Tank restart help

[cdc84]

I recently added some fish from someone else's tank into my tank thinking they would be OK as they looked fine and were not from a LFS. Well I'm now fighting what I believe is a velvet outbreak due to how quickly my fish are dieing. I have moved all fish into a QT tank and have started treating them with cupramine in hopes of saving them.

My tank was only 6 months old so I'm going to take the opportunity to empty the DT and start fresh with new dry/live rock and sand and re aquascape the tank as I didnt like how it looked before as I kinda just threw all the rock in.

I need some advice on what to clean the empty tank with to make sure any parasites dont infect anything when I start it backup. I have some ceramic blocks I was thinking about boiling to kill whats on them but the rest I'm not sure about.

Sorry for the long post fist time dealing with something like this I was VERY lucky with my other reef tank and never had a problem like this.

 

[bakbay]

Move ALL fish to QT and go fallow (no fish) for 76 days and you should eradicate the parasites since there will be not hosts for them to attach. No reason to empty the DT, just move the fish out.

You sure it’s velvet or ich? I had velvet last year since the fish body was very slimey (velvet) and you can’t count the white spots. With ich, you can count dots. I’ve treated mine with copper and Hanna copper & ammonia test kits.

Regardless, I lost 20+ fish and only managed to save 3! Ugh

Good luck!

 

[cdc84]

I'm pretty sure its velvet, from the time I see it on the fish to the time they die is 2-3 days and from what I've read velvet kills this fast. Also the fish have rapid breathing which I also read is a tell tale sign its velvet not ICH. But I could be wrong.

I was going to leave the tank fallow but I didn't set the tank up how I should have and see this as the opportunity to do it the right way this time. Im just not sure if just draining the tank and letting it dry out will kill any nasty parasites left.

I just started the cupramine today and have a Seachem copper test kit.

 

[bakbay]

I'm pretty sure its velvet, from the time I see it on the fish to the time they die is 2-3 days and from what I've read velvet kills this fast. Also the fish have rapid breathing which I also read is a tell tale sign its velvet not ICH. But I could be wrong.

I was going to leave the tank fallow but I didn't set the tank up how I should have and see this as the opportunity to do it the right way this time. Im just not sure if just draining the tank and letting it dry out will kill any nasty parasites left.

I just started the cupramine today and have a Seachem copper test kit.

I used CopperSafe + Hanna - seems like that’s what people used to treat sick fish.

@drexel and others may chime in here on best practices.

 

[drexel]

Humblefish is the place to go regarding treating the infected fish. As to the tank, leaving it fallow for a period of time should do the trick. The great thing now is, there's a rapid test that will tell you if you have this disease or parasites. DxAquaria is selling their kits now at a reduced price before the final launch.
https://www.dxaquaria.com/product/m...re-order/?mc_cid=bb891fecc0&mc_eid=d5e74b9839
Generally 6 weeks should clear velvet, but if you go 76 days, then you clear even more parasites (and disease). If there are no issues with your rock now, then I wouldn't go through the whole process of "cleaning" the rock and tank. Going forward, I would buy two of each, 10g tank from petco, 50w heaters, pvc elbows (grey), one air pump with gang valve and plenty of airline tubing. Then you can do the hybrid TTM on any new fish. It takes 13 days minimum to clear a fish. If you don't have the space or time to QT fish yourself, then pay the extra cash for fully QT'd fish, as you see, it's just not worth losing all of your fish on a random fish. I hope the fish pull through, I know it's tough when things like this happen, but use this as a lesson learned and take your time going forward. Best of luck!

 

[Jimbo327]

If you are restarting the DT, then you'll need to cycle the tank again, so going 75 days without fish may not be a problem for you since cycle will take a few weeks already. Going fallow should take care of the nasties in the DT if you don't have any fish, no need for any chemicals to clean tank. I would also raise the temp in the DT when you cycle since that would speed up the reproduction of the nasties, and make them die faster as they cannot find a host to replicate.

And make sure on your QT, that you maintain the copper level throughout the designated QT period like 30 days or whatever time that it will take to treat the disease.

Good luck!