My struggle with Velvet, and Peroxide as a promising tool

[Hedgedrew]

I know. This is the treatment protocol for dinoflagellates in a reef display so my hope is over 30 days I can eradicate it. I am dosing at 25 ppm. I am being overly conservative for fear I'll nuke the tank. The OP used 50 ppm. Perhaps I should up the dose to 50 ppm, but I'd really hate to crash the tank with qt as an option.

Your not close to those ppm s with that dose. !!

 

[CuzzA]

Your not close to those ppm s with that dose. !!

I'm just following what I've read from the fish doctor and converted the math used by the OP.

It may be effective at controlling (and possibly even eliminating) marine parasites & worms (external only). The science behind using H2O2 to do this is sound, but dosing it into an aquarium introduces too many X factors which are difficult to predict. I've seen it both work & fail in a DT environment. It is extremely important to dose 1ml per 8-10 gallons every 12 hours for at least 30 days. To have any chance of success at eradicating marine parasites/worms.

 

[Hedgedrew]

2.5 ml per liter for 75 pom.

 

[CuzzA]

2.5 ml per liter for 75 pom.

But in a reef environment?

 

[Hedgedrew]

But in a reef environment?

Ya well thats a whole other ball of wax.

 

[kirinreef]

Just wondering, if H2O2 works, how about anything that attacks dino, for instance Vibrant? Really want to know if anyone dose Vibrant frequently ever had velvet outbreak...

 

[Beefyreefy]

Let me lay some groundwork here regarding this post. I don't post often but I thought this was worth the time to give back a bit to the community. I am also NOT a scientist, I’m a hobbyist like most of you. My intent here is to share my experience, strictly for learning purposes, in the hopes that someday others benefit from and continue to look into this approach. I’m personally convinced it’s effective but it needs more research, and with CP and copper affecting various fish, this might be a gentler solution. At the very least, it could be a tool to give us a little more time to react since velvet moves so fast, so it’s worth a discussion IMO.

Tank Spec for the purpose of this conversation:
300 gallon (total water volume, including displacement for rock/sand/etc.) (96”x24”x30” + sump) reef tank.

So here we go... A few weeks ago I noticed a dead fish, my nice ORA indigo dottyback. He was a longtime resident and I was a bit concerned but saw no outward signs of disease and reconciled myself to “stuff happens”. The next day, my very healthy long time resident watanabe angel was gasping on the bottom of the tank. Something was definitely wrong.

I started really looking at all the fish in the tank, 15 in total. I saw what I tragically misinterpreted as ich and began aggressively taking my display down to hyposalinity and migrating my inverts to avoid a huge die-off send my tank into a new cycle.

It’s worth noting WHY I went down this road;
1. I could not easily treat 15 fish, some large 6+ inches with my current qt equipment
2. I had very little in the way of inverts/coral at the time and they could easily fit in a 40 breeder
3. I am in the middle of a minor renovation with floors for the entire house and a few walls going up so it would be chaotic, to say the least, to manage the multiple hospital tanks I would need.

OK, so back to it. It’s no surprise I lost a few more fish as I transitioned to hypo. Let me say that getting to 1.009sg on a 300 gallon tank is not easy. It took a few days, it involved a lot of buckets of RO. I lost a few more fish and then some of the signs of what I was truly dealing with became known to me.

Ich is not this fast, I knew that. I began more research and concluded it was velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum). The signs were now easy to see. Fish swimming into powerheads, gasping, light sensitive, and lack of appetite were all there. And of course hypo does NOTHING for velvet, so I lost precious time going down the wrong road. Lesson learned.

Now I’m kind of of screwed because copper and Chloroquine Phosphate (CP) are the 2 main treatments and neither are going to work for a 300g tank.

First, I dont have access to CP, time is precious, and I have 2 wrasses, which don't do well in CP.
Second, copper would destroy my rocks and sand, it’s not a good solution for a DT.

Formalin is a third option but it isn’t a viable option for me either. With the tank in hypo I am seeing an ammonia spike from the die-off of worms and a few missed snails, its manageable with water changes and Prime but Formalin would have destroyed whatever biofilter that was protecting me currently.

So more research, there must be something else, right?

