Dreaded velvet wiped my tank :(

[Nataleeia]

Hi all, unfortunately after only having my tank since jan and finally adding a few fish last weekend velvet appeared and I lost all my fish (2 clownfish, 1 regal tang and royal gramma) except my yellow watchman goby who seems to have shed his skin and has a small white patch on his head, he looked awful 2 nights ago and I sat there crying saying goodbye to him. My question is what do I do now? im on the look out for a small second hand tank to set up as qt tank as I wont be risking anything going into the display tank without quarantine again, but as I need to leave my display tank empty for 2-3 months (fishless) is it best to try and remove the goby and put him in the quarantine or will that infect the quarantine tank setup or leave him in the display tank and hopefully just let nature take its course? Ive never experienced velvet before, and originally thought it was ich which showed on the tang a week after putting him in, he was my first fish. Any advice please would be much appreciated.

 

[52728299]

You normally would want to pull him into a qt and treat with copper power, testing for therapeutic levels frequently. I've had success going fallow for 45 days. To be safe go longer.. but for the qt I'd either leave him in copper for 30 days, or for 2 weeks then transfer to sterile separate observation tank at least 10ft sway for another 2 weeks.

 

[Nataleeia]

You normally would want to pull him into a qt and treat with copper power, testing for therapeutic levels frequently. I've had success going fallow for 45 days. To be safe go longer.. but for the qt I'd either leave him in copper for 30 days, or for 2 weeks then transfer to sterile separate observation tank at least 10ft sway for another 2 w

ok thank you will hunt down a couple of tanks.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

How big is your tank? Your other posts say 115 litres? Did you add all 5 fish into the tank at once? A 115 litres tank is much too small for a tang.

Adding too many fish at once, or adding fish into tanks that are too small, will stress the fish and usually result in disease or jumping or aggression.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi all, unfortunately after only having my tank since jan and finally adding a few fish last weekend velvet appeared and I lost all my fish (2 clownfish, 1 regal tang and royal gramma) except my yellow watchman goby who seems to have shed his skin and has a small white patch on his head, he looked awful 2 nights ago and I sat there crying saying goodbye to him. My question is what do I do now? im on the look out for a small second hand tank to set up as qt tank as I wont be risking anything going into the display tank without quarantine again, but as I need to leave my display tank empty for 2-3 months (fishless) is it best to try and remove the goby and put him in the quarantine or will that infect the quarantine tank setup or leave him in the display tank and hopefully just let nature take its course? Ive never experienced velvet before, and originally thought it was ich which showed on the tang a week after putting him in, he was my first fish. Any advice please would be much appreciated.

Did the fish show rapid breathing before they died? That’s the key symptom for velvet. I’ve heard of gobies surviving velvet, but it usually kills off all the fish.
As said, your best course of action is to leave the tank empty of fish for 60+ days and treat the goby with Coppersafe in another tank for 30 days.
Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all, unfortunately after only having my tank since jan and finally adding a few fish last weekend velvet appeared and I lost all my fish (2 clownfish, 1 regal tang and royal gramma) except my yellow watchman goby who seems to have shed his skin and has a small white patch on his head, he looked awful 2 nights ago and I sat there crying saying goodbye to him. My question is what do I do now? im on the look out for a small second hand tank to set up as qt tank as I wont be risking anything going into the display tank without quarantine again, but as I need to leave my display tank empty for 2-3 months (fishless) is it best to try and remove the goby and put him in the quarantine or will that infect the quarantine tank setup or leave him in the display tank and hopefully just let nature take its course? Ive never experienced velvet before, and originally thought it was ich which showed on the tang a week after putting him in, he was my first fish. Any advice please would be much appreciated.

Sorry to hear, You will need to take a step back and reassess before adding fish. Some symptoms of velvet are below.
Velvet spots on the fish are much finer than the spots seen in Ich making it harder to catch until in cases too late to treat.
Some behaviors associated with a fish with velvet are :
- Scratching body against hard objects
- Fish is lethargic
- Loss of appetite and weight loss
- Rapid, labored breathing
- Fins clamped against the body
- rapid breathing and mucus around the gills

Fish with velvet will typically stay at the surface of the water, or remain in a position where a steady flow of water is present in the aquarium. As the disease progresses outwards from the gills, the cysts then become visible on the fins and body. Although these cysts may appear as tiny white dots the size of a grain of salt, like the first sign of Saltwater Ich or White Spot Disease, what sets Oodinium apart from other types of ich is that at this point the fish have the appearance of being coated with what looks like a whitish or tan to golden colored, velvet-like film, thus the name Velvet Disease.
Remove fish from main tank and give them a FW dip or bath and then place them into a QT with vigorous aeration provided. Treat the fish in the QT with a copper-based medication. Although many remedies contain the general name as ich or ick treatments, read the box to be sure it targets Oodinium. My choice is coppersafe or copper power at 2.25-2.5 therapuetic level at 80 degrees for a FULL 30 days monitored by a reliable copper test kit such as Hanna Brand (no api brand). Assure the medication you use states treats Oodinum.

