Marine Ich? Velvet? fest - Need HELP

[CD]

I can't believe this is happening...PLEASE, any help will be appreciated!!!

OK folks, I wouldn't think of asking for this kind of help unless I didn't think there was any other way to handle this, but over the last 3-4 days, we have had a SEVERE outbreak of what appears to be marine ich in our tank. We have already lost the Atlantic Blue Tang, and one of our False Percs. :cry :cry The cleaner shrimp have been working like mad on the remaining fish, but I need to get the rest of our fish out of the display ASAP, and get them all into several hospital tanks so I can treat them...Problem is, is that we only have one 20G hospital tank that is cycled. I figure we would like/need to borrow at least two more tanks with cycled filtering (can't afford to wait for a cycle) to be able to comfortably house what is left of our stock to treat them, plus some heaters and maybe some low flow powerheads for water movement. I'm planning on letting the display go fallow for about a month, as I don't want the Cryptocaryon transferred over to our new tank via the LR and LS. Please pardon me if I'm not including any needed info, but the last few nights have been pretty much sleepless for me, and I may just have a nervous breakdown if I lose another fish. Help of any kind will be HIGHLY appreciated. We're pretty broke right now, so we don't have much to offer, but I'm open to suggestions. SO, if there is anybody out there that can help/offer assistance with this situation, I would so very much appreciate it...please. :cry

Wendy

[Polkster13]

Wendy,

Had already spoken to Chris and sent you a PM.

Melinda and I are going to the movies tonight but I am sure I can work something out with you. Left my cell phone number in the PM. Call me for more details.

[duc]

I have an extra Rio 900 a 55gal tank that is empty waiting to be delivered to Houston and a 37 fully cycled and fish ready that the eel lived in. She is still in hosp tank for another 7-9 days if she lives, not looking to well but we have our fingers crossed. My extra heater is being used but the SuperFishStore sells them starting at $12, if needed I can buy another for you to use along with the 55gal.

[CD]

Frederick - thank you so very much...I'll give you a call shortly.

Clif - so sorry to hear that your eel is still sick - I hope he makes it :( MAN...so many people seem to be having problems right now! Are the fish gods on a rant or something???? Anyway, that 37G setup that is fully cycled would be great, and SUPER appreciated. We may or may not end up needing it...I just got off the 'phone with Chris, and he's been talking with TimM. Tim's got some equipment we can borrow, so I'm not sure what we are still going to need. I'll keep you posted. THANK YOU :cry

Even MORE bad news...as if that's possible at this point, is that after Chris spoke to Tim and told him how quickly the Atlantic Blue perished, and what she looked like towards the end, he doesn't think it was ich. Now that I'm reading about this other ailment, I'd have to agree...Amyloodinium ocellatum or marine velvet is more likely the culprit. It appeared to be ich at first, but towards the end, the ABT's skin started peeling - almost looked like when a human gets a bad sunburn and their skin peels afterward. :(

Has anybody ever dealt with velvet and won? What treatment did you use?

Anyway, I've got to get busy here - I've got to get two huge barrels of salt water mixing, find our UV sterilizer, etc...

Wendy

[jaded]

Im so sorry that I'm not able to help... best I can do is wish you good luck!!!

[duc]

Forgot I have a UV light also just collecting dust if needed. When I had my velvet battle I was told the only cure was copper but my fish didn't live long enough to see if it worked.

[Dozer]

Wendy/Chris- I'm in Round Rock area (you've been to our place before) so I'm close. Anything I can do to help I'd be happy to. I have a few 10 gallons that aren't being used, a spare heater, a spare Rio pump, a powerhead or two, probably some other stuff as well. Oh yeah, some rubbermaid containers I've used for live rock and water changes also. Send me a PM and we'll talk and see if there's any way I can help you out! I'll send you a PM as well.

I'm really sorry this is happening, let me know how I can help you all.

[CD]

Thank you SO much Clif, Jade, & Mike! Once Chris gets home from work, we will be getting together with a couple of people that answered through PMs and 'phone calls. I'm not sure what all has been offered from those that Chris has already spoken to, so I may need some items that have been mentioned here also, just not sure. I have 'phone numbers for everybody that has offered to help except duc's. (Clif, if you see this, please PM a 'phone number?)