I started reading articles on some promising work with Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2). I dove deeper and it seemed to make sense. Velvet is a dinoflagellate, we use Peroxide for other dinoflagellate issues and algae, so I read on;

A purple tang rescue with some peroxide testing:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/petco-purple-tang-rescue-action.249943/page-2

A VERY informative article from Reefkeeping which included some peroxide info:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/index.php

Several articles that got a bit more specific on treatment options:
http://agrilife.org/fisheries/files...mportant-Parasite-of-Cultured-Marine-Fish.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2761.1980.tb00421.x

Im sure I read more than the above, but the bulk of information is in the articles I listed. Honestly, I was really surprised on how little info there was to read on the topic.

In the end, I learned that treatments ranging in the 50-300ppm had variable success/mortality rates with the most promising was in the 50-75ppm range, in my opinion. So I calculated my dosing, starting at the low end to see reactions. 50ppm.

I calculated what I needed as follows:
50ppm = .05 ml/l
300g = 1135.62 liters
1135.65 * .05 = 56.781 ml (I rounded to 57ml)

Prior to initial dosing the following notable symptoms were occuring:

1. My naso was noticeable covered in spots, was not eating and was photosensitive.
   
   
2. My copperband was swimming into the powerhead and staying at the top of the tank, also noticeably covered in spots.
   
   
3. My tomato clowns were further along, with large white mucus patches.
   
   
4. All fish were generally lacking in appetite.

Day 1 In the evening I dosed the 57ml into the main tank powerhead and watched for adverse reactions through the next day. The 3 fish I noted above were my litmus test, If I saw improvement in those 4, I would continue treatment.

Day 2, in the morning I observed some slight improvement, or what I perceived to be improvement in behavior. There were no adverse reactions, so I dosed another 57ml.

I continued to read some of the scientific research into Amyloodinium ocellatum because, aside from the issue at hand, this is a dang interesting parasite. One thing that popped into my head was that, as a dinoflagellate, it was photosynthetic and could use light for some nourishment. But what really struck me was that when Amyloodinium ocellatum reach the trophant stage, they tend to swim toward the light and then infect fish. Now I also started reading into the reaction times of peroxide, and how long it lasts in the water. As an oxidizer, its not long, a few hours by some estimates.

I decided I could turn this into an advantage in two ways. First, I surmised that if I treat with peroxide in the AM, maybe 30-40 min after lights come on, I could maximize the effect on the trophants, which is the only stage peroxide will work on btw. Second, given the lifespan of peroxide, I could possible double dose; once in the AM and once at night to further increase effectiveness.

Day 2, in the evening, with no losses or negative effects, I upped the dose to 75ppm (86ml), after the initial morning dose of 57ml. The next day, I saw very notable improvement. The naso was out and showing interest in food (but not eating yet), the clowns were still showing signs of white patches and lack of appetite, the remaining fish actually ate!!

Day 3, I continued the 86ml dose for both the morning and evening.

Each day, I saw some improvement and the appetite and behavior of the fish trended closer to normal. Except for the clowns, who died. I surmise, based on their advanced symptoms, were too far gone for this, or any other treatment, to help.

I continued the 86ml dosing over the next several days until all visible symptoms also disappeared. At this point, the fish are symptom free, I have stopped dosing 2 days ago and I am observing. I know this is not a definitive cure, I cannot perform a gill biopsy to confirm, and even if no further symptoms present themselves, I plan on doing a full quarantine after the renovations are complete before any new fish or coral will be considered. I am also upping my QT game for all additions; 6 weeks for everything, no exceptions. I am NOT doing this again, velvet is no joke.

I'm curious, as I don't believe it was mentioned... How long before the out break was your last livestock addition to the tank before you had the velvet attack occur? Do you perform any QT? Do you know what introduced the velvet? I'm not giving you grief about anything as I don't prophylactically treat my livestock additions, just trying to get a feel for how you ended up here. I'm really interested in this treatment, as I feel it opens up treatment options for the DT as well as perhaps QT treatment that doesn't rely on things like copper or antibiotics. Thanks for posting!

 

[Humblefish]

2.5 ml per liter for 75 pom.

You're dosing this into a FOWLR? How often? Every 12 hours? For how many days now?

Any side effects or casualties? Are your fish still scratching or showing any other symptoms?

