanding that velvet feeds on its host for a maximum of 4 days. Why do we advocate for a full 30 days in copper at therapeutic levels, when in theory after 4 days it should be eradicated?

It’s also my understanding that velvet can free swim for 14 days while searching for a host. I understand the potential for photosynthesis, but where did the 6 week recommendation come from?

Pardon the questions. I made the rookie mistake of ignoring QT and am paying the price with my dream stock list crammed jntk a 29g QT tank while my display remains fallow. I just want to have a proper understanding of what I’m dealing with.

the 4 days thing is my mind block too. Even in theory, if they can survive for 15 days, if treating them in say, copper, after the 4th day, all should be dead right? I have a Naso in copper now, and it's not eating that I see, but I'm doing prophylactic Copper potential velvet.

What sucks is that the DT has ich, but I'd rather not introduce something other than what's already in there.

 

[shookONES]

the 4 days thing is my mind block too. Even in theory, if they can survive for 15 days, if treating them in say, copper, after the 4th day, all should be dead right? I have a Naso in copper now, and it's not eating that I see, but I'm doing prophylactic Copper potential velvet.

What sucks is that the DT has ich, but I'd rather not introduce something other than what's already in there.

I’ve been doing a little independent research of my own and stumbled upon this article

http://agrilife.org/fisheries/files/2013/09/SRAC-Publication-No.-4705-Amyloodinium-ocellatum-an-Important-Parasite-of-Cultured-Marine-Fish.pdf

One major take away is that copper/CP kills velvet while it’s in the dinospore state. I’m sure the 30 day designation was made to be thorough, and I’m inclined to agree, but I bet 7-10 days would be ample in most cases.

And don’t fret about not eating. I have a Gem swimming in QT that hated life for the first 2-3 days. Then, out of nowhere, he started eating like nothing happened.

 

[SeaDweller]

I’ve been doing a little independent research of my own and stumbled upon this article

http://agrilife.org/fisheries/files/2013/09/SRAC-Publication-No.-4705-Amyloodinium-ocellatum-an-Important-Parasite-of-Cultured-Marine-Fish.pdf

One major take away is that copper/CP kills velvet while it’s in the dinospore state. I’m sure the 30 day designation was made to be thorough, and I’m inclined to agree, but I bet 7-10 days would be ample in most cases.

And don’t fret about not eating. I have a Gem swimming in QT that hated life for the first 2-3 days. Then, out of nowhere, he started eating like nothing happened.

Mines been in there for almost 2 weeks. I’m sure it’s be dead if it wasn’t eating something. Then again, it was an uncycled QT but I lost a convict tang in the process

 

[AnneO]

There's a number of possibilities, including the natural lifecycle of the parasite, fish immunity (doubtful if velvet), misidentification etc.

Can you post some pics and video in a dedicated thread under white and blue light, noting behaviours and timings between noticing symptoms on one fish and them subsiding or appearing on others?

The efficacy or otherwise of the active ingredients has been scientifically tested and documented. Unfortunately in reef tanks we "see" lots of anecdotal evidence, which clouds the facts.

The only likely impact would be from acriflavine, which I use in a freshwater dip to help reduce the number of parasites, but I doubt this is either in high enough concentrations or works without the osmotic pressure from the freshwater dip.

Either way, this is not a cure or an effective treatment. It's a procedure on the way to QT to improve outcome by reducing parasite population on the fish.

I wish you luck, but I'm afraid it's not an approach which is likely to succeed against ciliates. I'm sure more learned fish health experts such as @Humblefish, @melypr1985 and @HotRocks would be able to give you their view.I

Hi tastyfish,

Thanks for your reply, I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier or I could have posted a few photos. However, by now they are all back to rude health!

I continued the treatment as I laid out on my Feb 12 reply but I couldn't get the phosphates below 1ppm and started to see browning and some tissue damage on my SPS, so on the 15th I turned the temperature down by 1 degree and only did 20 drops rather than the 40 I had planned. The next day I did another 33% water change and decided that I would not do the extra 15 days of treatment I had planned, because I felt that the water quality was deteriorating rapidly, while the fish all seemed much better so I decided that an extra 15 days might just be overkill.

