It's a bacteriological pathogen carried into your system. Quarantine and prophylactic treatment with a dip will usually prevent transmission into a healthy system. It usually is problematic only when there is insufficient current with a particular placement or in specimens that have cuts through the polyp tissue (due to shipping mishandling forcing the tissue against the septa in the heads). As this may be an issue with a particular shipper, quarantine would be a smart move prior to placement of the specimen. Look for specimens from another source, or from someone's system with healthy Euphyllids. You may want to consider doing an iodine dip with your current specimens and performing an iodine bath for incoming new specimens. Quarantine is still indicated, even with specimens from tanks without any brown jelly disease. There are suggestions that BJD is an opportunistic conditiion in coraols with some initial damage to start with, so correct handling during a move will help9 reduce problems with these infections.

I have heard from several retailers that there are some issues with the quality of Euphyllia spp. coming into the country currently, but no mention of a particular shipper that stands out in the comments. This would be when it would be good to have MAC standards in place as they were originally envisioned to track specimens to see if therer are issues with a particular shipper, collector, etc.

Did I mention that it would be smart to quarantine???

 

Thanks Tom---I was waiting for you to chime in on this one. I did notice my electric blue hermit bothering it a couple days ago. I wonder if he damaged the tissue?---I also have a small hammer that has made it through all breakouts---It seems to only affect the torch's---I guess its the big "Q" from now on---Thanks again---Anthony

 

brown jelly disease would be my guess

 

I did notice my electric blue hermit bothering it a couple days ago. I wonder if he damaged the tissue?---I also have a small hammer that has made it through all breakouts---It seems to only affect the torch's---I guess its the big "Q" from now on--

I doubt that the hermits did anything to the polyp tissue; if anything at all, they would be consuming necrotic tissue at the original site of injury or eating epiphytic algae off the skeleton. Your hammer has prolly not sustained any damage that would make it a target for bacterial infection, and if it has been established in the tank for a while, has prolly had the chance to heal any cuts or abrasions that may have occurred during its original shipping. I don't think the issue is just the Torches, rather that any recently shipped or moved specimen may suffer epidermal injuries that will make them susceptible to infections of this type. For this reason alone, prophylactic iodine baths would be in order for any new specimens or for newly transported specimens followed by the BIG Q... The transport of the branching Euphyllid specimens should be done by suspending the base of the specimen in the bag with styrofoam and rubberbands and sufficient water to prevent the specimen from touching the bottom of the bag regardless of bag orientation once packed. This should be done even if transporting the specimen across town, maybe even just down the street to prevent the abrasions and cuts that would result otherwise.

HTH, Seems I remember that the Calfo Propagation book has some information regarding shipping and opportunistic infections, might be a good section to read if it's available to you.