Brad, draining the tank of water may be the easiest way to go especially if you have someone else who can see where the fish are hiding and maybe gently keep the fish from going behind the rocks. I managed to catch all my fish including 2 neon gobies out of my fully stocked 175g that way without moving any rocks or corals

Here's a link to my old thread about MV nasty stuff. http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=51938 I have pic's maybe a video of what it looks like in the final stages.

FYI some fish are immune to MV and even if one fish is left in the display and doesn't show signs of MV it can be a carrier of MV and when you reintroduce the fish you were able to treat they could catch it again. It took 2-3 weeks before signs were noticeable in my tank. I also didn't want to tear down and catch everything at first and lost a lot of fish I probably could of saved if I had acted quicker :sad:

Here's a link to my photobucket MV pic's and video http://s261.photobucket.com/albums/i...rie_Morin/BRA/

I thought it was ick, treated tank with reef-safe herbal ick medication and then it turned out it was MV and lost thousands in fish. All our favourites, including Poofie the Porcupine puffer, 2 Purple tangs etc. etc. Know for a fact that my ordeal and TomR's started with Atlantic Blue tangs.

not sure I have 180g of containers, but good idea.

Thanks Laurie. I googled velvet last night and it brought up your thread, I read it last night.
I think the drain tank idea might work if I can find enough storage....

Oh crap Brad this is terrible to read about. I understand you not wanting to rip that reef apart since it's been a raging success since startup meaning a lot of rocks are now one.

Reading this has convinved me now that a qt tank is a must. Good luck I hope you save most of them :cry:

That sucks, hope it all works out for you.
Never having had MV sorry I can't offer any advice.

Quarantine works best with new fish before adding them to the display tank and using an already set up and fully cycled QT. If you have to set up a new QT, then you will be dealing with cycle problems/risk, which will just cause more stress to your fish. And not to mention the stress of catching them and tearing apart your display tank.

So your best option at this point is probably to just feed them well, garlic, selcon, etc, and maybe try some reef safe remedies that others say have worked. And hope that your fishes' immune system kicks in and fights off the ick or velvet. Hopefully you have ick, not velvet. You may lose the new fish and the weaker ones, but hopefully your stronger long term fish will survive.

I learned my lesson with not QTing a year and half ago, and now use a QT for 2 months (hyposalinity) on any new fish. Have done that twice now, with total success.

The good news, though, when I did have my ich outbreak, is that I did not lose any of my long time fish, only the new fish that I had added. What happened, is that the new fish showed the ick symptoms, and some of the long time residents got it too. The tank went through a couple 4 or 5 day iterations, where it seemed the ick would subside, then come back. The new fish got it real bad just with the 2nd iteration, and died. But the long time residents were still eating well, and didn't seem to have it as bad. They got better, and subsequent iterations showed fewer symptoms until the ick finally disappeared altogether (took about a month or so).

My theory is that the long time residents had an immune response and were better able to fight off the subsequent iterations of the disease. And when the new fish died, the disease didn't have easy to affect hosts to keep the cycle going.

I know the tank is ick free now, because I have since added new fish several times after quarantining them, with no recurrence of the disease. I should mention that I had a wait time of over 6 months before adding new fish to the display tank after my initial episode.

If your tank is 180g, it would be a lot less in saltwater if you count for the rock and coral volume. Hope everything works out...

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Ya, but with sump, it goes back up to 180. But, I might have enough. My frag tank is 90 and I have 90 sump outside. Hopefully it holds water :)