marine velvet

[gazza3535]

I had an infection of marine velvet in my reef tank (6 x 2 x 2) which killed all the fish in the tank in 2 days, i left the tank empty of fish for 1 month, then added 2 percs, one of them died in 3 days with velvet and the other was infected and is now in my treatment tank and looks to be doing well (treated with copper)

I dare not take the risk of adding any more fish, so i have moved all my corals into yet another treatment tank that i have set up, dumped all of my live rock and sand out of the tank, filled the display tank up with fresh water and let that circulate between my sump and main tank for a week, i have now dumped that and i am slowly filling the system up with ro water, when the system is refilled i am going to salt it up and put the heaters on, then buy new live rock and sand and when the tank has cycled i am going to dip all of the corals with Kents coral dip before putting them back into the main tank, so i have basically set up again, i must admit that i am at my wits end as all my fish go into my quarantine tank for 3 weeks before going into my main tank and i still got wiped out with velvet, so now the new fish are staying in my quarantine tank for 1 month and are also going to be treated twice with copper. and any new corals that i get will be dipped before going into the main tank.

I have had the odd bit of whitespot in the past particually with tangs but it has always cleared up within a week or 2 and i have never lost any fish to it, but this velvet is something much more difficult to eradicate, and i am not prepared to take any chances with it.

i just hope that you never get this disese in your tank

[SAT]

Bummer. :(

I'm having some difficulty believing that marine velvet in your display tank was responsible for the death of your perc. Part of the problem is the life cycle for marine velvet is more than 3 days. So, unless your tank had a lethal population of parasites waiting for the percs to be introduced, which I find implausible after being empty for a month, it's more probable that the percs were already heavily infected when they were introduced.

My suspicion is they had Brooklynella when you introduced them. The symptoms are nearly indistinguishable.

About your attempt to sterilize... I would not trust a dip that doesn't kill the corals will kill tomonts of Cryptocaryon or Amlyoodinium. Those little suckers are tough! If you really want to be sure your corals are not carrying the infection, you should quarantine them long enough to be sure they cannot be carrying the diseases (6 weeks in a tank free of fish).

[leebca]

Your change to the QT process is a step in the right direction. No way is 3 weeks in QT enough time. I always recommend no less than 6 weeks. The article recommends a month:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.htm

I don't know how much time is needed for a tank to remain fallow to eradicate Marine Velvet, but that key information would have been necessary to guarantee its eradication from your display.

[gazza3535]

Thanks for the replys guys