At least our other fish are still eating, so that is a good sign. I've never had to try an deal with Velvet before, so this is totally new territory for me. Everybody, please just keep your fingers crossed for us...maybe the fishie gods will hear us all and take mercy on my little babies... :unsure


Wendy

[CD]

Well, I guess it must be velvet...2:16AM, just pulled our green mandarin out of the tank - may he rest in peace. :cry Looks like the remaining clown has it now too, although he wasn't showing any signs of it all day today....

W.

[NaCl_H2O]

I just read this thread for the first time this morning :cry :cry

I have a variety of "stuff" but nothing up & running/Cycled. No spare UV. If still in need, post or PM what you are short. If I can supply anything I could bring it up on Sunday to the meeting.

I have never dealt with Velvet, but it sounds like a nasty disease. Have you gotten info from TimM, GaryP, or Instar on the cure method, I would think they would be a good source?

My heart & thoughts are with y'all

If there is some critical piece of equipment you need (like a UV), let us know, we will get it to you somehow!!

Hang in there - Steve

[JimD]

Holy crap! That totaly blows! You know how to get ahold of me, lemmee know if I can help out in any way!

[CD]

Well, we have been researching this problem and the answers are few- other than it's a truly nasty problem. It has the ability to take out a healthy fish in as quickly as 24hrs.
From what we've gathered thus far, copper may help, but more likely won't be effective due to the depth of the parasite in the fishes body.
Sounds like the stress increase of the copper treatments will probably finish off the fish before the copper has an effect, if it can even penetrate enough into the body to do any good in the first place.
It looks like all we can really do at this point is increase our water temp up to around 82 and hang a UV sterilizer in the system.
It looks like we will probably end up losing most, if not all of our fish.

Tim has offered some equipment for us to use but I don't know if it will really help save our fish at this point.
I guess we really need to get the fish out of the tank whether dosing or not because as long as there is a host for the disease, the cycle contiues.
Of course getting the fish out of the tank brings on a whole new set of problems as it will require us to dismantle/disturb the rock and sand.
We are concerned that disturbing the tank will start costing us corals as well as the fish

We just don't know what to do here.
Any push in any direction would be appreciated at this point.

Chris

[gjuarez]

I wish I could help in some way. hang in there Wendy, it will all get better. You have some guys with knowledge helping you so everything will be just fine.

[CD]

I wish I could contact Larry (Instar)...haven't seen him online...
I know he swears by the Marc Weiss products, and one of them (Reef Vital DNA) is supposed to interfere with the ability of *ich* to adhere to a fishes' skin...I know that the velvet parasite is vastly different, but it is still a parasite, so maybe this will help? My fear in removing the fish from the system, is that the only fish that are not dropping like flies are the ones that are letting the cleaner shrimp pick this crap off of them...if the fish are taken away from the shrimp, then the velvet will likely kill before any medication would have a chance to help. This is a double edged sword too though...if there are fish still in the system, the parasite will still reproduce. If I can find something that actually works in keeping newly hatched parasites from attaching to the fish (like possibly the Weiss product), I feel that this would allow the parasite to die off to a great extent over a period of two months or so.
Any thoughts on this? Would anybody in SA who has Larry's ph. number consider calling him, and seeing what he thinks about whether the Weiss product may or may not help?

Wendy

[jaded]

If you remove the fish to a QT tank then could you also move the shrimp and perhaps a bit LR as well? Or would the meds kill the shrimp? Please dont take this as advice... I'm just throwing out a suggestion for your next move. I'm FAR from an expert!!!

P.S. I sent Instar a PM early today that he hasnt seen yet, so I doubt if hes been online

[CD]

If you remove the fish to a QT tank then could you also move the shrimp and perhaps a bit LR as well? Or would the meds kill the shrimp? Please dont take this as advice... I'm just throwing out a suggestion for your next move. I'm FAR from an expert!!!

P.S. I sent Instar a PM early today that he hasnt seen yet, so I doubt if hes been online

Jaded,

Thanks for the input. We could move the cleaners into QT with the fish but the meds would kill the shrimp. If we use copper, it will contaminate the rock and inverts are very sensitive to copper.

C.

