Brown Slime on Hammer

[WindWalker]

My hammer has some brown slime on an edge. when I got it a small portion of tissue was loose from it's skeleton. This is where the slime is.
What can I do to save/help this coral?

Thanks,

Jeff

[Doug1]

Iodine dip right away

[WindWalker]

Okay Iodine...Hmmmm.
I'm in the middle of a blizzard, up to 30 inches of snow, and everything is closed !!!
I'm sure I'll be able to get some tomorrow, is there anything else (move it out of the current, into steady current etc.) that will help until I can get some?

thank you.

[Doug1]

Short of a better suggestion from someone whos been thru this, given your situation I would try a brief FW dip and return it to a low current area and hope for the best. I got say tho thats a judgement call I would make if it seemed severe enough to make me think I might lose it anyway. I really cant recommend it for someone elses coral. Hopefully someone else can input on this, before it gets critical,FWIW

[WindWalker]

Doug, It's a pretty big hammer. The skeleton is about 4inches by 4 inches in an H pattern.
There is less than an inch on one corner that looks sad. It looked really good until I got home tonight. I saw a small piece that was disconnected, and never having had one of these, I didn't know what to expect. I was thinking it would "heal" and reattach.
I don't think it will disintegrate that much overnight (I hope )
So, I'll get it out of the current and dip it in the morning.

[WindWalker]

The lights have been off and I thought I'd check the hammer. There are lots of tiny brown shrimp shaped bugs along the injures site !!! Parasites of some sort ?
Or just oportunists from my LSB ??

[Canadian]

My guess is "Brown Jelly", a protozoan and bacterial soup that RAPIDLY kills. If left overnight, you may wake up in the morning to find at the very least that one "branch" has died if not more.

I'd treat it ASAP. If you can dip the one affected "branch" in a freshwater dip I'd go right ahead and give it a try if you can't get some iodine in a hurry. The only other alternative is to break off the affected branch and get it as far away from any other corals as possible, and keep it out of any aggressive current.

[ 03-05-2001: Message edited by: Canadian ]

[WindWalker]

I dipped it. It seemed as if it was melting in front of me.
There is nothing but bare skeleton where the infected area was. Wow. That was quick !
Should I toss it ? I don't want to lose anything else if possible.
I cleaned it out and soaked the whole piece in fresh water for about 45 seconds. there is no evidence of the slime left.

[bill-e]

This is interesting. Two of the comments mention low flow as part of the treatment.

I just talked to Jeff on the phone and along with the iodine, I recommended high flow, which is the way I've treated mine in the past (with no success by the way)

I assume your recommendations for low flow stem from a concern about infecting other corals. That might be a valid concern however low flow is still flow and if it's gonna spread, well, it's gonna spread, unless you remove it from the tank.

High flow on the other hand (once your've removed most of the brown jelly while treating the coral), Keeps it from building up and has been recommended to me by more than one experienced reefer.

So what do you thing? low or high?

[Canadian]

Bill,

I recommended low flow based on the type of coral. IME, when Euphyllia sp become damaged and infested with "Brown Jelly", high flow tends to whip the damaged, flacid polyps around as well as the healthy ones. My hypothesis based on trying both high flow and low flow for recovery is that higher than normal flow can further stress the remaining healthy tissue and increase the potential for a "re-infestation" by the protozoa and bacteria of the apparently healthy polyps.
And by "low flow" I wasn't implying "no flow"; just sufficient flow to encourage some gas exchange.

This is all based on my experience however, and although it is contrary to recommendations made by "experts", it has proven to be more effective for me. I think the "correct" treatment varies greatly depending on the genus/species of affected coral. But I'm certainly not an expert, so take what I say with a bucket of salt.

[bill-e]

Andrew,

I actually believe we are saying the same thing. When I say high flow, I certainly dont mean so much so that the polyps are whipped around. I would never do that to even a healty coral. So my defination of high flow is healthy water movement over a coral (never point a powerhead at one). To me, low flow, would be just enough flow as to gently lift the polyp up.

What you dont want to do, IMO, is allow slime or jelly to build up on the coral. So once you've cleaned it out in your iodine bath, I'd still put enough flow over the coral to prevent that from happening.

and a disclaimer. I'm far from an expert myself, I just slept in a Holiday Inn last night

[WindWalker]

After dipping, moving to a quiet tank, putting a few drops of iodine in a tub of water and letting it sit. It doesn't fair well. The "good" tissue that is left, is breaking down. It doesn't look like the brown goop of last night. It is just withering.
I think this coral was dyed when I got it. It was the neatest green, which after a few days turned a near vy leather green, and it looked more brown. I'm not putting it back in the main tank as I feel this will be detrimental to the general population. I may freeze it if it keeps degenerating.

Thank you for all the help. I have some of the tools I'll need if this happens again and maybe it will help.

Jeff

[Alice]

This is the second time on this board that I've seen someone mention that they thought their coral had been dyed. Is the practice fairly common in some areas? I've never seen a coral at an LFS out here that I suspected may have been dyed.

Sheesh; I think if I ever saw one that was I'd be out front of the store with picket signs in no time!

~Alice

[Peter_]

Alice,

For what it's worth, around here (and I assume this is typical in most areas), there are two types of stores: the good and the bad (which are, by the way, the ugly too).

The good stores are well managed, have a knowledgeable staff, well maintained tanks, excellent livestock, and generally know what they are doing.

The bad stores are basically clueless, mis-managed, have tanks which are on the verge of crashing, pitiful livestock, and a staff which roam throughout the store in a somewhat mild trance.

On any given day, you can walk into any of these coral graveyards and witness, first hand, a vast assortment of corals clinging-on to life with literally half of their skeleton exposed.

People just don't understand the condition of these corals so they purchase them, bring them home, and watch them die.

We don't picket them (although, I have thrown rotten tomatos at their storefront from across the street ). Word gets around and these stores basically get blacklisted.

I'm still trying to figure how they make money...

It must be from all those strange-swimming fish that they sell.

[ 03-07-2001: Message edited by: Peter ]

[ 03-07-2001: Message edited by: Peter ]