So since the 16th I have added no medication and everyone continued to improve. No more flashing, mucus, discolouration by anyone at this point. It was only clear to me after Sonic is now back to deep, smooth blue, how different he had looked. I posted a short video of him now (just looks like any other healthy coral beauty), but I also went online to see if I could find a match of what I observed, see end of post.

As a side effect of what I think is skimmer-impairment by the medicine I have had a cyano outbreak over the past week, but it now seems to be getting better. After the treatment I added a lot of GFO for 3 days which brought the phosphates down and also added a new batch of carbon to remove medication residue. Even so it has taken almost 2 weeks for the green colour to disappear from the skimmate. I turned the UV on again a week ago, that was maybe a bit risky given the skimmate water was still greenish but I didnt notice any adverse effects.

I guess the most likely conclusion based on my limited knowledge was that it simply wasn't marine velvet, but I will be using oodinex again this way if I do see these symptoms return in the distant future. If it comes back in the next month or so then maybe it was just temporary immunity and I may have to go back to the drawing board.

Thanks for your advice and taking the time to help me!

Anne


The short video is of Sonic today just so you can see how deep blue and smooth his forehead is. I hope it will work when i post it (23mb for 12secs..)

This is a different coral beauty but if you transplant that forehead - that's what Sonic looked like the first morning I noticed. Just sort of paler/blotchy and some tiny tiny dust specs

This is also a different fish, but at his worst Sonic's fins were clamped / frayed and the silver sheen was getting more and more, almost as bad as in the image below.

This is very very similar to what Lady looked like at her worst but she was also going noticeably paler around the face.

 

[AnneO]

Hi tastyfish,

Thanks for your reply, I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier or I could have posted a few photos. However, by now they are all back to rude health!

I continued the treatment as I laid out on my Feb 12 reply but I couldn't get the phosphates below 1ppm and started to see browning and some tissue damage on my SPS, so on the 15th I turned the temperature down by 1 degree and only did 20 drops rather than the 40 I had planned. The next day I did another 33% water change and decided that I would not do the extra 15 days of treatment I had planned, because I felt that the water quality was deteriorating rapidly, while the fish all seemed much better so I decided that an extra 15 days might just be overkill.

So since the 16th I have added no medication and everyone continued to improve. No more flashing, mucus, discolouration by anyone at this point. It was only clear to me after Sonic is now back to deep, smooth blue, how different he had looked. I posted a short video of him now (just looks like any other healthy coral beauty), but I also went online to see if I could find a match of what I observed, see end of post.

As a side effect of what I think is skimmer-impairment by the medicine I have had a cyano outbreak over the past week, but it now seems to be getting better. After the treatment I added a lot of GFO for 3 days which brought the phosphates down and also added a new batch of carbon to remove medication residue. Even so it has taken almost 2 weeks for the green colour to disappear from the skimmate. I turned the UV on again a week ago, that was maybe a bit risky given the skimmate water was still greenish but I didnt notice any adverse effects.

I guess the most likely conclusion based on my limited knowledge was that it simply wasn't marine velvet, but I will be using oodinex again this way if I do see these symptoms return in the distant future. If it comes back in the next month or so then maybe it was just temporary immunity and I may have to go back to the drawing board.

Thanks for your advice and taking the time to help me!

Anne


The short video is of Sonic today just so you can see how deep blue and smooth his forehead is. I hope it will work when i post it (23mb for 12secs..)

This is a different coral beauty but if you transplant that forehead - that's what Sonic looked like the first morning I noticed. Just sort of paler/blotchy and some tiny tiny dust specs

This is also a different fish, but at his worst Sonic's fins were clamped / frayed and the silver sheen was getting more and more, almost as bad as in the image below.

This is very very similar to what Lady looked like at her worst but she was also going noticeably paler around the face.

Well, the video doesnt work for me so here are 2 screenshots instead:

 

[tastyfish]

Hi Anne,

I'm glad your fish are back to health, keep an eye on them, just in case whatever it is comes back. Thankfully, It doesn't look like velvet, but a thickening of the mucus which could be down to another ciliate; Brookynella or a bacterial infection.

Velvet acts extremely fast, with a very high mortality rate, so I'm glad that it appears to be something else.