 

[Nataleeia]

Yes all the signs listed above, was definitely velvet. I’ll set up a qt tank tommorow and try and catch the goby and get him treated. I bought the fishes over a period of weeks and not at once, the tang was less than an inch so I was hoping and knowing I would have to change him out in the future. Maybe I’ll rethink that next time round. So devastating though x

 

[Nataleeia]

Yes when I saw the goby e

Did the fish show rapid breathing before they died? That’s the key symptom for velvet. I’ve heard of gobies surviving velvet, but it usually kills off all the fish.
As said, your best course of action is to leave the tank empty of fish for 60+ days and treat the goby with Coppersafe in another tank for 30 days.
Jay

arlier he seemed to only have the coating on the top of his head, he was back to a gorgeous yellow and breathing normally and eating. So strange cos just a few nights ago he was at the surface covered in white and obviously very sick. I thought he wouldn’t be there in the morning for sure

 

[Nataleeia]

ok so unfortunately I got back home last night and the goby had died so now my dt is fishless, now to set up a quarantine tank is it ok to take over some filter from the dt to qt or is it best to start the process from scratch in qt? is there anything i need to swap out from the dt or will the disease/parasites just die off?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

ok so unfortunately I got back home last night and the goby had died so now my dt is fishless, now to set up a quarantine tank is it ok to take over some filter from the dt to qt or is it best to start the process from scratch in qt? is there anything i need to swap out from the dt or will the disease/parasites just die off?

Sorry to hear. Normally, if you were moving fish to treat, you can just take media from the dt to start the qt. However, you’ll be getting new fish so you don’t want to expose them to velvet. I would set the qt up with bottle bacteria.
Jay

 

[Tamberav]

I wound buy some biospira to seed the QT rather then use DT media. Even if copper would kill the disease on the media, I just like to play things safe and easy.

Tangs are magnets for disease and tiny tangs can be extra difficult . I wouldn’t bother putting one in a 30g that you later need to catch. There are so many beautiful nano fish with less headaches.

 

[Nataleeia]

Sorry to hear. Normally, if you were moving fish to treat, you can just take media from the dt to start the qt. However, you’ll be getting new fish so you don’t want to expose them to velvet. I would set the qt up with bottle bacteria.
Jay

perfect I have some here so will do that. Will the media be ok to just leave in dt and just continue with normal water changes etc as I leave it to fallow?

 

[PotatoPig]

For QT tanks: For an basic setup there are 10 gallon tank kits that include a hood, hang on back filter and heater that are normally a lot cheaper than sourcing parts separately, especially if you nab one on sale. Google knows I’m in the U.S. so isn’t being cooperative for searching UK vendors but try a search for something like “10 gallon led aquarium” or whatever the comparable tank size is in the UK.

Make sure to remove the carbon filter before QT or it’ll helpfully filter out the meds… If you don’t have it cycled when you start restocking you’ll want an ammonia alert tag and to have water on standby for regular water changes.

Also, as someone who is also starting out an learning similar lessons… don’t pay for the copper test kids where you have to judge the color yourself, shell out a little more for a digital test (Hanna), or else you’ll buy the test kit and then go buy the Hanna one anyway.

See below for what the non-digital test looks like… the target for this copper type is 2.5:

 

[Nataleeia]

For QT tanks: For an basic setup there are 10 gallon tank kits that include a hood, hang on back filter and heater that are normally a lot cheaper than sourcing parts separately, especially if you nab one on sale. Google knows I’m in the U.S. so isn’t being cooperative for searching UK vendors but try a search for something like “10 gallon led aquarium” or whatever the comparable tank size is in the UK.

Make sure to remove the carbon filter before QT or it’ll helpfully filter out the meds… If you don’t have it cycled when you start restocking you’ll want an ammonia alert tag and to have water on standby for regular water changes.

Also, as someone who is also starting out an learning similar lessons… don’t pay for the copper test kids where you have to judge the color yourself, shell out a little more for a digital test (Hanna), or else you’ll buy the test kit and then go buy the Hanna one anyway.

See below for what the non-digital test looks like… the target for this copper type is 2.5:

thank you, its a well needed investment

 

[Jay Hemdal]

perfect I have some here so will do that. Will the media be ok to just leave in dt and just continue with normal water changes etc as I leave it to fallow?

Test the ammonia level and do enough water changes to keep the level below 0.50 ppm.
Jay

 

[blecki]

See below for what the non-digital test looks like… the target for this copper type is 2.5:

Wait... is this how you're supposed to read API tests? Looking down through the entire vial of water?

 

[PotatoPig]

Wait... is this how you're supposed to read API tests? Looking down through the entire vial of water?

This one had a specific instruction to do this. I also got their “reef” package a while back but I don’t see anything in the instructions there for whether you look side-on or down.

I’d be curious if anyone has a definitive answer on the regular tests (with the rectangular color comparison charts) because the results very wildly depending which way you look…