Marine Velvet Disease: Symptoms, Treatment, and Prevention

williet

Look at the shiny LEDs!!!
Joined
29 Nov 2010
Posts
1,181
Reaction score
26
Location
Amanzimtoti
Hi Guys,
My fish got hit by velvet.... I was diagnosing it as W/S and well I was wrong.. Amazing thing is my fish have lived with it for a week before it became lethal.. Got some Chloroquin which I will dose tonight and hopefully rescue the rest of my livestock. It was a bad time for me last night... :dft004:

I thought to include this to help others as it did me.​
Marine Velvet Disease: Symptoms, Treatment, and Prevention
Veterinary & Aquatic Services Department, Drs. Foster & Smith

Marine velvet disease is one of the most common diseases that affects marine aquarium fish. It is known by a variety of names including; amyloodiniosis, marine oodinium disease, oodiniosis, and gold dust disease. The scientific name of the infecting organism is Amyloodinium ocellatum. Amyloodinium is a one-celled organism called a dinoflagellate because it has whip-like structures (flagella) which help it move. It is highly adapted to parasitism. There are many free-living dinoflagellates present in most aquatic environments, but this particular species is one of the few that will actually cause disease in fish. This disease is widespread and can cause serious illness and death in aquarium fish if not recognized and treated quickly and properly. This article will give a description of the disease and offer treatment and prevention strategies....
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If you're going to use chloroquine phosphate you cant use it in a tank with corals or crustaceans. Where did you get the chloroquine?
 
Hi

They are in a bucket at the moment. I will be getting it from the pharmacy !

Good to go to the same pharmacy for the last ten years;)
 
Do you know what dosage to use?
 
Good morning.

I am sorry to hear of your dilema. I rate Amyloodinium ocellatum as one of the most aggressive parasitoids that I have encountered in my career! If your fish was infected while in your main tank setup, you will have an established population. What makes these little dynoflagellates so successful is that they are of the few parasites (known actually as parasitoids in this sense) that can survive if they kill the host and "shift up a gear" when this happens. Once a host fish dies, the trophonts withdraw their rhizoids almost immediately and abandon ship. Within hours they encyst and undergo the next stage of the life-cycle and even small trophons can do this! Temperature plays a significant role in their pathogenicity and virulence and a low-grade infection can quickly escalate within days with the potential to wipe out a population of fishes.

Keep a very close eye on your other fishes. It is highly likely that you will have a transfer of infection to them within two weeks if they had been in contact (indirect or direct) with the infected individual.

If you do suspect that your other fishes may be infected, I would go so far as to say remove them all to a separate treatment tank and treat them with a copper-based product, allowing your main tank to lay fallow for at least a month (this is because of your invertebrates in the tank that are intollerant of treatment). Removing all the susceptible individuals will break the life-cycle because the dynospores when they hatch can only remain alive for a few hours to locate a new host to infect. If all these hosts are removed then the life-cycle cannot be completed.

Note well though that the favoured site for A. ocellatum is the gills. As much as they also infect the skin and fins and eyes (and the intestine sometime too), one of the first signs of infection will be laboured beathing and sunken-in eyes.

I wish you the best with this. It is not pleasant.

David
 
Thanks David !

One thing to note it that I notice the more light applied to the QT area the more active and infectious the parasite becomes. From what I have read is that it is more plant like due to the chloroform contained within them that they live off aswell !

It seems ok.. My Bean and 6 line Wrasse died but my purple tang recovered after lying upsidedown in the tank looking like it was going to die.

What I did to recover the situation.
Fresh water bath for the brown powder tang as it was in a bad way !!!
Darkness (Light is the enemy with this disease)
30degrees water temp
New water at same salinity(Hypo) in bucket
Herbtana at night (to help immune system and minimise infection)
Artemis in the morning (To prevent infection on damaged tissue)

Note these products Don't kill them, The assist in the healing process quite effectively.

Tonight new bucket Chloroquinine(Parasite killer) and Herbtana and tomorrow artemis.

I will be doing the bucket transfer method for another 4 rounds as I believe this is the worst disease ever and I am taking NO Chances!!!!
 
@williet - please edit your first post and provide a link back to the original article, thanks. :)
 
Last edited:
Hi Williet

Good luck with your treatments. Light probably does influence the dynospores to some degree. Keep an eye out for re-infections in two weeks because the tomont cysts are resistant to treatments.

Regards

David
 
Hi David

That is true Tomonts are resistant, but if I do the bucket transfer method, I eliminate that risk ?
 
Hi Williet

Not really. The bucket is giving some relief to the hosts by treating the trophonts. The tomonts left behind in the main system will still be able to produce dynospores that can re-infect host fishes again.

Regards

David
 
Hi David

Yes I agree :thumbup:. I have decided to Fallow my tank until 16th of June it has been since 1May. This will allow for ANY parasite to properly meet it maker !:p
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hey gman

It looks like flexibacter or some other bacterial infection!
David?
 
Last edited:
Hi Gman

Excuse my late reply. I have only returned to the forum this evening. I reviewed your older post with the images. The skin damage may be the result of physical damage which may have become secondarily infected. To identify the bacteria one needs to send a swab for an antibiogram. In your case it was not severe and I am glad the fish made a full recovery.

A pleasant weekend to everyone.

Regards

David
 
Hi David

Yes I agree :thumbup:. I have decided to Fallow my tank until 16th of June it has been since 1May. This will allow for ANY parasite to properly meet it maker !:p

28 days usually stops the cycle in it's tracks without fish host so it should clear your tank good and proper
 
Good morning everyone

I did some interesting research a few years ago on Amyloodinium ocellatum and managed to dig the data up. I looked at tomont division and time to dynospore release at different temperatures (replicates in vitro at 15, 18, 20, 22, 24 and 26 Degrees Celsius). I was interested to answer the question of how the captive ecology affects the life-cycle with a specific emphasis on the role of temperature in re-infection.

Here are some basic figures which you may find interesting:

7 tomont stages were documented. Tomonts released dynospores as follows: at 15 Deg C = from 248-304 hours; 18 Deg C = 112-164 hours; at 20 Deg C = 84-116 hours; at 22 Deg C = 72-88 hours; at 24 Deg C = 72-80 hours; at 26 Deg C = 72 hours.

From this you can see how efficient these organisms are at re-infection. scary!

Regards

David
 
Last edited:
Now this is the stuff you do not get on the internet !!!!:thumbup:

Good Stuff David! Do you recommend any good books ?

Just to let you guys know I think I am out of the woods. I have been doing the bucket transfer(Temp 30deg in complete darkness) and before each transfer I would do a PH and temp adjusted RO bath. The first round was insane ! You should have seen the amount of white slime that dislogged from them!!!!! It looked nasty!!!!
 
Hi williet

I am more a fan of scientific papers than books on the subjects really. Books tend to become out-dated while papers are always current, improved upon and cited by others. I do have a few books though that I have found interesting. Two of these are books by a colleague in the UK, Dr. Graham Kearn: Leeches, Lice and Lampreys - A Natural History of Skin and Gill Parasites of Fishes (Springer) and Parasitism and the Platyhelminths (Chapman & Hall). A book of general interest is also Bob Goemans and Lance Ichinotsubo's book: The Marine Fish Health and Feeding Handbook, which I assisted with a few years back.

Regards

David
 
Back
Top Bottom