reefinaglassbox
New Member
I can keep telling my story for days, but long story short. Devastation happened. Everything was going well for about a month since I added a dozen of fish together in my 300 gallons. Then one day back in Nov 2022 I had to jump on a plane after I got the news my Father passed away. While I was away all fish died except two chromas, though the tank was under my neighbour's supervision (whom I can't blame with zero experience).
Since then I was never able to keep any fish alive for more than 5 to 7 days. Then I realized it's marine velvet and decided to convert my display tank into a quarantine tank. I bought new fishes and started dosing copper. I made sure to keep the copper level to acceptance level for 40 days and then when copper started diminishing fish started dying again. That was a very painful, stressful and expensive journey. Not only copper I used KanaPlex, metroplex , API general cure, Tri Sulpha tablets, etc, etc. time to time
As all my fish were dying due to heavy velvet infestation I thought of giving a last try by keeping the tank without fish for 3 months . I desperately moved all live rocks from main display caught fishes and put them on a kids plastic sandpit and that was the biggest container I had that moment. Next day I found all (4) four of my Anthias dead and rest of the fish condition were worsening. They were more stressed I guess the container was not big enough. I quickly moved to plan B which is to disinfect my entire tank and sump and everything by poring 8 litres of bleach, run system for 24 hours, clean it with fresh tap water, dry it and finally add some saltwater to move those fish back to the display. At this point I did not clean the sump and it had all bleach water sitting on it. And of course my Vectra L2 was turned off from the controller. After moving fish to cleaned / disinfected display and they were still covered with very powdery velvet I decided to start cleaning my sump and while cleaning my sump I spilled lot of water from bucked that tripped my house mains safety switch. At this point there was no power on any equipment in the tank. Disappointed and frustrated I walked till the house main switch and turned on the tripped safety switch and then when I returned to the tank to continue with my cleaning I found Vectra L2 is on and pumping bleach water from my sump to display, which I had to turn off again but this time I unplugged the male power jack from the controller. You can imagine what I was going through. I literally gave up at that point and walked to the fridge at 10:30 AM in the morning to grab a beer. But when I returned to the tank roughly after 20 mins some miracle happened. All my fishes were free of velvet no powder stuff and they seems to be happy and energetic. I offered them food and they went for it straight way. Then I started searching Google and looks like there are some evidence of curing velvet with bleach. I honestly don't know how much bleach I added and what happened but feels like I just got lucky. I'm just sharing my experience here
Velvet killing fish/ watching from work
Fish in sand pit
Tank Shutdown
Bleach Blast
Bleach on sump
disinfected tank
Happy fish after drenched in bleach
Since then I was never able to keep any fish alive for more than 5 to 7 days. Then I realized it's marine velvet and decided to convert my display tank into a quarantine tank. I bought new fishes and started dosing copper. I made sure to keep the copper level to acceptance level for 40 days and then when copper started diminishing fish started dying again. That was a very painful, stressful and expensive journey. Not only copper I used KanaPlex, metroplex , API general cure, Tri Sulpha tablets, etc, etc. time to time
As all my fish were dying due to heavy velvet infestation I thought of giving a last try by keeping the tank without fish for 3 months . I desperately moved all live rocks from main display caught fishes and put them on a kids plastic sandpit and that was the biggest container I had that moment. Next day I found all (4) four of my Anthias dead and rest of the fish condition were worsening. They were more stressed I guess the container was not big enough. I quickly moved to plan B which is to disinfect my entire tank and sump and everything by poring 8 litres of bleach, run system for 24 hours, clean it with fresh tap water, dry it and finally add some saltwater to move those fish back to the display. At this point I did not clean the sump and it had all bleach water sitting on it. And of course my Vectra L2 was turned off from the controller. After moving fish to cleaned / disinfected display and they were still covered with very powdery velvet I decided to start cleaning my sump and while cleaning my sump I spilled lot of water from bucked that tripped my house mains safety switch. At this point there was no power on any equipment in the tank. Disappointed and frustrated I walked till the house main switch and turned on the tripped safety switch and then when I returned to the tank to continue with my cleaning I found Vectra L2 is on and pumping bleach water from my sump to display, which I had to turn off again but this time I unplugged the male power jack from the controller. You can imagine what I was going through. I literally gave up at that point and walked to the fridge at 10:30 AM in the morning to grab a beer. But when I returned to the tank roughly after 20 mins some miracle happened. All my fishes were free of velvet no powder stuff and they seems to be happy and energetic. I offered them food and they went for it straight way. Then I started searching Google and looks like there are some evidence of curing velvet with bleach. I honestly don't know how much bleach I added and what happened but feels like I just got lucky. I'm just sharing my experience here
Velvet killing fish/ watching from work
Fish in sand pit
Tank Shutdown
Bleach Blast
Bleach on sump
disinfected tank
Happy fish after drenched in bleach