 

[CurtnStac]

Emergency Treatment for Marine Velvet Disease​

I recently acquired 3 fish - Longnose Butterfly, Kole Tang, Naso Tang - with velvet. None showed visible physical symptoms right away, but they all came from a tank where velvet was known to be present so I just patiently waited. Before & after pictures will follow immediately after this write-up.

In short, the Butterflyfish didn’t make it; however the two tangs did. The only difference in their treatment was I used formalin (with Methylene Blue) on the butterfly in a bath solution, whereas the tangs got acriflavine (with NO Methylene Blue). It’s also worth noting that the butterfly & Kole Tang showed symptoms the worst, whereas the Naso only had moderate visible symptoms. Tangs are also generally considered hardier than butterflyfish, so there’s that factor to consider as well. Anyway, here is the treatment I used on them:

The short version:

• 5 minute freshwater dip
• Immediately afterwards, perform a chemical bath (in saltwater matching SG/temp the fish came from). You have two options:

1. Acriflavine (preferred) - Do the bath for 75-90 minutes, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain acriflavine: Acriflavine-MS and Ruby Reef Rally. DO NOT mix acriflavine with any other chemicals.
2. Formalin - Do the bath for 30-60 minutes max, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain formalin: Formalin-MS, Quick Cure, Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, Kordon Rid-Ich Plus. Use protection (rubber gloves, face mask, eye protection, etc.) whenever handling formalin as it is a known carcinogen! However, you can add Methylene Blue to the formalin bath (1 capful per 2-3 gallons of bath water.)

• After the bath, place the fish in a QT pre-dosed at 80mg/gal using Chloroquine phosphate. In theory, copper (exs. Cupramine, Coppersafe, Copper Power) should work just as well as CP. However, due to how fast velvet can reproduce you don’t have the luxury of slowly ramping up the copper level as is normally advised. Therefore, the fish needs to be placed in a QT with copper already at minimum therapeutic levels. This is the advantage CP has over copper in this particular situation.
• While in QT, use a wide spectrum antibiotic (exs. Seachem Kanaplex, Furan-2) for the first week to ward off any possible bacterial infections. Secondary bacterial infections are very common in fish with preexisting parasitic infestations such as velvet.
• Keep the fish in CP or copper (at therapeutic levels) for one month. However, you can transfer the fish into a non-medicated holding tank for observation after just two weeks (explained below). DO NOT lower the CP or copper level before transferring.

The long-winded version:

I’d like to explain in more detail about what the above mentioned treatments accomplish:

Freshwater dip - This is very useful for removing most of the “surface parasites”. Noga (2000) and Noga & Levy (1995) both reported that a single freshwater dip would remove 80-90% of the parasites. I thought that would be enough to move on to copper or CP in a QT. However, the fish I treated with just a freshwater dip and then in-tank QT treatment continually died. Therefore I came to the conclusion a chemical bath was also needed before being moved into QT treatment (see below). Here is how you perform a freshwater dip:

Fill a bucket with RODI water, and use a heater to match the temperature to the water the fish is coming from. Aerate the water heavily for at least 30 minutes prior to doing the dip, then discontinue aeration while performing the dip. Fish aren’t overly pH sensitive for short durations like this, but you can squirt a little tank water into the dip just before the fish goes in to help bring it up.

Place the fish in the freshwater (FW) dip and observe closely. It is not unusual for them to freak out a little at first. Also, tangs are notorious for “playing dead” during a FW dip. The important thing is to watch their gills; they should be breathing heavily at all times during the dip. If breathing slows, it’s time to exit the dip. Dip the fish for no longer than 5 minutes.

Some fish can have an adverse reaction to a FW dip by appearing unable to maintain their equilibrium once returned to the aquarium. If this happens, hold the fish upright (using latex, nitrile or rubber gloves), and gently glide him through the water (to get saltwater flowing through the gills again). It is also a good idea to place the fish in an acclimation box until he appears “normal.”

Acriflavine - This is a new drug (to me anyway), but it seems to have a lot of potential as a replacement for formalin. It has a broad range of effect, being effective against both protozoans and bacterial infections. The latter gives it an advantage over using formalin, because all those tiny bite marks inflicted by velvet have the potential to get infected. You can also leave a fish in acriflavine longer than formalin, because it is not as harsh on the fish. Dosage varies by the product you are using, but for straight acriflavine (Acriflavine-MS) use 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons of water for a bath solution.