[CD]

We have been doing a lot of reading and study over the last few days, and although the most current effective cures for marine velvet have been the use of either copper or chloroquine diphosphate in conjunction with FW dips, there have been some very interesting studies done recently with hydrogen peroxide. Since this is something that may be of use to all of us after further study in that area, I thought some of you may be interested in reading the following: (side note...this is something that could happen to any one of us, and I BEG each and every one of you to strictly follow the recommended QT time of at LEAST 30 days for each and every fish you buy...we've been lucky up to this point, but all it took was one infected fish)
---------------------------------
This is one of the newest ideas for treating Amyloodinium ocellatum and, in my mind, one of the most interesting and promising as well. The first study used 20 juvenile Pacific Threadfin (Polydactylus sexfilis) suffering with an infection of Amyloodinium ocellatum. They were randomly divided into four open water tanks. One tank was the control and received no treatment. The control fish were examined and found to have a mean of 16.6 ± 16.2 trophonts per gill biopsy. The fish that were to be treated with varying levels of hydrogen peroxide were also examined and found to harbor a mean of 35.6 ± 38.7 trophonts per gill biopsy. Water flow to the three treatment tanks was stopped and they were dosed with hydrogen peroxide at concentrations of 75, 150, and 300 ppm. The fish were exposed for thirty minutes and then the water flow was returned to rid the tanks of the hydrogen peroxide. Within one hour of treatment, all the fish exposed to 300 ppm hydrogen peroxide had perished, but the fish exposed to only 75 and 150 ppm tolerated the treatment without any deaths. The surviving fish were examined immediately after treatment and found to harbor no more parasites. They were re-examined the following day. The treated fish were still infection free while the untreated fish were found to have an increase in the trophonts counted.

Another test was set up at the facility where the sick fish were obtained. Scientists used a grow out tank that contained fish infected at a rate of 16.3 ± 13.0 trophonts per gill biopsy. These fish were exposed to 75 ppm hydrogen peroxide for thirty minutes. One day after exposure, the trophonts' count dropped to 4.7 ± 0.6. After six days, the count was down to 1.0 ± 1.0. At this point, the fish were retreated with 75 ppm hydrogen peroxide for another thirty minutes. The day after the second treatment, no trophonts could be found. Because the study's participants were unsure of the effect of hydrogen peroxide against tomonts, they transferred the fish to a clean tank at this time.

Some of these same people then prepared an experiment on Mullet (Mugil cephalus) fry. They first studied hydrogen peroxide's effect on healthy fish. Three groups of ten healthy fish were exposed to 75, 50, and 25 ppm hydrogen peroxide for thirty minutes. After 24 hours, the survival rates were 20, 50, and 70% respectively. They then decided to test 25 ppm hydrogen peroxide on a large larvae-rearing tank. This tank held 3000 liters of water and approximately three fish per liter. The facility had been experiencing 200-1000 deaths per day from Amyloodinium ocellatum for one week prior to the test in this vessel, while the standard daily mortality should have been 0.002%. The fish were treated for 30 minutes with 25 ppm hydrogen peroxide. Within three days of the exposure, mortality dropped to less than 10 per day.

Now before you all go running off to the medicine cabinet, please remember that this treatment is experimental at best. It can easily be overdosed and cause mass mortalities. I would wait until further research has been performed to test the tolerance of various marine ornamentals to hydrogen peroxide exposure. Just to be clear, I am not currently recommending the use of hydrogen peroxide. If you choose to experiment and use it, you could very well be risking the lives of every inhabitant in your aquarium. I mention it only because it is promising, and as something to keep an eye out for in the future, after additional testing has been done. If you wipe out your aquarium with this treatment, don't come crying to me later.
-----------------------------------------------
>>>This article section was written by Steven Pro, but credit for information and research comes from a mixture of very reputible universities, Calfo, Fenner, R. Shimek, and Andrew Trivor-Jones.

Wendy

[CD]

We spent the day getting a 55G setup for the fish so we can try to save these guys. I put a canister filter which we will be using strictly for mechanical filtration and hung a 15wt. UV sterilizer on the tank as well.
Tomorrow (or later this evening) we will get the fish in the tank and hopefully on the road to recovery.

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the assistance and offers of equipment to help us out. For those of you we haven't contacted as promised, our apologies.
Just been a very hectic and stressful past few days.

Thanks again everyone for your support.

Chris and Wendy

And on a side note, Wendy and I were just sitting here realizing that we are actually lucky that this is happening right now. Not lucky that we are losing fish or that we are fighting yet another disease, but instead lucky the 210 transistion is somewhat on hold for the moment. If Dan had already built our sump, the new tank would have been infected. Obviously, more fish would have been involved and lost.
I guess that could be considered a positive way to look at this mess.

