wierd disease

[AdmiralBenbo]

HELP!!! I just lost a yellow tang this morning, when I turned on the lights on the quarantine tank this morning I noticed that he was covered in red blotches, particularly on his mouth and dorsal fin, he was also breathing very heavily. Fortunately I have access to a microscope so I took a couple of samples and had a look- there were heaps of little protozoa-thingys wriggling around (they looked a lot like freshwater velvet) but I couldn't identify them in my books. Water conditions were good, no ammonia etc..
I gave him a freshwater bath straight away and proceeded with a course of copper treatment but he was dead this afternoon, so whatever it was was extremely virulent.
He was in the tank all by himself so I am not worried about the disease spreading, but I am shocked at how quickly he died. I am also a little concerned about how long the little parasite can survive in the aquarium without a host. I would hate to begin quarantining only to lose another fish in this manner.

My questions are these:
What is this disease called?
Has anyone else encountered it in their tanks?
Is there a treatment for it?
Short of stripping out my quarantine tank is there any way that I can steralize it?

I would appreciate any ideas from anyone.
The Admiral

[Alice]

I'm sorry to hear of the loss of your fish. I'm not sure on this one, I'll let people more versed in disease give you their ideas.

As far as the Q tank is concerned, ideally, they are set up in such a way (bare bottom, no porous surfaces-rock, hiding places, ect) that they can be completely torn down after this kind of thing happens. The most useful item for this is a sponge filter, it looks like a foam doughnut that goes on the end of a bubbler. You can keep a couple of these in the sump of your main tank so they can harbor the needed bacteria and be ready to plop into a Q-tank on short notice. With whatever type of nasty your tang had, I wouldn't put any other fish in there any time soon. The ich parasites can live without a host for a very long time due to their life cycle, 72 days is the fail-safe zone for them, I'm not sure about other diseases/parasites.

HTH,

Alice

[Spanky]

Admiral,

Sounds like you're describing Brook and/or marine velvet depending on how you collected your sample.

Copper takes too long to work, Try a formalin M. Green combo bath and/or dip. For a dip you can go stronger.

If you raise the temp of the tank to 82-85, it will take about 4-5 weeks for them to play out.

HTH
Jerel

[AdmiralBenbo]

Jerel, you said FMG might help, what is the dosage for salt water? I used to use 2ml per 100L in my freshwater tanks as an anti parasitic treatment but had no idea that it could be used for salt water too.

[Spanky]

Did you use the old "Quick cure"? If so, it's one drop to the gallon in a isolation tank, of course not in the reef tank.
It's actually better than copper.

Jerel