Velvet/oodinium/brooklynella/etc.

[Still_human]

While treating oodinium(velvet?), or brooklynella, I'm not 100% sure which, luckily it doesn't matter for treatment, do the white spots show up again, through out treatment? I've never dealt with this stuff before. Every few days or so, I'll see a few white spots on someone, and i thought the treatment was supposed to interrupt the process, keeping them from reaching that stage, meaning my copper levels should be higher. They're already supposedly sufficiently high, so it's making me wonder if it's just not working, or if the parasites continue going through the stages, at least for a time. Does anyone have experience treating these jerks, and can give me an idea of what I'm seeing going on/what to expect/signs of successful and/or unsuccessful care?

[Still_human]

...has anyone successfully dealt with these before?

[Origami]

Maybe monkiboy will weigh in. Or others.

 

Velvet in saltwater fish attacks the gills first, showing up on the skin later. Brooklynella does the same thing. It can spread from the gills to the body without becoming exposed to the water column, when they are vulnerable to treatment. So it's possible that the spots that you're seeing are just the disease spreading through its treatment-resistant phase. The lifecycle can be slowed at lower temperatures, but the little that I've read on the subject doesn't say how long this resistant phase can last. In most normal cases, this seems to be less than a week. But if you're tank is at a lower-than-normal temperature, then it might be longer. When velvet shows up on the body, it's normally too late and the fish dies within days. 

[WheresTheReef]

Correct identification is key, but can be difficult. Your statement about treatment is incorrect. Copper isn't typically effective against brooklynella. It is with velvet and ich. Have you verified your copper levels are at therapeutic levels? Do you maintain this levels even during water changes? Copper is most effective in the free swimming phase of the parasite cycle and helps keep fish from being reinfected.

 

Do some research on brook. Here is some useful info https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brooklynella.247938/ . If you plan to switch treatment I would use carbon to remove the copper first.

[Still_human]

Yeah, that's exactly how it was for my other 3 fish that DIDNT make it! Oddly though, my hippo had it as bad as any others, and was among the first to be covered in spots, but while the other first 3 died, the hippo is among the ones that survived and is doing great again...just showing 1 or 2 spots every couple days.

Really? Everything ive found, many places, says that sometimes you can't even tell the difference between the 2, unless you start seeing the white patches/coating with velvet, but luckily" copper is generally one of the best truly effective treatment(medicinal) for both(among a few other things, that are also effective for both). If that's not actually true, than I just got lucky and got the copper-effective one!

Yeah, I'm as careful as one can be with the levels, given the seachem kit. That's why I made this thread, cause I seem to be at the proper levels, but still occasionally see spots. Clearly the treatment is working wonders, but I don't want to just suppress it, I wanna murder it! Never dealing with brook or oodi, I don't know if that's normal or not. If that ISNT normal, then I'll have to make some changes, but obviously I don't want to change a thing if the treatment is going ...swimmingly.

Edited April 6, 2018 by Still_human

[marinap]

Brook usually kills very fast, most fish die in 3-5 days if not treated with formalin. There is this distinctive white sheen on the body, flared gills, swimming at 45 degrees. Velvet is also a fast killer. You will see fine white dust on the bottom of a container after fw dip, if infestation is high enough.

 

I would switch to tank transfer method in combination with copper, if your fish get re-infected with ich. Take close up high resolution pictures of the infected fish and post it here for ID.

[Still_human]

None of the fish, including both those that live and those poor guys that didn't, ever had ANY signs of the white coating part of velvet EXCEPT the bicolor angelfish, alone. He had it very clearly, but both the spots on everyone and the whiteish film on the bicolor disappeared at the same time after copper treatment, and the film has not shown any signs of itself since, like the occasional couple spots on just the butterfly fish and hippo that briefly appear for a day, every now and then, although seemingly not for a little bit now. The bicolor got a fungus patch on the side of his mouth, but pimafix shrunk that away over 4 or 5 days. Ill definitely take a picture of any spots if the return. Overall I'm pretty happy with how the treatment is going. The hippo doesn't even follow the angel around to be cleaned anymore, so his skin must be feeling all better.

 

The "tank transfer method"...is that when u continually switch to a clean tank every 48hours to be 100% sure there can't be anymore parasites? That sounds awesome and I'd love to do that, but I just don't have the room at the moment, to set up 2 more decent size tanks.

Brook usually kills very fast, most fish die in 3-5 days if not treated with formalin. There is this distinctive white sheen on the body, flared gills, swimming at 45 degrees. Velvet is also a fast killer. You will see fine white dust on the bottom of a container after fw dip, if infestation is high enough.

 

I would switch to tank transfer method in combination with copper, if your fish get re-infected with ich. Take close up high resolution pictures of the infected fish and post it here for ID.