Velvet

[TheShepherdTrio]

I am newer to saltwater and am afraid I’m about to learn a hard lesson in always having a QT tank set up and QT’ing before putting new fish in the tank. I think we’ve got a case of velvet going through and I know I need to get them out. We have a 10 gallon tank set up and I have some fritz coppersafe on hand. My question is what do I do now? Will the copper be safe to all the fish?

we have a yellow tang, 2 clowns, flame angel, coral beauty, melnarus wrasse, yellow watchman goby, diamond goby, and mandarin dragonette.

The big fish (all but the gobies) are still acting fine, eating and swimming normal. The diamond goby and mandarin appear a bit sluggish/lethargic.

They’re not the best pictures due to the blue lights and these pictures make it look 10x worse than what it looks like in person but here’s what one of the clowns and the tang kinda look like.

 

[Idoc]

We really need the white light pics to determine what's going on...blue lights disguise things and don't show the true situation.

You're going to need a much bigger (or multiple tanks) quarantine tank for all these fish in order to treat them properly....all those you mentioned can't live in a 10g tank together... plus, they will have to live in this tank for 76 days while your main tank is fallow.

If velvet, you don't have much time... you'll need to put them directly into copper at 2.0-2.5ppm without the option to ramp it up.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi, welcome to Reef2Reef!

I really can’t see the fish clearly enough under blue light, can you retake using white light?
Thanks,
Jay

 

[Tamberav]

Copper should not be used on mandarins and you definitely need a much larger QT tank.

 

[TheShepherdTrio]

This is the best photo I could get. I could not get one of the clowns that showed it well enough. What size QT tank should I get? I originally got the 10 because I figured it’d be a good size for qt’ing single fish, never thinking I’d need to QT my whole tank. It’s too late to get one now, but I can certainly get another size tomorrow if the fish are still alive

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yes, that does appear to be ich, Cryptocaryon. Are the fish breathing rapidly though? That might change my diagnosis. At this point, you may need to go into damage control mode - the 10 gallon can't hold all of these fish, and coppersafe takes up to 3 days before it starts working. You may need to pick and choose which fish you try to save: the mandarin isn't going to handle copper well, and any fish that is severely infected may not make it 3 days. Personally, I would try and save as many smaller, less infected fish...not a good scenario though, sorry.

Jay

 

[TheShepherdTrio]

Yes, that does appear to be ich, Cryptocaryon. Are the fish breathing rapidly though? That might change my diagnosis. At this point, you may need to go into damage control mode - the 10 gallon can't hold all of these fish, and coppersafe takes up to 3 days before it starts working. You may need to pick and choose which fish you try to save: the mandarin isn't going to handle copper well, and any fish that is severely infected may not make it 3 days. Personally, I would try and save as many smaller, less infected fish...not a good scenario though, sorry.

Jay

The mandarin, diamond goby, and flame angel died. None of the others are acting weird right now. Still appear to be breathing ok and eating fine. I was able to get the Tang into the QT tank last night and dosed it with cupramine. I’m hoping I get home and can catch the 2 clowns and coral beauty. But I’m also not holding my breath on whether they’ll be alive or not. Won’t know until this evening when I get home from work. Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst I guess.

I’ve learned my lesson for sure.

 

[TheShepherdTrio]

The tang doesn’t look too bad tonight. None of the other fish died today either. They all seem to be swimming well/eating well too. I tried my absolute hardest to get them out of the tank but am having absolutely no luck. I just don’t think it’s going to happen unless I strip out all the rock and make the corals unhappy.

I know technically you’re supposed to go 76 days without fish in the tank. But if I can’t get the others out and no more die off, how long would/should I wait until putting the tang back in? I know I’ll always have a risk of this happening again if I can’t get everyone out but I feel like I have no more options at this point. Do I just not add anything else until we have no fish years from now then go fishless for so 76 days before adding new ones in?

My husband is ready to just call it quits already, but I’m trying to chalk this up to an expensive learning curve and doing better from here on out.