How do I treat brown jelly disease with iodine?

[brandon429]

id be for dipping or treatment in this case as long as the pics show assertive mass building and this was something that stopped it. Good details w come from pics~

 

curious which oil immersion microscopy eq was used for the diagnosis, that's good expensive gear. my 1950s 200x regular setup sure couldn't id ciliated bacteria

[BulkRate]

I'm seeing the pattern unfold, but can't look away...

 

You react too quickly and too often - so much so that often there isn't even time to get the advice you purport to be asking for. Just try something different - lead off each "I need help" thread with at least two pictures - a decently-in-focus full tank shot and then a cropped close-up of the exact problem you're experiencing. You'd make it easier on those that want to help rather than just knock you for making a mistake. Then wait 16-24 hours before doing something, and have it be based at least a little bit on what was suggested.

 

As it is now, it reads like you're looming over your tank, typing with one hand & holding a bottle of iodine in the other asking "should I pour this in?" and then doing so anyways while people chime in with a "wait a minute!".

 

Go slower. If your corals haven't died yet then they can hold out a bit more while you figure out the best course forward.

 

On a more practical note: Tibbsy07 is recommending you use your status as a student to sign up for Amazon's "Prime" service - it gets you cheap overnight shipping and some other nice perks & can help make some reefing products & supplies much more accessible. At $50 a year I think it would actually be cheaper than whatever gas money you spend getting to your local store.

 

Good luck!

[Fishgirl2393]

OK, so I agree that that hair algae is a problem (around the hairy shroom) but I've tried treating it with H2O2 and it did not work at all (and it was an out of tank treatment). NONE of the other affected corals had or have algae around them. And I prefer treating the SOURCE of algae (phosphate is the likely cause in my case) instead of the symptom (the algae itself) because it seems like a bandaid to just treat the algae itself. So, given that I do weekly water changes, run phosguard (just changed it today because I suspect it has been saturated and is not removing phosphate anymore) and carbon, and run a skimmer (even if not a super strong skimmer), what would you propose I do? I have many happy corals (shrooms, clove poylps, kenya trees, zoas) so this seems strange if it is a water issue. I cannot post a full tank shot right now because I am not home but will try to post one when I get home. I've not seen a lot of growth over the year with my corals, but in the past few weeks, I have seen growth in most of them.

[brandon429]

Alas, you are hesitating posting fTS for fear we will pounce. But we wont its heavily diagnostic promise

 

comparatively, my own reef Ive put 9 yrs into looks like a wreck w red mushrooms killing prized coral. one guys corallimorph death is anothers gha death, all the same. A reef set up and running is what matters, us messing with the stasis is just a fun thing to try and balance. its ongoing, so shore up and post up.

 

Short rant, recall the scene from MIB 3 where will smith is pulled over in 1960 in the convertible and then accused of stealing it promptly and initially.

 

Why is it everyone thinks Im leading them to peroxide

 

 

Well I was, but not because I did last time and the time before

 

 

 

really though I just want to make inference about tank details, that translate into coral details, and thats always enough if you'll just post. If you dont use p in any way thats ok, I like to beat coral infections but Ive learned what to watch out for, and request for your tank.

 

in the end Im only wanting to restore coral fattness to the tank.

[afyounie]

From all of these threads I've seen you post Fishgirl, you seem to worry about very common things like algae blooms and then try to correct them quickly. Like what Brandon said, you ask for advice then jump and do something without waiting for advice. Eventually people will stop giving you assistance if this pattern continues. Everything I have learned about this hobby is from searching Google or this site. I haven't had to post a thread asking for help. I read books and articles to further my knowledge. I'm surprised that someone who says she is a high level biology major would rather ask everyone how to fix her problems rather than try and figure it out on your own.

 

My first saltwater tank has been setup now for ~7 or 8 months. I have tons of coralline growth in the tank and no pest algae. I attribute this with letting my tank run its course and going through the ugly stage without trying to over correct things. I started with all dry reef rock from BRS and ran GFO for a couple months in the beginning to pull excess phosphate out. Once the rock had stopped leaching phosphate, I removed the GFO, albeit too late. Stripped out too much phosphate, lesson learned. Now I run a skimmer and refugium only. No filter sock. Really the refugium is for pods. The point I'm trying to make is let your tank run its course. Let it stabilize on its own. It will reach an equilibrium if you keep up with water changes and run a good skimmer. Maybe add carbon if you have water quality problems. As long as you keep trying to force the tank to stabilize it won't. Like an underdamped control system, it will waiver about equilibrium but never truly reach it. Don't worry so much about the algae, embrace the algae. It means you have nutrients and something is using those nutrients. Let the algae use up the nutrients and then remove it. Free nutrient removal at its finest. You will lose corals during this time, but that's the price to pay for meddling too much. I know, I've lost countless frags trying to get my LEDs tuned to the right brightness, but they are finally tuned more or less correctly and my frags have started to regrow. It sucks, but you only learn from your mistakes.

