Ich or Marine Velvet
- Thread starter traceyw
- Start date
What are your fishes' symptoms? With both ick and velvet, fish behavioral symptoms are similar. For instance, scratching and darting about is common with both diseases. The visibly physical difference usually is the distinquishing factor between the two.
With ick, the fish looks like it has been sprinkled with salt--white dots that are salt size. With velvet, the parasitic manifestation appears as if the fish has been dusted with powder. It is finer than the salt I described with ick. Even so, you can sometimes see salt-like velvet on infected fish. With velvet, also you will see rapid gilling and swollen gills. Velvet is a virulent parasite that, by the time you actually see it, it is frequently too late--fish are dying. Fish also die rapidly with this disease.
The treatment for velvet is copper. You need to place your fish in a separate hospital tank unless you have a strictly FO setup. Maintain therapeutic copper levels for 1 month. If you treat outside of the tank, your tank must remain fish free for a full 2 mos--as the velvet parasite will live that long in the tank, even wo the host fish.
With ick, the fish looks like it has been sprinkled with salt--white dots that are salt size. With velvet, the parasitic manifestation appears as if the fish has been dusted with powder. It is finer than the salt I described with ick. Even so, you can sometimes see salt-like velvet on infected fish. With velvet, also you will see rapid gilling and swollen gills. Velvet is a virulent parasite that, by the time you actually see it, it is frequently too late--fish are dying. Fish also die rapidly with this disease.
The treatment for velvet is copper. You need to place your fish in a separate hospital tank unless you have a strictly FO setup. Maintain therapeutic copper levels for 1 month. If you treat outside of the tank, your tank must remain fish free for a full 2 mos--as the velvet parasite will live that long in the tank, even wo the host fish.
Hospital tanks should not really have sand or live rock, but, you can leave the sand but DO remove the rock.
The reason I say leave the sand at this point, is because I am assuming that your QT has not been painted black on the bottom, right? If not painted black [on the outside underneath the tank] then the fish will be stressed by the reflections of a bare-bottom tank. Thus, leave the sand in place but take out the rock. You will need to create comfort zones in place of the live rock. PVC pipes is a good choice for this purpose.
Yes, you will need to move ALL fish exposed into the QT. A 10 gal is rather small. How many fish are we talking about here? If you have copper, begin the threapy immediately, as, with velvet, there is absolutely no time to waste. If you do not have copper on hand, then rush to the LFS immediately and get some.
If you end up with ick instead of velvet, then the copper will also treat the ick...however, for ick, I prefer to recommend hyposalinity.
What makes you think your fish have velvet?
The reason I say leave the sand at this point, is because I am assuming that your QT has not been painted black on the bottom, right? If not painted black [on the outside underneath the tank] then the fish will be stressed by the reflections of a bare-bottom tank. Thus, leave the sand in place but take out the rock. You will need to create comfort zones in place of the live rock. PVC pipes is a good choice for this purpose.
Yes, you will need to move ALL fish exposed into the QT. A 10 gal is rather small. How many fish are we talking about here? If you have copper, begin the threapy immediately, as, with velvet, there is absolutely no time to waste. If you do not have copper on hand, then rush to the LFS immediately and get some.
If you end up with ick instead of velvet, then the copper will also treat the ick...however, for ick, I prefer to recommend hyposalinity.
What makes you think your fish have velvet?