Marine Velvet

[audra328]

We have a 75G tank with chocolate chip starfish, velvet damsel, maroon clown, and a Koran Angel. We recently lost a blue damsel. We believe we started out with ich, but now it appears to be Marine velvet. The Koran has gray spots and is scratching on the sand and decorations. The clown and damsel are both acting fine. We did a freshwater dip this morning on the Koran. Any more suggestions?

 

[beth]

Can you discribe what you are seeing in more detail? Size of spots, location? Did you add new fish recently? Take a look at the pictures in the Diseased Fish Thread and see if what you see looks anything like the pictures of the fish with ich.

 

[audra328]

The Koran and the Blue Damsel had grayish spots. Not at all resembling ich. They also both had cloudy eyes and the Koran's body became almost transparent. He also started becoming less active and hiding in the corner. Water quality was good, I tested everything 2-3 times this wee. We did lose the Koran over night.
The velvet damsel is now getting the same grayish coloring. However, he is now developing spots that look similar to ich.
Thanks for your help.

 

[beth]

What you describe is not symptoms of velvet. What is your pH and water tempature? What are you feeding your fish? Did you add new fish just before this problem started? What type of water are you using?

 

[audra328]

Thanks for taking the time to help us with our problem we really appreciate it!
pH is perfect right at suggested level, 8.2, and water temp is right around 77 degrees. The Koran was the most recent addition, we added him 3 weeks ago. We did not have a problem with the tank at all until 1.5 weeks after we added him. We feed flake, frozen, and seaweed salad 2 x per day.
After reviewing our water test results, our nitrates are slowly creeping up, could this be part of the problem, or are we overfeeding?
Thanks again for your help!

 

[beth]

Natrates would not cause such a drastic problem. Can you post pictures?

 

[audra328]

I was unable to attach a picture of our Maroon Clown. Unfortunately, he is the only fish we have left. We lost our Velvet Damsel overnight. We have started to notice a pattern; however, it all happens very quickly.
1. grayish spots appear on fish, near face and on fins
2. heavy breathing after 1st day of gray
3. fish becomes inactive, hangs out near bottom or top and swims in current of powerhead.
4. day 2, we wake up to dead fish
Only one fish at a time is showing symptoms. And all fish have eaten the entire time.
I will try to take some pictures tonight and get them on here, the ones I have of the Maroon Clown don't show the gray spots at all. Thanks for your help!

 

[psufan43]

heavy breathing, fish near top, dead in a day or 2 sounds like velvet to me. I had a velvet outbreak one time, when my heater was shorted out, it would go off and on causing my water to drop and raise as much as 10 degrees a night last winter, unfortunatley i lost my whole tank i tried everything, Ich is pretty easy to cure velvet is just bad stuff. Some times there is just nothing you can do, if you have spare tanks, i would try to quarnten

 

[audra328]

Thanks PSUFan43, I will have to monitor the temperature just to see if it is our heater...it does go on and off, but I have never noticed any major swings. As far as quarantine tanks, that is on the list for when we start back up....unfortunately, our starfish is all we have now...We lost our clown yesterday. Thanks for your help!