Tank Disaster

[MMAX]

Originally started a thread about my Kole tang with what I thought was white spot. Read what was posted if you want to find out what happened. I recently lost a dragon goby and yesterday my Kole passed on. I'm sad to report my pair of clowns might be next. I have a marine velvet outbreak. I just finished setting up a hospital tank for them but it may be too late. This afternoon I checked on them and they were covered. Hopefully the medication will work but I'm not overly optimistic. So far my lawnmower blenny and zebra darts show no signs but I'll have to get them out and into treatment ASAP. I'm pretty sure the Kole must have brought the disease with him into my tank. From now on everything that goes in will be quarantined first. Is it true that after all the fish are removed the virus will die because there are no hosts? How long does this take? Any other advice would be much appreciated.

[marie]

Originally Posted by MMAX

Originally started a thread about my Kole tang with what I thought was white spot. Read what was posted if you want to find out what happened. I recently lost a dragon goby and yesterday my Kole passed on. I'm sad to report my pair of clowns might be next. I have a marine velvet outbreak. I just finished setting up a hospital tank for them but it may be too late. This afternoon I checked on them and they were covered. Hopefully the medication will work but I'm not overly optimistic. So far my lawnmower blenny and zebra darts show no signs but I'll have to get them out and into treatment ASAP. I'm pretty sure the Kole must have brought the disease with him into my tank. From now on everything that goes in will be quarantined first. Is it true that after all the fish are removed the virus will die because there are no hosts? How long does this take? Any other advice would be much appreciated.

I would leave the display fishless for 8 weeks....6 weeks minimum. Marine velvet is nasty, good luck with it.

[ElGuappo]

i have heard it takes 3 months to rid a tank of ich wihtout fish... no idea about the MV tho.

to rid tank of MV it can take upto 3 months you can speed the process up a bit by raising the tempto 82 or 84 I forget. but it still taks between 8 and 10 weeks even with raising the temp. inverts are fine in the tank MV needs fish to host on.

Bill

[MMAX]

So after 3 months how do you make sure it's gone? Do you keep doing water changes and regular maintenance while you wait? I read keeping the tank in total darkness will kill it. Total darkness will also kill my corals. What a sh*tty thing to deal with.

[fishytime]

first off sorry for your troubles.....Laurie(fishoholic) said she would post a link to her MV thread later today for ya....best of luck....

[daniella3d]

The most resistant ich strain ever recoreded took 71 days to die but that's unusual. Most case is that ich is 100% dead after 60 days, so 8 weeks should be fine for ich.

I don't know for velvet but I would play it safe because this is such a nasty parasites.

Originally Posted by ElGuappo

i have heard it takes 3 months to rid a tank of ich wihtout fish... no idea about the MV tho.

[jimbo222]

sorry to hear..
keep up the post's with your progress we learn lots from these posts .and what to do when evil strike's
jim

[MMAX]

The only medication I have on hand is Instant Ocean Lifeguard. I have used it before on these same clowns when they had some kind of parasite about 2 years ago. So far, so good. They were stressed as hell when I caught them yesterday but seem not too bad today. Now to take apart my rockwork and get my lawnmower and zebras out.

[daniella3d]

Velvet is not a virus, it's a parasite dinoflagellate. The only thing that kill it and easy to get and relatively safe is Seachem Cupramine. Never ever put any dechlorinator in the water where you put Cupramine as it would bind with the amine and release very toxic form or copper.

Beside that it's safe.

QT is a must. I have a blue hippo tang in hyposalinity for 3 weeks now to treat ich and each fish I will be getting will go into a minimum 4 week quarantine with hypo or cupramine for 2 weeks, depending on the fish.

Even my corals go to a temporary tank for 4 weeks empty of fish so that if they carry some fish parasites kists they will die.

What medication are you using?

Originally Posted by MMAX

This afternoon I checked on them and they were covered. Hopefully the medication will work but I'm not overly optimistic. So far my lawnmower blenny and zebra darts show no signs but I'll have to get them out and into treatment ASAP.