Marine Velvet Treatment

[zombie]

Just out of curiosity why do you think you have marine velvet? Not saying you dont. Just wondering what the symptoms are that you've seen.

This was the progression.

Day 1.
Mandarin goby hiding more than usual

Day 2.
Mandarin goby and clownfish showing signs of heavy breathing and scratching.

Day 3.
Mandarin goby found dead. Portions of skin mostly near gills covered in a offwhite powder looking substance. Clown showing similar powder on sides of body and stops eating.

Day 4.
Clown found dead with powdery substance covering 1/3 of body. Carpenter showing signs of heavy breathing and staying near top of tank or hidden in its hole, no normal swimming.

Day 5.
Carpenter begins to show small patches of powdery substance and stops feeding. Female clown starting to show heavier breathing but still eats like a champ.

Day 6 (today)
Clown still showing heavy breathing and carpenters condition has not improved nor declined. QT procedure started with 1/2 recommended cupramine treatment and so far up to 6 of the 11 fish caught and in QT.

 

[Walter White]

Off topic were you at Elite yesterday buying some medication?

 

[deboy69]

Sounds like you've got ich not marine velvet. The white sand would be the ich parasite.

 

[zombie]

Off topic were you at Elite yesterday buying some medication?

Yep

 

[zombie]

Sounds like you've got ich not marine velvet. The white sand would be the ich parasite.

Doesnt look like sand no dots, more lile a dusting of powdered sugar with some brown and gold hints.

 

[zombie]

In hindsight, I should have taken a picture when I pulled the clown from the tank, but this is almost exactly what the clown looked like on day 3.

 

[zombie]

This is about what the spots looked like on day 4. For the clown

 

[deboy69]

You can't see the marine velvet or brooknella parasite, ich is visible to the human eye

 

[zombie]

You can't see the marine velvet or brooknella parasite, ich is visible to the human eye

In mild cases you are correct and many fish can die before showing visible symptoms on their body.

Directly from live aquaria "The skin is the site of attachment for the organism and in severe infections, small gold-colored spots will cover the skin, which can progress to create a "velvet" appearance which gives the disease its name. By the time the gold-colored velvet appears, however, the gills may be so infected that treatment is usually too late."

I personally dont think it is ick because there was never the prominant white bumps that I have seen in ick breakouts from others. Even if it is, the treatment method is the same for both except for the fact that hypo does nothing for velvet. Copper will kill either parasite.

 

[deboy69]

The treatment might be the same but I think the life cycle is longer and does not require a host. So the treatment in your tank would be different. Thats what im trying to get at. Maybe someone with more experience or someone that has survived this can chime in in that.

 

[zombie]

At least from what I read, the typical lifecycle for velvet is 15 days vs 30 for ick. Without a host, velvet can usually be considered eraticated with the tank fallow for 30 days vs the 8 weeks for ick. Since it is possible that it is something besides velvet, I was planning on doing 3 weeks of copper at 80 F to speed up the lifecycle, followed by a general antibiotic, formulin, and metheleyne blue for another 3 weeks and then remove all medication from the water and leave the display fallow for another 2 weeks. It would be nice to hear from someone with more experience though as everything I am doing is coming from what Ive read.

 

[Aaron]

I've read that the fallow period for both ich and mv is 7 weeks. You're correct on the average lifecycle for each; however the maximum life cycle for each is roughly the same.

Based on your pictures, I agree that you have MV. Again, be careful on your Cupramine ramp up; I lost some fish including a very expensive wrasse because I did mine over 2 days (they stopped eating and starved).

 

[zombie]

I've read that the fallow period for both ich and mv is 7 weeks. You're correct on the average lifecycle for each; however the maximum life cycle for each is roughly the same.

Based on your pictures, I agree that you have MV. Again, be careful on your Cupramine ramp up; I lost some fish including a very expensive wrasse because I did mine over 2 days (they stopped eating and starved).

Thanks for the advice. I had heard that the manufacturers directions for cupramine kinda sucked, so I was planning on raising the level to 0.5 over the course of 5 days instead of 2 as recommended by the box. I would think that would be a slow enough ramp. Any thoughts?

 

[Aaron]

No experience with prolonging the ramp-up, though here are some references that I found useful:

http://s.reefcentral.com/forums/blog.php?b=709
http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Cupramine.html

I finished with my Cupramine treatment 2 weeks ago and am in the middle of my fallow period. 4/7 of my fish survived. One jumped out and 2 starved after a week of being in the Cupramine at a concentration of 0.5ppm. In hindsight, I might have tried stopping between 0.3-0.4ppm as it is still effective at this concentration.

Thanks for the advice. I had heard that the manufacturers directions for cupramine kinda sucked, so I was planning on raising the level to 0.5 over the course of 5 days instead of 2 as recommended by the box. I would think that would be a slow enough ramp. Any thoughts?

 

[deboy69]

If you think you have Marine velvet. There is interesting research on h2O2 and treating fish

 

[zombie]

So I finally got every fish into QT. This is what it took to get them all. At least I get to redo my aquascape. Lol.

 

[zombie]

Update. I am now on day 3 of quarantine and everything is going great. When I placed each fish in QT, if they showed any signs of velvet, they were given a freshwater dip with 10% saltwater at 35 ppt and 90% aged rodi. Only the wrasse, clown, and blue tang showed enough signs to merit a dip.

Cupramine has been slowly added at 1/4 of the recommended dose daily (1/2 drop per gallon) and all water changes were matched to copper levels of the QT tank (20% daily). Copper levels are currently at around 0.2 ppm. I have also been adding stability to help with bacterial colonization daily.

Ammonia levels spiked to 0.25 ppm today, so I did a 25 gallon water change and added more stability. This has dropped to 0.1 or so (hard to tell with ati kit).

All fish are acting almost normally and feeding well. The basslet and goby wont come out of hiding other than a quick dart to grab a bite of food that passes near them, but I belive that is normal and expected for their species as they act similarly in the display. The "velvet" spots on the carpenter have disappeared which is a good sign. Coloration on the blue tang, clown, both wrasses, and the angel have gotten a bit more dull. Scratching and respiration rate has improved for all fish except the basslet, which has gone up from 80 rpm to 100 rpm since moving from the display. This may be stress related and not directly related to velvet as he is not scratching.


I ended up keeping the decorations as my copper test concluded that a neglegable amount of copper bound to them (or at least levels I couldnt detect). All of the fish love the one on the right, so I believe any small amount of copper that binds to it is worth the sense of security the fish are getting from something that "feels" like a real reef environment and provides a safe place to hide and sleep.

 

[Balz3352]

How's everyone doing?

 

[zombie]

No losses so far. Copper is up to 0.4 ppm over the course of 10 days. Respiration has improved for all fish to less than 80 bpm. The wheeler goby is still super ****ed about not having its sand tunnels, but comes out and pecks a few bites of food when I feed.

 

[zombie]

Havent updated for a while. My 3 weeks of copper treatment has finished any no remaining fish are showing any sign of infection whatsoever. Unfortunatley both my wheeler goby and my 1 year old female mandarin refused to eat (I even turkey bastered them with live copepods) and did not make it through QT . Tank has been fallow for a little over 4 weeks now, so only 4 weeks of QT left before they can go back in the display.