Is this velvet.... sigh

[FSJGUY]

So i come home after a 8-9 days vacation for new years and stuff, and i lost my flame angel, kole tang, royal gramma and supposedly my flame hawk almost died too according to a freidn who watching my fish..

Since i see no diseases i decided to water change, charcoal and buy new fish. I suspected my friend put her hands in the tank with chemicals and they were all fine and eating 10 hours prior when she took pics.

I got new fish from a local store that qurauntines and doses fish so they are more money then most fish stores.. And the fish all died in a day or two.. ****ed me off so i decided to not buy anymore and just see what happens to the flame hawk, dottyback, and 5 green chromis, lawnmower blenny and scooter and coral beauty that i have left..

None of them are showing signs of disease except the neon dotty back and coral beauty.. They are looking pretty bad especially the dottyback.. I can tell there is ich.. by the larger white spots on the body but i can count those.. Ich isnt what im concerned about right now.. Its the rest of his body that has me wondering.. Im not sure if this is velvet or what... The coral beauty looks like this as well.

The rest of the fish are fine and showing no signs of anything, in fact the green chromis are actually picking at and smacking their bodies on the beauty and dottyback in order to help the fish get rid of the parasites on them.. They actually go to the chromis for relief.. They are also swiming in the current which ive never seen them do before..

Ive had salt for about a year now, and reading up on ich and velvet and stuff is really depressing... Ive done fresh water for 20 years and diseases like this are meh, dose some meds problems gone.. For salt water it seems like its nearly impossible to get rid of and there is no real medication for this except copper... Its starting to really turn me off from this hobby and im feeling sick to my stomach and wanting to just take a baseball bat to the tank and be done with it.. lol :headwalls::headwalls:

I dont have alot of money right now, bills are past due and i cant afford to lose the fish i have and start all over again.. I can buy some copper treatment but then what ? My tanks are all occupied so i cant just move all my fish into a empty tank and dose copper.. I dont have the money for a heater another filter, and then id have to worry about ammonia build up and all that fun stuff..

What can i do ?? My display tank has corals as well.. and 60 lbs of live rock and a denitrate reactor and stuff.. I read copper will just be absorbed into all this and just screw everything up. and then it can release back into the tank and god damn why isnt there a better cure for this crap..

What should i do ?

 

[FSJGUY]

I could take my coral out put them into a 5 gallon bucket.. but what about my live rock.. should i just take it all out let it dry up disconnect my reactor and just dose the display tank for 30 days or what ?

 

[Uncle99]

Your talking abou a fish diease not something that will damage your corals, rocks and inverts.
Save the fish by taking them out and use some buckets, the TTM method if it's Ick, or Hypo for that matter. If it's brook or velvet, they should die fast, within 48-72 hours, so not much can be done but have a read in the stickies and see what you can save.

Let the DT go fishless for 74 days, then you can restock...

 

[FSJGUY]

Well they havent died so maybe it isnt velvet then and just a bad case of ich. Because he has had it for like a week or so.

I decided to try something different, i took my more expensive corals out like my bubble coral and some of my acroporas and stuff. I left 70% of my other corals in the tank though. But i might have to take them out too, its gonna suck though as they are glued to the rocks.

Anyway i turned the light off and decided to try dosing malachite green/victoria green. Ive used this stuff for fresh water ich and it worked great and i know this is marine ich but it says it works for fresh and marine. I found conflicting results online that it does work and doesnt work. Some articles published by a scientist in 96 or something said it worked for ich and velvet.. Some people on forums say it doesnt and that it kills corals, and some say it didnt hurt their corals.

Anyway since there is no real information on this "seems no one tries malachite ?? " i decided to try it. I dosed for 40 gallons of water its a 55g tank, but with rock and sand and stuff you have to dose for total volume of water. I was also worried about the tank being acrylic as i know this stains plastics and silicone.... Ive been dosing every 8-12 hours with the lights off since it deactivates in light. im on day 3 now, my neon dottyback and coral beauty looks wayyyyy better. Yesturday after only 2 days they were looking better not riddled in ich or velvet or whatever it was in that picture.

Today i only see a spot or two. Im going to do a 25-30% water change here today and dose again. I think ill continue this for 1-2 weeks and see what happens. But so far it seems to be working.

 

[Dmorty217]

Your LFS that quarantines isn't really QTing them unless he is treating them for 30 days before he sells them and even then depending on what meds are being used that may be useless. The only QT you can trust is one that you do yourself.