*featured image from https://thefishsite.com/articles/amoebic-gill-disease-due-to-paramoeba-perurans-in-ballan-wrasse
Reefin’ Ain’t Easy, things can and DO happen to all of us. So, a lesson for the year (hopefully): no matter how long you have been in “the hobby,” things can, and eventually, will happen.
We brought in a couple of clams from a trusted source on February 27th, and considering the timing of adding things to this particular tank, as well as what was and has been observed, it was this recent addition that brought the dreaded marine Velvet into this system.
Amyloodinium ocellatum, better known in the hobby as “velvet,” is a nasty parasite that will infect most of your fish within days, leaving little to no survivors. Oftentimes, it can be mistaken for Cryptocaryon irritans, also known as “ich,” and vice versa. A simple way to tell which of these are affecting your eyes is by their appearance. Many people say that if you can count the white spots, it is ich. If the fish appears to be dusty looking, almost like powdered sugar, it is Velvet.
Marine ich – source: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/fish-disease-index-pictorial-guide.199/
The tank was recently set up on January 1st of this year in our bedroom, as a good friend of ours in Montana has retired from the hobby after over 3 decades. We went out to her place and tore down and transported her 190-gallon system, 90-gallon refugium, and the remaining livestock back to our home in Spokane, Washington.
We had an established livestock trough ready for the coral and fish to rest until we got the 190 plumbed and ready. We did not bring along any of the rock, as we had rock and sand still live with heaters and powerheads in 55-gallon drums in our garage from when we moved from Seattle to Spokane back in September from breaking down our 125-gallon SPS dominant system. We are really careful (as well as we could be) with cross-contamination and such, as we have multiple systems throughout our home, but we had slacked on getting a proper quarantine system up and running. Because of this, we were not adding new fish to the system, but finally felt confident in adding aquacultured fish from a reputable vendor who we know well and still love to this day, as well as acquiring a Tridacna squamosa because my partner has always kept clams in her systems.
She scraped quite a few aiptasia and vermetid snails on the shell and placed it in the system. One crucial step she forgot was to give it a freshwater dip, which she has done to every other clam she has ever kept over the last 20 years. Usually, her process consists of reverse osmosis deionized water, warmed up to tank temperature, and then the clam is placed in this for 20 minutes. She started doing this a long time ago to rid the specimen of any possible Pyramidellidae, or “pyramid snails.”
Marine velvet – source: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/fish-disease-index-pictorial-guide.199/
Within 4 days, We had mysteriously lost our Zebrasoma avescens, and our Ctenochaetus strigosus started exhibiting strange behavior, swimming erratically and swimming directly into the powerhead, and our Amphiprion ocellaris seemed to have a compromised mucus coat. I suspected this was Velvet, but I wanted help from a friend who has dealt with the disease in the past, and trying to catch the remaining was not working out in my favor.
Three days after this, the Kole was gone, and our ocellaris was struggling. The following morning, the ocellaris was gone, and our Acanthurus japonicus (powder brown tang) was infected. He made it another day and passed. Our friend Randy immediately came to the house that evening to help me verify the disease, and he installed a Jabao UV sterilizer on the system to help combat the dinospores (free swimming parasites) once he confirmed for me that it was, in fact, Velvet. He had battled this just a couple of years ago, and it was exactly the same as he experienced.
We researched the best options for treatment on humblesh, scoured a few old-school books in our reefer library, and consulted with Amy King of Eel Lady Aquatics, The legendary Boomer William Wing, and a few other knowledgeable reefers for the best way to go about saving these fish and clearing our system of the parasite. We immediately went to work setting up a quarantine and hospital area in our garage, then tore the Reef apart to capture the surviving Zebrasoma scopas, Cryptocentrus cinctus, and Halichoeres leucoxanthus. Each received a 1-minute reverse osmosis deionized dip and a therapeutic formalin bath at 4.75 ml per 36 liters of tank water for 2 hours, then went into hypersalinity at 1.016 for their long quarantine residency.
