Brown jelly affecting SPS

[grevedin]

Eric,

I have recently had a very similar "brown jelly" incident in my tank as described in this old post in your forum:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=62975

The picture posted by Tderasa shows exactly the type of mucus mass which I experienced, and which expanded over the colonies and wiped out several montipora capricornis colonies as well as a humilis colony.

Do you have any suggestion on how to treat the infected corals (chloramphenicol perhaps?). I have already tried various cures with no success:

1. Lugols dips

2. Fragging (didn't help - healthy frags taken far away from infected area developed the same problems a day later and died).

3. Doxycyclin Bath for 24hrs

Regards,
Giovanni

[EricHugo]

That didn't look like brown jelly - is the skeleton white where the "stuff" comes off? You can't frag and put them back in the same tank - I'd set up quarantine immediately and isolate the fragments - and, some photos if possible. The lack of effectiveness of antibiotic doesn;t surprise me at all. If the AB's didn't make a difference, its probably not bacterial - as is all too often the case, despite these persistent notions of bacterial pathogens present and slaying corals all the time and perpetuated by many authorities.

Can we get some more history of the tank and the first affected coral, too?

[grevedin]

Eric,

Sorry for the late reply, but I had problems with internet access the last few days.

To give you more details on what happened here they are:

It started about 10 days ago with a green monticap showing a jelly type mucus expanding over the coral and the tissue receding/dying and turning white where the mucus had passed.
The first 2 days the disease spread about 1/4 of an inch/day. Then the 3rd day, half of the coral was covered with this mucus/jelly.

I tried fragging to save a few pieces, but it was too late.

The disease then spread to another monticap colony showing same symptoms.

At the same time a humilis colony started displaying RTN type symptoms (without the jelly), with tissue loss on a couple of tips of braches, and not the base as usually occurs.

Similar RTN type symptom also showed up on a pocuillipora colony, where a little bit of tissue had receded in the midle of a couple of branches. Somehow, the recession seemed contained and did not spread and the rest of the colony seemed fine.

I then tried treating all affected colonies in a separate container with antibiotics - Doxycyclin - but it did not work. All colonies perished a day later.

Here are tank water parameters, at the time the disease showed up, and everything had been running fine for quite some time:

Salinity: 1023
PH: 7.90 at night; 8.24 daytime
Temp: 80 F
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
dKH: 7.9
Calcium: 430
Magnesium: 1050
Iodine: 0.04

The only event I can think of that triggered the outbreak is the following:

I added a second calcium reactor chamber a few days before the symptoms started appearing, and the water got clouded for a couple of hours due to the new reactor media (Knop Koralith). Could that heavy sedimentation have caused a stress to the corals, and hence the infection?

Furthermore, after reading several books at length, especially your book on corals, the Mucus/Jelly on my corals seemed to fit best the "Brown Jelly" description in your book.

Unfortunately I have no pictures to show as I have lost the 5 colonies and had to dispose of them.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[EricHugo]

That's a shame...if the water clouded, it might not have just been the sedimentation but a drop in O2 or redox, too, that could have started it, but yes, that fine silt tends to be trouble sometimes. Corals however should be able to clear it off. Do you think the jelly could have been a cyanobacteria? Some of these can be very gelatinous and they like silty sediments. As to the shut down reaction in the others, this could be triggered by the other dying corals...not sure. I sure wish I had a sample and some photos to work with here to see what the tank looks like in general.

[grevedin]

Hi Eric,

Perhaps it could have been Cynobacteria. Any remedies/medication which would work?

On another note, as I mentioned in my PM, I have noticed that another one of my colonies has developed RTN. I managed to get hold of some Chloramphenicol through my vet, and I am ready to start treatment. However, as you may know, you cannot get "everclear" drinkable alcohol in liquor stores here in NY which is necessary to dissolve the antibiotic before putting it into the treatment tank.

The only alcohol available is de-natured etahnol (poisonous for consumption) or spirits (i.e vodka). Which of the two, if any, would be best to use to dissolve the chloramphenicol?

I am planning to follow the guidelines set out by Craig Bingman in his 1997 article to treat RTN http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/c_bingman_040697.html
which are very similar to the ones spelled out in your Corals book.



regards,
Giovanni

[EricHugo]

I have your pm and wil respond shortly