Treating Velvet?

[Tom R]

About 15 months ago I got what at first I thought was Ich, it was in fact Marine Velvet.

I had not introduced any new fish into my tanks for months prior to this so I am not sure where it came from.

Looking back on this I am still amazed at just how fast it wiped out my fish population. I did not have the ability to set up an isolation tank nor as it turned out did I have the time. I lost 80% of my fish population in 10 days.

After a long discussion with J&L I decided to treat my mixed reef tanks with PROTO MARIN.

All in all it did not cause any problems with my Corals other than a few if them slimmed up.

Of the fish I had left (mostly Tangs and Damsels) any that were showing symptoms of velvet cleared up within a few days.

I am not sure that the PROTO MARIN cleaned up the Velvet or whether the Velvet had just not effected those fish that survived never showed any symptoms of Velvet at all.

I was now faced with the same problem that you are in. Were the remaining fish carriers or were they cured by the PROTO MARIN.

I decided that rather than breaking down my system and rebuilding it (I would likely loosing the majority of my corals) I would let the system run without adding any new fish for 6 months and if the Velvet did not repeat itself I would add some fish after that.

I have since added a few new fish mostly Tangs without any problems. I never lost one coral in this whole ordeal.

Good luck with your decision.

Tom R