Once we are done with the hypo salinity treatment in quarantine, we will slowly raise the salinity back up to 1.026 before the fish will be introduced back into the system. The system needs to be less than a suggested minimum of 60 days for the Amyloodinium ocellatum to process through its life cycles and then starve out. We actually chose to go 80 days for good measure.
I have been keeping freshwater aquariums since I was a small child; only recently (around 6-7 years ago) I switched to saltwater. Luckily, I have never dealt with fish disease. My partner has been keeping reef tanks for over 2 decades, and the only thing she has ever dealt with was Cryptocaryon irritans. While we were in our 80-day fallow period, we sent o samples to AquaBiomics for tankDNA analysis to confirm the presence of Amyloodinium ocellatum and PLOT TWIST, it showed no presence of that particular parasite, BUT it did show us something a little different. Paramoeba Pemaquidensis, also known as Amoebic Gill Disease (AGD), is commonly found in Salmonoids and is not really heard of in Ornamentals.
At this juncture, we went back to the drawing board looking for more info on this strange parasite while continuing our fallow period and hypo salinity on the remaining fish. The information was quite lacking as it has not been observed and studied within the hobby. We did learn ways that Salmon farms deal with it through prolonged freshwater exposure, but that was not feasible for treatment in a closed system teaming with sensitive marine life. We, at this point, followed our fallow period, kept all the fish in quarantine, and waited it out with the oversized UV running 24/7 the entire time.
Quarantine tank example – read here
After 45 days of running fallow, we sent another sample to AquaBiomics, and we then received the results at around the 90-day mark of the fallow period. This set of results showed zero parasites in the system, so we felt confident in reintroducing the now recovered fish in QT as well as some new fish we acquired and ran through a full quarantine process. At this point, it seemed that the standard treatment for Amyloodinium ocellatum actually helped rid the system of the Paramoeba Pemaquidensis.
So, lessons learned: Having the proper items to utilize in case of things like this is the key to saving livestock. Spare aquariums or bins to use as quarantine and hospital systems, extra heaters, pumps, and air stones; we also like to keep things like formalin, ruby reef rally pro, methylene blue, nitrofurazone, chloroquine phosphate, and malachite green in case we need to treat any fish.
Having knowledgeable sources like friends to ask for advice is always helpful, as well as utilizing trusted online forums that offer a wealth of knowledge to search through for your specific needs. All of our other systems were great and were not compromised; the infected tank is nowhere near any other system (in fact, not even on the same floor of the house), so luckily, all other livestock continue to be happy and healthy and not at risk.
We must always use humor in any situation, so now, the joke that will live on is that my partner brought home a dirty clam and infected our tank with a “rare parasite.” Use protection folks, quarantine, dip, and inspect ALL livestock. If you cannot quarantine, purchase from true quarantine vendors. There are quite a few really amazing ones out there who really care about the health of the livestock over anything else.
References:
- Humble.fish Online Forum Aquariology; Fish Diseases and Water Chemistry (Copyright 1992)
- Applications For Hyposalinty Therapy; The Benefits Of Salinity Manipulation for Marine Fish By Terry D. Bartelme Published June 2007,
- Advanced Aquarist’s Online Magazine (A Reef.org publication) https://sheries.tamu.edu/les/2013/09/SRAC-Publication-No.-4705- Amyloodinium-ocellatum-an-Important-Parasite-of-Cultured-MarineFish.pdf https://fisheries.tamu.edu/files/2013/09/Use-of-Formalin-to-ControlFish-Parasites.pdf
About the author:
Tami Rose, also known as Trucker Tami, has been keeping freshwater tanks her entire life, switching fully to saltwater and reefs in 2017. She was a truck driver for 20 years and started her journey into reef keeping while living in Florida. She now resides in Eastern Washington. She loves going to many trade shows and checks out every LFS along the way. She also spends her time offering advice and help to many hobbyists, new and old and has helped many with various hobby-related issues.
