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Marine Velvet Treatment


FarmerTy

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Well, after more observation and research, I believe I have Marine velvet instead of ich. Once I noticed the rapid breathing at night in front of powerheads and the powder blue look more velveety than ich like, I realized it was the wrong diagnosis. The final bit of evidence were my mandarins getting spots. They are naturally more resistent to ich due to a heavy slime coat (scaleless fish) but they are susceptible to marine velvet however. Once they got spots, I knew it had to be marine velvet. It must have hitched a ride with the flame angel I added. As always, hindsite is 20/20. QT folks! Minimum 4 weeks!

Now the plan. I will be removing all of my fish for a minimum 6 weeks. I will be giving each fish a 5 minute freshwater dip (helps give instant relief) and then place them all in a 100 gallon tub during the QT treatment, leaving my display tank fallow during that time. I will be treating with chloroquine phosphate (in the form of Ickshield powder by New Life Spectrum) with a concentration of 40 ppm for 10 days.

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Freshwater bath

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QT tank and additional 30 gallon tub of freshly made saltwater.

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Brian.srock is crazy enough to get sucked into the quick drain and scoop plan of 2015. We plan on quick draining the tank to catch the fish quickly and then refill once complete. I'll probably have the wife spraying the exposed SPS to keep them from drying out during this process. We'll be borrowing some tubs/containers from Timfish, who's quick help will save the day... or at least some fish!

Wish me luck. If anybody has any helpful tips, please share. I'm a coral guy, not a fish guy, so this is new territory for me having to deal with fish diseases of this magnitude. [emoji40]

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ARC, thank you for the outpouring of help! I just posted this morning and I've already gotten a ton of texts/posts offering up equipment, extra bodies to help, and advice. It's been said over and over but what a great community we have!

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Well, for those that didn't tune in to FarmerTy TV and watch around lunchtime, here's the summary.

Brian and I drained the tank, removed almost all of the fishes (3 chromis, a flame angel, momma clownfish, two mandarin gobies, and the leopard wrasse eluded us), put them all in a temporary holding tank, and refilled the tank. Some accidental coral frags were made in the process and some viewers may have seen more of Brian's backside then they bargained for. [emoji41]

Here's the catch:

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Next up, to normalize all temperatures from the temporary holding tank, freshwater dip, and QT tub. Once they are all the same, I'll dip each fish individually in the freshwater for 5 minutes and then place them in the QT tub which has chloroquine phosphate dosed at 10mg/l. They will stay in there for the duration of the 4-6 weeks for full QT.

The one problem I have now is for the tank to run fallow and truly remove marine velvet, I'll need to remove the rest of the fish. Here's my plan:

-leopard wrasse (fish trap)

-flame angel (fish trap)

-momma clownfish (night swoop - I know where her bed is [emoji6] )

-mandarin gobies (scoop with net when I can... they are super slow)

-3 chromis left (shoot them with a mini spear gun... okay not really but they are going to be tough to get). I'm hoping starving them out and the fish trap will do it.

I'll start the clock when all the rest of the fish have been removed. For now, I can find some peace that the worst looking specimens are going to receiving treatment soon and hopefully it's not too late for them. Before we even got started, one chromis was on his way out so there's one confirmed dead now. Hopefully, I can save the rest!

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Ouch. Ty. Sorry to hear about this :( Something to think about for people like me who are considering upgrade to big tanks is that even though the QT process is crummy, having another tank always up is crummy, and QT probably freaks the fish out worse, it might be worth it compared to all this hassle. Good luck with everything.

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Ty,

For the leopard wrasse, if you know where it sleeps, you can set the net over the spot so that it will swim into it when it comes up (or you can be more heartless and scoop it out while it's asleep)...or so I've been told. I've never actually done this, although that's how the dome caught the leopard wrasse they sold me.

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Dang bud that's alot of work to still have fish left! Your wife Gona let you keep that qt tub in the house? Did you make any cool accidental frags by chance? I'd be more than happy to baby sit them while you put chemicals In your reef tank :P

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Thanks nvrEnuf! That's just the temporary holding tank, pre-freshwaterdip. They were only in there for 1-2 hrs as I took each fish from there... 1 by 1, and freshwater dipped them. The QT tub has live rock and such in there for them to hide with reckless abandon. Thanks for looking out!

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Not to make light of your misfortune but did I hear you say "frags"? Try the acrylic mirror with the fish trap, it's amazing how upset some fish get when they see an imposter in their territory. Don't use a glass mirror though the reflecting material comes off in saltwater.

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JCAB, That leopard wrasse was dancing in the fish trap all day long the past two days so I think I'll get him pretty easy. If not, I'll aim for the trap over his sleep spot but I have no idea where that is.

ckyuv - yeah, it was a lot of work but pulling about 70% of the fish I think was a good haul. The wife has been very patient during this ordeal... but she has a soft spot for the "girls" as she calls them. There are some accidental frags but Brian made sure to avoid my premium stuff. [emoji106]

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Holy crap Ty. Hope everything makes it through ok. Callahan did an episode on velvet a while back, dunno if it would do you any good to watch it. If I can help, I'm a phone call away.

Thanks bud! Everything seems to be going well and I only have a few fish left in the tank to catch... thanks to the fish whisperer known as Brian.

Mitch mentioned Mark had done something on marine velvet as well. I'll have to take a look. The reefkeeping article was of great help.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/index.php

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