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Ben's 120


Ben A

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Well, it was bound to happen, I have marine velvet in my tank. Not sure who brought it in, but now I have it. So I figured, it was a good time to do a build thread, as I am now tearing all the rock and coral out to catch all the fish and move them to quarantine. I will be taking a few picks of the tank before I start taking out the rock. I believe I have to quarantine the fish for 9 weeks to make sure the velvet dies out. To make extra sure, and to kill ich at the same time, I will be leaving the tank fallow for 10 weeks. I will be posting picks of my current setup later tonight.

 

Ben A.

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So I took 2 quick photos of the tank to upload. As of right now my stock list is:

 

- Yellow Tang

- Scribbled Rabbitfish

- Pygmy Angel

- Yellow Corris Wrasse

- X-mass Wrasse

- Cleaner Wrasse

- Scarlett Wrasse

- 2 Ruby Head Solon Wrasse (Both Female ATM)

- Male McCoskers Wrasse

- Cleaner goby

- 2 Red Firefish

- B&W Clown (Female)

- Lawnmower Blenny

- Red Hawkfish

- Black Neon Dottyback (MIA)

- Male Exquisite Wrasse (MIA)

 

 

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Good luck on treatment!  That's an impressive stock list you have.

Thank you, nothing terribly expensive, but a lot of movement and color.

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I would go fallow for as long as you possibly can. Good luck with the treatment, what is your plan of action in terms of medicine? What size tank are you using for QT? If you can, you should document as much of your experience as possible, will be helpful for others in the future.

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Medication with be Cupramine by SeaChem. I have had great luck with this in the past on both gobies and dwarf angels. I will have 2 systems set up, a 40 gallon breeder with air pump and HOB filter. The second system will be a 40 gallon rubbermaid with some sacrificial LR and a powerhead. I will Document dosing levels and observations here in this thread.

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Good luck with the treatment. I used cupramine to treat when I had velvet as well. Worked really well. 

 

That's an awful lot of fish for a 120 no? 

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The fish are now all in QT. I changed the rock work to give me more sand bed and have a more open look to it. The picture is murky, so will get a new pic tomorrow when things settle down.

 

Good luck with the treatment. I used cupramine to treat when I had velvet as well. Worked really well. 

 

That's an awful lot of fish for a 120 no? 

 

It may look like a lot of fish, but many of them stay small. As the tang and Rabbit fish get bigger, Tang is about 3" and rabbit fish 4", I will have to find them new homes. As of right now I have not had any trouble with filtration, just a 10% water change every week instead of every 2. At the end of all this, I may have a lot fewer fish anyway.

 

I found the Exquisite Wrasse alive, not sure if he will make it. My clown is showing signs of Velvet as well. I did not find the Dottyback, which is a shame because it was a very good community fish.

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I know I'm a little far from you, but I also have stuff leftover from my QT if you need to borrow it, heaters, HOB filters, nets, etc.

 

Good job on starting the process. How are the fish doing, no losses yet?

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I am good on equipment, but thanks for the offer. I haven't lost anything yet, but the exquisite wrasse is still looking bad. They are being treated so he may pull through.

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hi ben, this will be a great thread to follow for folks in the need of some detailed information.

 

can you post some photos of what you think are the symptoms on your fish of marine velvet? what changed or additions did you make that could have brought the MV in? how much time passed between seeing symptoms and treatment in their hospital tanks?

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Picks of the fish are going to be very hard, but in the future if I see symptoms that I can photograph I will. The Exquisite Fairy Wrasse did not survive the day. I figured he would not make it between his already advanced stage and the stress of moving him.

 

The MV came in on a tang that I bought last week. The tang was being held in a tank with copper treatment, so I took a chance and did not QT. As you can see, that was very dumb and costly. Within 48 hours, the tang went from looking extremely healthy, to dead. The first symptom was his slime coat pealing off the fish. I had not seen this before, but it was not much longer that I could see the gold/velvet specs on his body. I had ich in the tank, which was under control and not in any danger of killing any fish, so when the fish first started showing signs of illness, I figured it was ich from the stress of putting him in the DT.  Once the velvet started to showed, it was to late, he passed that night. Not sure of exactly what I was going to do I waited a couple days... which was a huge mistake. Within 24 hours of the tang dying, one of my 2 cleaner gobies and my neon black dottyback started showing symptoms. It was 24 hours between symptoms and death for the goby, and about a 1.5 days for the dottyback to dissapear. That was when I decided to tear the rock out and hospitalize everyone.

 

The day I moved all the fish, my clown started to show symptoms. I am happy to say that as of right now, the copper seems to have reversed the MV. Her condition was not advanced, so I think I caught it early. No other fish show any signs of MV at this point.

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Oh, and since this is becoming a thread of what never to do; last night after moving the fish I topped of my tank with saltwater that had not been mixed very well or in advance. The salt has burned small parts of a good number of frags, and seems to have really hit my Elegance and Fungia hard. The Fugia is probably gone as it is almost completely skeletal, and the Elegance has retracted and doesn't look good at all. My hope is that the Elegance recovers, but note to self:

 

Always mix salt 48 hours in advance!

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Copper readout today is 0.3mg/L, which is the concentration I have always used. It gives me a little breathing room before it gets to a truly deadly concentration. It also seems to not affect the gobies and dwarf angel at that level, while still killing ich and MV. The clown seems to have made a complete recovery as of this morning and no fish are missing or showing any symptoms of MV.

It does seem as though that my luck has changed a bit. This morning I found my Yellow Corris Wrasse in the 10 gallon tank that I was using to make SW sitting below my QT tank. It had somehow jumped through the plastic light diffusor lid and luckily into the 10 gallon tank.

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(edited)

Working on a new Fish list since I now have all the fish out of the tank. Let me know what you think:

 

Scribbled Rabbitfish
2 Red Head Solon Wrasses
2 Flame Wrasses
2 McCoskers Wrasses
Yellow Coris Wrasse
Scarlett Wrasse
X-Mass Wrasse
Lawnmower Blenny
B/W Oc. Clown
Pygmy Angel

-13 Fish

 

I have considered keeping the yellow tang instead or the rabbitfish, or selling the yellow and Rabbitfish  and getting a powder blue tang?

Edited by Ben A
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  • 6 months later...

I am good on equipment, but thanks for the offer. I haven't lost anything yet, but the exquisite wrasse is still looking bad. They are being treated so he may pull through.

Wow, I guess I better update this thread... its only been 7 months.

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  • 3 months later...
(edited)

Long time since Ive done anything with this thread, so I guess I will start with my equipment list.

 

Lighting: 8 Bulb ATI Power Module (Bought used from Monkiboy, best light I've owned... and I've had everything from LED to MH)

Controller: Apex

ATO: AutoTopOff.com single switch ATO ( Hard to beat for the price)

Retun Pump: Mag 12

 

Sump: ADHI Model 45 Refugium

 

image

(*Media reactor on the left, middle section will house a pair of Bali Picasso Clowns (Thanks Mattijay), blueline 55HD skimmer feed pump to the right, and Apex on inside of stand)

 

Skimmer: BashSea Twisted Skimmer 6x30 with a blueline 55HD feed pump

 

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(*And yes that is a Large Chipotle Cup next to the skimmer in the first pic)
 
 

Media Reactor: Aqua FX Small Reactor (Very well made)

 

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Edited by Ben A
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