HELP - May have brown jelly and gaping disease!!!!

[Techy-Mechy]

Help - I may have brown jelly and gaping disease. The other night (2 days ago - Sat pm), I fragged my green "slimer" acropora. This is my first attempt at fragging and I broke the branches w/ my fingers and attached them to live rock pieces (w/ Duro super glue gel) and placed them near the top of my aquarium (100 gallon - 5'Lx18"Wx20"T - w/ 6-110W VHO - 4 - 50/50 and 2 Actinic03's). I noticed yesterday that two of the frags had this brown slimey stuff on it and it was appearing to be getting larger, so tonight I took the old turkey baster and flushed it off (I thought that I may have just damaged the piece and that a flushing would be best). I noticed that the skeleton was perfectly white underneath the brown slime. This worried me, so I took the worst frag out, I clipped the white skeleton off and reattached a small 3/4" nub on another piece of live rock. I also looked at my parent colonie, and it doesn't have a similar appearance, however, it has been stung by my hammer coral and has a brownish part of the skeleton showing where, I think, the hammer was stinging it. The brown stuff on the main colony did not flush off. I just read in Delbeek&Sprung Vol 2 - pp443-444, that I may have Brown Jelly protozoan (Helicostoma). Delbeek recommends a Chloramphenicol bath and a Lugol's dip.

A. Where do I get Chloramphenicol?
B. Where do I get Lugol's soln?
C. Are their "newer and better" methods for addressing this potential issue? Please provide description or URL.
D. What are your recommendations for my situation - look and see or treat the whole tank at once or... (I only have 3 SPS's - 2 volunteer and the green acropora)?

Did I totally screw up w/ the turkey baster by flushing the possible brown jelly off?

I also have a "grape" coral (Euphyllia divisa) which show's signs (I think) of "gaping" disease. At night time the coral deflates and his mouths tend to come open which show the inside of his gastric cavity. This guy has shown these tendencies for about 1 to 1 1/2 years (or as long as I can remember) and it doesn't seem to be getting any worse. It is located fairly high in my tank and it doesn't seem to eat a heck of a lot (like - say my scolymia's) - I feed all my corals once per week. Delbreek mentiones that this disease is not fully described buy he recommends the same treatment for the brown jelly. How long will the "gaping" disease go on for? Will the coral live for years w/ this condition or is true "gaping" disease death within weeks? My grape coral seems happy enough, except for his nightime display, and he has formed at least 3 new pollups.

I am quite worried about the corals in my tank. I have some outstanding LPS specimens and I would just *feel terrible* if something happened to them.

Please reply with your thoughs and suggestions for the brown jelly and the gaping disease - that is how I should proceed, what should I do, etc.

Please help.....

Thanks,

Dave

[horge]

Hi T-M

What you call 'gaping polyps' is often enough associated with a need for better oxygenation. It's theorized that by opening up like that, the polyp increases available interfaces with surrounding water to amp up respiration. It certainly isn't the only cause, but like I said, it's often implicated. Please describe your water circulation, and the availability of fresh air to the water surface (also whether the surface gets any agitation).

"Brown Jelly" sounds like one of the dreaded band diseases. I personally don't like using fingers for fragging because of the widespread tissue trauma (less tissue is touched if you use scissors or diagonal wirecutters), and the possibility of your fingers transmitting a pathogen.

If I chose to medicate I'd probably go with Lugol's, which can be obtained at most pharmacies. The dosage varies from one author to the next, but I think you dip into a solution made of 4 drops Lugol's per gallon. Please double-check on dosage with others: it's been a long day here and I'm nodding at the keyboard :-)

Anyway, for me personally, medicating takes second place to ditching the affected frags --or at least isolating them in separate systems: you don't want them infecting other corals, no matter how slim the probability.

Euphyllias aren't the pigs their fleshiness might suggest. Smaller, crustacean-based food morsels may serve you better, and in any case, they seem to derive a lot of prey via trapping them in mucus 'nets': the debris-laden glop is reeled in for eatin'.

HTH.
horge

[JennM]

Chloramphenicol is usually only available through a veterinarian. It's a very controlled substance, and if you do manage to get some, PLEASE handle with care!!! Use latex gloves and don't breathe the stuff in.

We use it where I work, and the boss clears out the back room when he's dosing the q system, so nobody else is exposed to the stuff.

It works wonders if you can get it!

Jenn

[Techy-Mechy]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the advice. I looked at the frags which I thought had the disease yesterday, and today they had significantly less flesh on them and significantly more slime and white skeleton, so I thew them out. I also took my main colony and placed it into a bucket of salt water and just exposed the part of the colony which I felt "could" have had the brown slime and cut it off w/ a pair of large dikes. I placed the remaining part of the colony back into the tank and and threw away the cuttings. I probably only had to cut off ~ 10% of the colony. I sure hope this takes care of the mess. I'd just feel awful if my beautiful LPS's got this stuff.

As far as the circulation in the tank:

I have a "Quiet One" pump (est. 600-650 gph recirculation in the tank) as the main recirculation pump and I have another "Quiet One" pump powering a PM Bullet 1 skimmer. I also have 6 Hagen 402 power heads in the tank (4 of which operate as normal mode and 2 of which operate in addition for stormy mode w/ a LightWave controller) and I have a Tetra Luft pump driving a stone which is place in my sump. I also have a "Rocky Reef" calcium reactor - a 2 tower reactor which is used to provide the calc and alk (but also may add some CO2). Is this sufficient circulation? I have a Dolphin SST1200 which is slated to replace the "Quiet One" recirculation pump, but I haven't had the time to replace it yet. I have found that I have a devil of a time w/ the "Quiet One" pump reliability.

Please reply if you think I should do anything else or your general opinion on what I did do.

Thanks,

Dave

[Techy-Mechy]

So...
I "think" that I have the brown slime licked, however, there still might be some in there. My green acro. has a few new white spots, however, I don't see the brown loosening of the flesh. It also doesn't seem to be spreading too fast, so I hope that it is just some damage from the surgery of getting the brown slime out. But...I also have noticed that some of the heads on my volunteer monipora also are turning white, but I also moved this coral w/ the recent bout of brown slime - I havent' noticed slime on this coral either.

But... Some of my LPS's are not behaving as they should. I have a Wellsophyllia which hasn't opened up for about a week - almost exactly the same time the brown slime came into the tank. How does this stuff show up on LPS's and what are the symptoms? Also, of course, I think that I'm seeing other corals showing stress too. I have a bubble coral which was particularly deflated tonight and I noticed that some of the skeleton was showing around the mouth. I never noticed this before (nor have I really looked that hard). The coral has grown considerable since I originally bought it. It has also had some of it's flesh get hung up on the skeleton and possibly pull on the mouth where the skeleton is showing. I removed the coral, detatched the flesh from the skeleton and replaced it. Hopefully, this guy will get better too, although, they tell me that bubble corals are really tough. I've probably had the coral for about 3 years.

What do you think I should do next?

Please respond

Dave

Thats a nasty situation you have going on, and I havent had to deal with it yet, So take this FWIW. If it were my tank I would hunt down the chloramphenicol and use per directions. At the very least I would make up an Iodine dip and dip anything I was suspicious of. And start a series of water changes to renew water quality. Others might take exception to these methods, as I said it would be my efforts to save it if it happened to me and not something I have had to do in the past. Good luck, I do hope it gets better and you dont have a major loss http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/eek.gif

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