[BPolyniak]

Here is some good info on Velvet
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm

[NaCl_H2O]

Wendy, I think you have convinced me to never buy another fish :cry

Hope you get through this soon and can put it behind you.

[CD]

Here is some good info on Velvet
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm

Thanks for the info.
WWM is one of the first places we try to find information when we have a problem- besides MAAST of course. 8)
I remember having some tank problem 3-4 years ago and sent an email with my problem. Bob Fenner himself responded within 15-20 minutes.

We appreciate your input- thanks.

Chris

[CD]

Thank you, Steve :cry

I just hope we can save a few of our fish babies. This is a horrid experience, but a lesson I will never forget....
My one hope is that everyone here that is not putting every fish they buy in QT, will do so from now on. Go look at your beautiful fishies swimming around in your tanks...think about how you would feel if they were systematically taken from you one by one - stricken by this most horrible/virilent disease...and remember that EVERY time you buy a fish...a 30 day QT is a MUST. If you can't afford a QT tank, or simply do not have room for it, find a LFS or a friend that can do it for you.

I'm fairly positive the Atlantic Blue Tang was the carrier. The sad part, is that she was an impulse buy...I'd never seen one in a LFS before, and had always wanted one (she was sooo beautiful). Our QT tank was set up and running, but the filtration media was fairly new. When we brought her home, she was put in the QT tank, but after about a week or so, the system started going through a heavy cycle - probably because she was a good sized fish with a lg. bioload...she broke out in some ich spots (not bad), so we felt she would be better off in the display rather than in a QT going through a cycle. We *should have* just done daily water changes, and hoped for the best in the QT...but we didn't. She actually looked really good for awhile...eating, playing. Now she is gone, the green mandarin is gone, one of my clowns is gone, the remaining clown is probably not going to make it, and my beautiful Hippo is getting worse. My intent is not to bum anybody out, but to save as many people as I can from going through this heartache. PLEASE, people...QT each and every fish that goes into your tanks, no matter HOW reputible the LFS or friend is that you get it from!

Wendy

[CD]

OK- just an update on what's going on with this fiasco.
Fish death toll is 4. Lost the ABT, mandarin, 1 clown, and the blue assessor within 3 days of each other.
No losses now in over a week.
All the fish now look fine (for the last 7 days) and everyone is acting and eating normally. All of the big fish made it and our tiny Randall's goby and firefish never looked sick. Thankfully, the clown that we didn't lose was the same clown that made it through the 3 month Brooklynella incident- he was covered with what looked like velvet but it is totally gone now.

Wendy and I are now beginning to wonder if we actually had a velvet outbreak. Is it possible that the Atlantic blue got so sick that it caused a fluctuation in parameters enough to stress all of the other smaller fish that didn't make it?
Is it possible that an extreme case of ich could cause what appears to be velvet?
All the fish are out swimming around and are 100% free of ich or any other noticeable problems.
The hippo started showing signs of possible flukes (cloudy eyes) but that is gone as well.
Oddly enough, the remaining fish look better than usual.
We are very happy that we didn't lose all of our fish but are now left wondering exactly what took place in our tank.

Chris

[Ed]

Don't have the answers you're looking for, but very glad to hear things are looking up.

[CD]

Thanks Ed.
We are very pleased that this problem appears to be over.
We will just need to keep an eye out for any possible relapse.

Chris

[NaCl_H2O]

Very sorry about your losses, but it is OUTSTANDING that it didn't go the direction you feared. Glad to hear the majority survived and are happy - esp. that little Hippo you watched from behind the pillow ;)

Can't offer much to the what happened question, maybe just healthier fish were able to fight it off better?

[CD]

Thanks Steve.
It certainly could have been a lot worse.
All of our long standing members in the tank, the fish we have had time to get REALLY attached to, made it through the ordeal. Wish they all could've made it though.

Chris

[Polkster13]

Without doing an autopsy on one of the dead fish you will probably never know what the exact cause of death was. You did learn that quarantine procedures must be followed and luckly you didn't lose everything. Hopefully you will have the new tank up soon (which will have three times the water capacity) and as Gary likes to say, "The solution to pollution is dilution."

See Gary, we do learn from your posts! 8)