Velvet….To Quarantine or Not to Quarantine?

[DD0513]

I have a 55gallon future reef tank. Right now it has two zebra barred gobies and one fire fish in it, along with hermits, snails, an urchin and a scarlet shrimp.

I originally thought I had ich, turns out it appears to be velvet. I have lost 4 fish(two clowns, Royal gramma, damsel). These fish developed symptoms quickly, generally only lasted 72 hours max once symptoms were noticed and it was one dish after another developing the symptoms, sometimes even overlapping. Their symptoms were very noticeable. The three remaining gobies have been rubbing the sand every once in awhile for about a week, but the last fish I had die was over a week ago. I treated the tank with Ruby Rally just before the last death. Since then the gobies have only been seen rubbing, no other symptoms. There skin appears clean. So my question is, if you can’t totally eliminate velvet, is there any reason to take these fish out and treat with copper and risk stressing them out, or should I try to keep them comfortable in the tank and watch to see if there symptoms lessen? I can set up a quarantine tank but if the velvet isn’t going to be totally gone, and these fish seem to be minimally affected by it, is it worth the fuss of removing them? I have heard from many that every tank will have ich or velvet in it at times, but if the fish are healthy they will fight it off. So I just wonder if I work hard and keeping these fish comfortable, will they beat it on their own?

 

[Sharkbait19]

Do you have any pictures of the affected fish? If you were seeing white spots, they had ich. Velvet will rarely show any spots, but instead the affected fish will display rapid breathing and will swim into the flow before a quick death.
Either way, both are highly treatable assuming you catch it early enough. All fish need to be moved into a qt tank and treated with copper, while the display tank remains fishless for 60 days.
Gobies in my experience are quite disease hardy and don’t show ich/velvet as fast as others, but they are far from immune. Eventually, they are due to get sick.