Possible leather infection? Help

medic29 · #1 04/12/2007, 08:46 AM

Good morning.

I've got a mystery I need some help with. I've had 2 separate soft corals suffer the same fait that the cause is a mystery currently and I need some help solving it.

It didn't happen to them at the same time either. It happened to one. Then a couple of months later, the other suffered the same, or at least a very similar problem. I'll post some pics showing what happened.

Below are a couple of pics of when my colt coral was doing really well.

Then here is a couple of pics showing what it looked like a couple of months later. Now to be specific, it looked like normal, then within about a day it looked like this:

Yesterday I noticed my nepthelia (sp?) had suffered from the same affliction.

Here is is a couple of months ago:

I had been noticing that it was really happy and extending its polyps and looking really good lately. I was really happy with how it was doing.

Then yesterday I noted it had basically died; under the recommendation of a friend at my LFS I removed it immediately from the system. This is what it looked like after removing it from the system:

It has been suggested this may be a bacterial infection. Both of these corals were sitting down in contact with the sandbed. My other leather and soft corals which are up on the live rock all look good, but all my other soft corals looked good a couple of months ago when my colt coral was affected.

At that time a friend suggested I bring the colt over to his system in case it was something in my system that was attacking it. It continued to decline in his system until he finally pulled it. He told me one of his soft corals (a leather) has suffered a similar problem.

This continues to make a good argument that it could be some sort of infection that affects soft corals.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Any ideas? I've been considering pulling all of the leathers from the tank and putting them in a separate tank by themselves. Could this be some bacteria or something in the sandbed that is affecting these corals? I will be setting up a new larger display tank here soon and was going to bring all of the live sand and live rock from my current display tank and put them in the new display tank, now I'm wondering if this is going to be a good idea or even possible. I don't want to bring some type of infection into the new tank.

Again, I'm open to any ideas??

Thanks!!

Mr. Ugly · #2 04/12/2007, 08:58 AM

Are you running enough carbon and doing enough water changes?

delsol650 · #3 04/12/2007, 09:02 AM

You never mentioned your water quality how are the parameters?

medic29 · #4 04/12/2007, 09:05 AM

Good question: what is enough? I am running carbon and have been doing water changes. This seems like an infection though. It is thought by the owner of the LFS that this is caused by some sort of bacteria that leathers get and he stated there is nothing to do but remove the affected coral. This would make sense if the bacteria is living in the sand with the beneficial bacteria that live there as well.

medic29 · #5 04/12/2007, 09:06 AM

Sorry, I probably should have put that in the post as well.

pH 8.28
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Ca+ 440
Alk 9.3
Phos 0
Mg 1290
Sp Gr 1.025

delsol650 · #6 04/12/2007, 09:13 AM

Your numbers look cool too me, myself I don't measure mag. but looks good though... Do you think dips would be good with lugols or some type of antibiotic like a furan2 for zoo's?

medic29 · #7 04/12/2007, 09:17 AM

I don't know. Never dipped anything or ever had to treat anything. Most of my other soft corals are attached to the large pieces of live rock, so dipping them would require tearing the tank apart...but......

Mr. Ugly · #8 04/12/2007, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by medic29
Good question: what is enough? I am running carbon and have been doing water changes. This seems like an infection though.

Yah, just wanted to be sure that it wasn't something like "no carbon, no water changes"

medic29 · #9 04/12/2007, 02:54 PM

Yep, been running carbon in the sump and been doing the water changes, but it doesn't appear to be a water quality thing that I can tell....at least from what we test for anyway.

bookfish · #10 04/13/2007, 11:15 AM

Softies can choke on their own slime if they don't get enough flow to blow it off. Opportunistic bacteria will settle on the slime coat and lead to infections of the coral tissue itself. Don't know if that's the case here.

medic29 · #11 04/13/2007, 12:36 PM

No, they've been getting enough flow in the past and it hasn't been an issue. Current theory is that the gobies have dug sand from deep within the sandbed and deposited it on each of these corals. This would make sense as each time one of the gobies was digging a den and putting the sand either directly on or very near proximity to the coral affected.

darcitananda · #12 04/13/2007, 02:52 PM

A couple years ago I lost two enormous softies, one colt coral and one sinularia after my tank overheated for a week or so in a heat wave. They didn't die overnight, they sort of slowly shrunk. There was no other logical explanation. What is the temp in your tank? It does look like some kind of infection though the way the flesh is totally slimy and disintegrating.

The only other problems I've had was a nudibranch (I think) that munched my leathers and nepthea at night. I never caught the offender, but after he ate everything I guess he died too. Those were big obvious bites (like a mouse eating cheese!) and a parasitic snail (that slowly ate a leather from the inside out).

darcitananda · #13 04/13/2007, 02:54 PM

A couple years ago I lost two enormous softies, one colt coral and one sinularia after my tank overheated for a week or so in a heat wave. They didn't die overnight though, they sort of slowly shrunk. What is the temp in your tank? It does look like some kind of infection though, the way the flesh is totally slimy and disintegrating.

Other problems I've had was a nudibranch (I think, which unfortunately came in from a frag swap) that munched my leathers and nepthea at night. I never caught the offender, but after he ate everything I guess he died too. Those were big obvious bites (like a mouse eating cheese!) and there was once a parasitic snail that slowly ate a leather from the inside out, which I didn't find until the leather shrunk and finally disintegrated over a long time. Have you added anything new to your tank in the last week or so?

darcitananda · #14 04/13/2007, 02:55 PM

P.S. If any bit of the coral looks healthy, you might try fragging it off so you don't lose your whole colony, if it's not too late.

Vincerama2 · #15 04/13/2007, 06:30 PM

I think the general strategy is to remove the affected coral and put it in a quaratine tank. YOu can then observe it (in case it was being preyed upon by something inthe tank, it should get better) and you can medicate the QT tank if necessary.

Also QT will prevent the problem from spreading, and in a smaller QT, water changes ad carbon will have a larger impact.

My 2 cents.

V

PS. I also lost a massive Colt to heatwave temps of over 100F!