Velvet outbreak!

[paku]

I have a serious velvet outbreak in my newer 10g. My Betta has suffered the most and I think he must have been infected when I bought him. Now the other tank mates are infected, I can see it on my black swordtails and I can kinda see it on a couple neons.

So my treatment so far:
-50% water change with a dose of bio-spira / Amuquel / Conditioner. Just to help cycle the new water.
-I bought some Mardel Coppersafe for the velvet. However it just says to dose with 1tsp per 4g and it treats the water for a month. It doesnt give me any kind of regement to follow.
-I have read online to turn up the heat and turn off the lights for a bout a week.
-I also added 1 tbs per 5g of aquarium salt to help.

My Betta is in horrible shape. I just cought this today and he must have been infected for atleast 3 days according to the life cycle of the bacteria that cause velvet. Does anyone have anymore suggestions?

Mardel Coppersafe contains: Chelated Copper Sulfate.

~One of my Black Swordtail with Velvet infection~

 

[TheZoo]

Its not a good idea to treat with both meds and salt. Pick one or the other... Make sure you take out any carbon in your filter. Heres something I found:

with velvet, like ich, the parasite is encysted on the fish and can only be killed in freeswimming stage. Salt baths will not work for either. From the research I have done it seems that salt in the water column may help kill it off but is not a surefire treatment. formalin and malechite green will do fairly well, but velvet is tough enough to need a couple of rounds. As far as the freeswimmers, If I understand correctly, velvet is a photosynthesizing parasite, and can survive for a pretty good spell if given light even when no fish are present. With this in mind, even an empty tank can support it for several weeks. Blackouts are highly reccomended in conjunction with the other treatments. I know this is an issue with plants, but from everything I've read it is almost a must with Velvet. UI don't know haow fast it will die without light, and without a host fish but I'm sure it is pretty rapid as no parasite can live long without food.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/printthread.php?t=55387

Youre sure its velvet and not ich?

 

[paku]

Its not a good idea to treat with both meds and salt.

I disagree; the salts help out with the labored breathing, not so much as a cure for velvet. As for your quoted post, I disagree allot with that also. Velvet is treated best with Copper Sulfate, M.Green is more for ich. Raising the temp in your tank will speed up the growth cycle killing them faster when they get out of the "cyst" form. And yes that is Velvet in the pic... Not a white dotted Ich.

 

[jessa10]

I treated velvet with maracide by mardel. I was treating tiger barbs and it was all cleared up within about a week. If you have live plants they will be fine with maracide but the coppersafe you mentioned with kill the plants. Also, if you are going to use the coppersafe, you only replace the copper in new water (at water changes).

 

[sarcare]

I'm dealing with a velvet problem myself--and I believe the advice is also to keep the tank blacked out to reduce stress and because the parisite is photosynthetic. So plants might not me too happy with that--but they can be qt'd. That is what my plants are doing. I also dosed them with Maricide--and have put in an airstone.

 

[liv2padl]

the disease known commonly as "velvet" is caused by a parasitic dinoflagellate that is variable in size, as the variants differ somewhat in their measurements. Other forms that cause very similar signs are Oodinium limneticum & Oodinium vastotor. They can measure in some instances more than 100 microns. Though more typical sizes are 50-70 microns.

both the free swimming flagellated stage as well as the parasitic stage when attached to the fish, contains a form of chlorophyll which gives the parasite its typical gold or rust colour. while certain stages of the parasite are able to use the process of photosynthesis to obtain food, the parasitic form obtains almost all of its nourishment at the expense of the host. this causes tremendous damage which leads to death once the fish is heavily parasitized. On the fish the dinoflagellate form grows in size about 5-6 times, before falling off and replicating itself in the free swimming form.

The treatment of choice is an Acriflavine drug. i believe Fish-Vet makes a combination drug called Revive, and Jungle's Ick Guard contains Acriflaven as well. you can make up your own Acriflavine and if you choose to handle it this way, you should obtain the neutral form & use it at 3mg of the Acriflavine in a stock solution of 330 ml. Then use this stock solution at 8 ml to treat 1 US Gal or 3.8 litres. as with all medications, remove any carbon you may be using in your filter ... and replace it after the treatment period is completed to remove the green cast left in the water.

DO NOT elevate the temperature of your tank above it's current setting ... this is extremely stressful to fish already in a weakened condition. this is an extremely infectious disease so if you have other fish in the tank, regardless of whether or not they show symptoms, all fish in the tank need to be treated.

 

[Web Gazelle]

For velvet and other external parasites I use one medication, General Cure from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals. This stuff treats a wide range of external parasites and works miracles.