Formalin - Cheap, effective and readily available; formalin can sometimes even be sourced from a vet or local pharmacy (37% Formaldehyde is what you’re looking for). However, the downsides are numerous: First, it can be very harsh - some fish cannot even survive in it the full 60 minutes. Formalin will quickly deplete oxygen from the water, so it’s important to aerate heavily for 30 minutes before and also during the bath treatment. The bath should be done in a large glass bowl/container or small aquarium, as plastic may absorb some of the medication and then leach it back out during future use. Finally, formalin is a known carcinogen, so precautions must be taken when handling it. Prevent your skin from coming into contact with it by wearing waterproof gloves, and protect your face by wearing a face mask and eye protection.

Even though I lost the butterfly I had treated with formalin, I still wanted to include it as a chemical bath option. In the past, I have successfully treated clownfish with Brooklynella by using formalin and also know those who have been successful using it to treat velvet as well, so it is not without its merits. However, there is anecdotal evidence that some fish treated with formalin will suddenly stop eating at a later date. So, similar to cyanide poisoning. I’ve also read that many fish treated with formalin do not live past 18-24 months, possibly dying of cancer. However, when faced with velvet and if formalin is your only viable option, 18-24 months is a heck of a lot better than just letting the fish die in a matter of days or even hours.

Methylene Blue - May be added to the formalin bath only. It is a healing agent, useful for treating the tiny bite marks inflicted by velvet.

Chloroquine phosphate/copper - While all of the above will remove the vast majority of velvet on a fish, some will inevitably survive. Within 4 days the remaining trophonts will drop off the fish, then encyst, and usually 48-96 hours later (although it can take up to 20+ days depending upon the strain) release dinospores (free swimmers) seeking to reinfect fish. The presence of CP or copper at therapeutic levels kills the dinospores, effectively shielding your fish from reinfection. It is important to note that CP/copper does not eradicate any other stage of velvet, just dinospores. It has zero impact on the parasites on the fish; they must “weather the storm” until the trophonts fall off. This is why it is so important to do a freshwater dip and chemical bath beforehand, to reduce the number of parasites feeding on your fish’s body & gills.

As mentioned in “The short version”, if you only have one QT to work with leave the fish in CP or copper for one month before performing water changes/running carbon. This will ensure the fish has been protected from reinfection before removing the medication. However, if you can transfer the fish to a non-medicated holding tank (at least 10 feet away from the QT) for observation then you may do so just 10-14 days after CP/copper treatment has begun. So long as therapeutic levels were continuously maintained for the 10-14 day period. Transfer nothing but the fish, and even as little water as possible with the fish (like doing Tank Transfer Method). DO NOT lower the CP or copper level before transferring, as that is “the shield” protecting the fish from reinfection. Once transferred, your fish should have a “clean slate” in his new environment and have left behind all the velvet problems in the QT. Observe for at least 2 weeks before declaring your fish to be velvet free!

Chloroquine is considered the treatment of choice for velvet, because you can go from zero to full therapeutic all in one dose, without negatively affecting the fish. This is not the case with copper, as some fish can be overly sensitive to it and sometimes stop eating or even die. But with velvet, that’s a risk you’re just going to have to take if copper is the only viable option. Also, with CP anything from 40-80mg/gal should get the job done where velvet is concerned. I just dosed at the high end for my experiment, because I saw no downside in doing so.

Wide spectrum antibiotic - Velvet does A LOT of damage to a fish’s skin & gills. The trophont sits on the skin’s surface and puts out small rhyzoids (root-like structures) into the skin of the host where it absorbs nutrients directly from the fish’s skin. With all those tiny wounds, the likelihood of infection is high. This is something I missed in my earlier experiments where the fish died. Therefore, I consider it prudent to preemptively treat with Kanaplex and/or Furan-2 to ward off any potential bacterial infections which might arise.