Sorry to bombard you with so many questions. Call/text if that's easier.

 

[CuzzA]

Clownfish is now showing signs of velvet. I am pulling fish. Decided against plastic tote. Picking up Petco $29 gallon. Will fill to 20 gallons to give myself some room to dilute if need be.

Chloroquine Phosphate won't be here until the 31st. Plan is peroxide bath then use the Copper Power with Furan 2, because I already have it and the test kit. Once I get the Chloroquine I will transfer fish from Copper Power to Chloroquine and finish off 30 day treatment. You guys think it would be acceptable to use Copper for 4 days then transfer fish to Chloroquine?

 

[Humblefish]

Chloroquine Phosphate won't be here until the 31st. Plan is peroxide bath then use the Copper Power with Furan 2, because I already have it and the test kit. Once I get the Chloroquine I will transfer fish from Copper Power to Chloroquine and finish off 30 day treatment. You guys think it would be acceptable to use Copper for 4 days then transfer fish to Chloroquine?

Setup the QT with everything new (don't reuse anything from the DT). House the QT at least 10 feet away from your DT. Give each & every fish a 30 min, 150 ppm H2O2 bath en route to QT: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/hydrogen-peroxide.640232/

Once in QT, you can just observe or treat with Chloroquine (preferred) or Copper Power to be sure velvet has been 100% eradicated.

 

[Hedgedrew]

Display tank responding great to cp and prazi. Humblefish ill have to give you our dosing we have attempted to redose to offset biofilm half life issues. No anthias issues. All fish appear normal. No scratching.

 

[Humblefish]

Display tank responding great to cp and prazi. Humblefish ill have to give you our dosing we have attempted to redose to offset biofilm half life issues. No anthias issues. All fish appear normal. No scratching.

Ahh, so no H2O2 has been dosed into the beast? With Chloroquine, I redose 1 mg/L (4 mg/gal) daily to compensate for biodegradation. That seems to work even in tanks with rock/sand.

 

[Hedgedrew]

Yes we walked it up over few days to full 60 mg per gallon dose which is right around a kilo. We are dosing 35 g in am and 35 g in pm. So thats close. !! On prazi i read an article even worse on degrading. We are dosing at near 3 ppm and doing a third more everyday for 4 days before water change and redose on day 5 or 6.

 

[Hedgedrew]

Ahh, so no H2O2 has been dosed into the beast? With Chloroquine, I redose 1 mg/L (4 mg/gal) daily to compensate for biodegradation. That seems to work even in tanks with rock/sand.

No more peroxide. !!

 

[Humblefish]

No more peroxide. !!

Did the peroxide cause any problems when dosing? Or just wasn't working?

 

[Hedgedrew]

Did the peroxide cause any problems when dosing? Or just wasn't working?

I could tell fish acted better but it wasnt helping the fish that really needed it.

 

[Humblefish]

Yes we walked it up over few days to full 60 mg per gallon dose which is right around a kilo. We are dosing 35 g in am and 35 g in pm. So thats close. !! On prazi i read an article even worse on degrading. We are dosing at near 3 ppm and doing a third more everyday for 4 days before water change and redose on day 5 or 6.

In 17k that should get the job done. Unless you have lots of biofilm which will degrade medications much faster than just nitrifying bacteria.

 

[Hedgedrew]

In 17k that should get the job done. Unless you have lots of biofilm which will degrade medications much faster than just nitrifying bacteria.

Ya. Im even tempted to redose cp near full dose after next water change. But man its like flying blind !!

 

[Humblefish]

I could tell fish acted better but it wasnt helping the fish that really needed it.

It takes dosing H2O2 every 12 hours for 30 days to have a chance (not guaranteed) of complete eradication. 1 ml per 10 gallons. The upside is H2O2 at this dosage/duration appears to be reef safe. Even acros tolerate it well.

 

[Hedgedrew]

It takes dosing H2O2 every 12 hours for 30 days to have a chance (not guaranteed) at complete eradication. 1 ml per 10 gallons. The upside is H2O2 at this dosage/duration appears to be reef safe. Even acros tolerate it well.

We did one for 5gallons and one day my guy dosed in am even though i did it early. And we did 1 ml for 2.5 gallons. Fish didn't flinch