Might have to eat my own words re: quarantine

[marie]

Brad, draining the tank of water may be the easiest way to go especially if you have someone else who can see where the fish are hiding and maybe gently keep the fish from going behind the rocks. I managed to catch all my fish including 2 neon gobies out of my fully stocked 175g that way without moving any rocks or corals

[fishoholic]

Here's a link to my old thread about MV nasty stuff. http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=51938 I have pic's maybe a video of what it looks like in the final stages.

FYI some fish are immune to MV and even if one fish is left in the display and doesn't show signs of MV it can be a carrier of MV and when you reintroduce the fish you were able to treat they could catch it again. It took 2-3 weeks before signs were noticeable in my tank. I also didn't want to tear down and catch everything at first and lost a lot of fish I probably could of saved if I had acted quicker

Here's a link to my photobucket MV pic's and video http://s261.photobucket.com/albums/i...rie_Morin/BRA/

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I thought it was ick, treated tank with reef-safe herbal ick medication and then it turned out it was MV and lost thousands in fish. All our favourites, including Poofie the Porcupine puffer, 2 Purple tangs etc. etc. Know for a fact that my ordeal and TomR's started with Atlantic Blue tangs.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by fishoholic

Here's a link to my old thread about MV nasty stuff. http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=51938

Thanks Laurie. I googled velvet last night and it brought up your thread, I read it last night.
I think the drain tank idea might work if I can find enough storage....

[hillegom]

That sucks, hope it all works out for you.
Never having had MV sorry I can't offer any advice.

[Reef Pilot]

Quarantine works best with new fish before adding them to the display tank and using an already set up and fully cycled QT. If you have to set up a new QT, then you will be dealing with cycle problems/risk, which will just cause more stress to your fish. And not to mention the stress of catching them and tearing apart your display tank.

So your best option at this point is probably to just feed them well, garlic, selcon, etc, and maybe try some reef safe remedies that others say have worked. And hope that your fishes' immune system kicks in and fights off the ick or velvet. Hopefully you have ick, not velvet. You may lose the new fish and the weaker ones, but hopefully your stronger long term fish will survive.

I learned my lesson with not QTing a year and half ago, and now use a QT for 2 months (hyposalinity) on any new fish. Have done that twice now, with total success.

The good news, though, when I did have my ich outbreak, is that I did not lose any of my long time fish, only the new fish that I had added. What happened, is that the new fish showed the ick symptoms, and some of the long time residents got it too. The tank went through a couple 4 or 5 day iterations, where it seemed the ick would subside, then come back. The new fish got it real bad just with the 2nd iteration, and died. But the long time residents were still eating well, and didn't seem to have it as bad. They got better, and subsequent iterations showed fewer symptoms until the ick finally disappeared altogether (took about a month or so).

My theory is that the long time residents had an immune response and were better able to fight off the subsequent iterations of the disease. And when the new fish died, the disease didn't have easy to affect hosts to keep the cycle going.

I know the tank is ick free now, because I have since added new fish several times after quarantining them, with no recurrence of the disease. I should mention that I had a wait time of over 6 months before adding new fish to the display tank after my initial episode.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

So your best option at this point is probably to just feed them well, garlic, selcon, etc, and maybe try some reef safe remedies that others say have worked. And hope that your fishes' immune system kicks in and fights off the ick or velvet. Hopefully you have ick, not velvet.

no, this isn't ich. Feeding isn't going to do anything, the first one that I lost was eating like a pig 12 hours earlier, even eating bits of the fresh garlic. While I'm a proponent of that method with ich, this isn't the same.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

no, this isn't ich. Feeding isn't going to do anything, the first one that I lost was eating like a pig 12 hours earlier, even eating bits of the fresh garlic. While I'm a proponent of that method with ich, this isn't the same.

OK, very sorry to hear that. I feel your pain. Wish you the best.

[Bblinks]

Damn Bradd, i am so sorry to hear that! I know exactly how you feel right now' just went through the same thing, hardest thing was watching my 7 years old yellow tang go and the 300 dollars Achilles. Funny i also added the last fish few month back and the only reason I think what made mv act up was stress which was brought on by WWIII between the tangs. Anyways it wiped out the whole tank except for my mystery and cleaner wrasse.

If you need containers to drain your tank, I have a 150 gallons rubber maid you can borrow if you wanna come over to the mainland or you can go get those 44 gallons tuff containers from hd. If you use them to only hold water and nothing else there is a good chance you can clean them up afterwards and return it. I have done it once out of desperation. 50 buck per 44 gallons container isn't exactly cheap. Do you have uv by chance. I would run that in the tank and a filter sock to kill off the rest of it in the tank. How many residents you got in your tank right now? I think you need to weight out the which is more important, the fish or the coral. I wouldnt risk losing any of your sps colonies if you only have a few fish in the tank as cruel as it sounds.

Anyways Bradd, I wish best of luck! If I can do anything for please do not hesitate to ask.

[lastlight]

Oh crap Brad this is terrible to read about. I understand you not wanting to rip that reef apart since it's been a raging success since startup meaning a lot of rocks are now one.

Reading this has convinved me now that a qt tank is a must. Good luck I hope you save most of them