Final thoughts:

• You need to move with a sense of urgency when a fish has velvet. This is not the same as dealing with ich. A fish with velvet may have days or just hours to live without prompt treatment.
• A small percentage of fish are thought to be capable of building up a natural or temporary immunity to velvet (and perhaps other parasites as well). Natural immunity is less understood, but temporary immunity usually only lasts 6 months max. During that time the fish is still a carrier and capable of infecting other fish. Over the years I have noticed this trend: Clownfish, mandarins and other fish with thick slime coats are often the only fish left standing following a velvet wipeout.
• Disease masking: There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that fish treated with a non-therapeutic level of copper will not show symptoms of ich, velvet, brook, etc. for weeks. This is why it can be dangerous to buy from LFS who treat their fish with copper but do not test daily to ensure it remains within the therapeutic range.
• The lifecycle of velvet varies according to strain. The trophonts, which feed and do all the damage, can remain on a fish for as little as 12 hours or as long as 4 days. Common sense dictates you are more likely to save a fish with velvet if it’s a “12 hour variant” than one which feeds on the fish for 4 consecutive days, since the medication will not kill the trophonts still on the fish.
• Even after completing the freshwater dip and chemical bath, you will still see tiny dots all over the fish. This is because the dots you see are not the actual parasites. Velvet, like ich, is invisible to the naked eye in all forms. The dots or “dust” you are seeing is actually excess mucous buildup around the tiny insertion points. It will take a few days for this to diminish.
• If you can’t get acriflavine or formalin right away, daily freshwater dips may buy you more time. However, I’ve never saved a fish just by doing freshwater dips and then treating with copper or CP.
• As mentioned previously, velvet dinospores (free swimmers) can remain infective for up to 15 days. By contrast, ich theronts only remain active for 48 hours, with infectivity greatly reduced just 6 - 8 hours after it leaves the cyst. What this means is that velvet has a lot more time to seek out and attach to a fish host, which partially explains why a fish with velvet is often covered in it.
• Velvet doesn’t take much of a break. Velvet tomonts release free swimmers every 4 days (on average). As mentioned above, those free swimmers can hang around for up to 15 days looking for fish to infect. Ich tomonts only release theronts (free swimmers) every 2-4 weeks (on average), with at least one strain taking up to 72 days. Since the trophont (feeding stage) remains on the fish for 3-7 days before dropping off, a fish with ich gets some relief in-between bombardments.
• Velvet likes light. As a dinoflagellate, velvet tomonts and dinospores are both capable of using photosynthesis as a means of obtaining energy. So when a dinospore ruptures from its cyst, it propels upward (towards the light) by using whip-like appendages for locomotion. Therefore, top swimming fish are probably more at risk than bottom dwellers. I highly suggest not using an aquarium light during treatment and also when running fallow for velvet (if possible in a fish only system).
• The study on aerosol transmission - which established the 10 foot rule - was done using velvet as the subject of the study. More info on that here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/aerosol-transmission.190292/

Do you (should you) need to dip and bathe a fish (damsel) that's showing no velvet symptoms, or can you just put them straight in qt and begin copper treatment?

 

[Psylacus]

@Humblefish so here is a loop for you. So I bought some coral from a LFS store. Brought the coral home, dipped two times. Scrubbed the bases with a toothbrush and pried them off the original base and put them into my tank (I have a QT for fish but not for coral yet). So I went back to the same LFS fish store to pick up some stuff and the owner told me the tank that I had gotten the the coral out of had a fish he just pulled that he is 100 percent sure had velvet.

So now here we are 80 days into letting my tank be fallow (learned my lesson here with ich). Just to find out that the coral I just bought and have in my tank (although extremely thorough cleaning) had a fish that had another plaque (velvet).

So now, do I start putting fish back into my DT, what do you think the likelyhood is that I brought it over. Argh so frustrating. I really don't want to do another 6 week fallow period here. Sorry to necro.

 

[bahamasmls]

question: If you lost most of your fish besides 2-3. Will velvet always live in the tank unless you qt? Or does it die off?

 

[drawman]

question: If you lost most of your fish besides 2-3. Will velvet always live in the tank unless you qt? Or does it die off?

You will need to starve velvet out by leaving your tank fishless (fallow period) for 6 weeks for velvet and about 76-80 days for Ich. If you are unsure of your pathogen you may as well go the full length.