[tibbsy07]

id be for dipping or treatment in this case as long as the pics show assertive mass building and this was something that stopped it. Good details w come from pics~

 

curious which oil immersion microscopy eq was used for the diagnosis, that's good expensive gear. my 1950s 200x regular setup sure couldn't id ciliated bacteria

Ciliates are protozoa, much larger than bacteria. Visible with standard lab light microscope.

 

 

If the algae if the only problem, why not dip the ric, remove it from the frag plug with the algae (toss the frag plug) and glue/epoxy it down somewhere on the rock?

[brandon429]

oh I misread no prob. on my phone I thought he said it was bacteria with a cilia I figured it was a cellular ext no prob

[Fishgirl2393]

Here is a full tank shot... glass has not been cleaned in a while. And by the way, I wasn't complaining about peroxide. It has worked for certain things, just not THAT algae!

[brandon429]

Hey what do you keep in the breeder box, is it for special shrimp just curious.

 

My verdict based on pics is the algae loading doesn't look significant at all, and I see some aspects of aging for the rocks. It does look about as old as we have seen from other threads.

 

but as a counter issue, this is enough time to get corals onto rocks so the scrip is to feed more and change water more. Make something stick onto the rock then grow. As is, we have not eliminated standard coral care as the sole culprit as any affected corals were frags that had never exhibited positive biomass at least to the point of being aggressive. Drive them like that, you'll have no maladies.

 

Using your excellent water params to allow you to spot feed a slurry of mysis and Cyclopeeze to each LPS coral and then changing more water instead of phosphate stripping is the fix, but you have to sustain it a year. If that has been going on, you'd have beefy corals cemented to the rocks that were not removable but were dead from BJD

 

The shrooms look to me like shrooms do in heavy phosphate stripped tanks. They need more nutrients, suspended and likely dissolved ones.

 

Nice potential here as there are no big algae issues at all, rocks have been consistently in the system and have some aging coloration. I still think the corals don't get enough feed, out of concern for phosphate levels.

 

there really are no maladies to explain the loss other than very common nutrient restriction in the presence of high lighting.

 

Your original post was about iodine treatment but my recommend is to siphon off the bad heads and focus on changing out the water in full, fresh start palette, feed and wc well and sustain it so that something begins to take off...then stock more of that kind of coral. I think thats how you treat BJD here.

[Fishgirl2393]

Hey what do you keep in the breeder box, is it for special shrimp just curious.

My verdict based on pics is the algae loading doesn't look significant at all, and I see some aspects of aging for the rocks. It does look about as old as we have seen from other threads.

but as a counter issue, this is enough time to get corals onto rocks so the scrip is to feed more and change water more. Make something stick onto the rock then grow. As is, we have not eliminated standard coral care as the sole culprit as any affected corals were frags that had never exhibited positive biomass at least to the point of being aggressive. Drive them like that, you'll have no maladies.

Using your excellent water params to allow you to spot feed a slurry of mysis and Cyclopeeze to each LPS coral and then changing more water instead of phosphate stripping is the fix, but you have to sustain it a year. If that has been going on, you'd have beefy corals cemented to the rocks that were not removable but were dead from BJD

The shrooms look to me like shrooms do in heavy phosphate stripped tanks. They need more nutrients, suspended and likely dissolved ones.

Nice potential here as there are no big algae issues at all, rocks have been consistently in the system and have some aging coloration. I still think the corals don't get enough feed, out of concern for phosphate levels.

there really are no maladies to explain the loss other than very common nutrient restriction in the presence of high lighting.

Your original post was about iodine treatment but my recommend is to siphon off the bad heads and focus on changing out the water in full, fresh start palette, feed and wc well and sustain it so that something begins to take off...then stock more of that kind of coral. I think thats how you treat BJD here.

Thanks for the tips. I will try that (and have been trying to do that more since the restart). I have been battling caulerpa and I am FINALLY starting to win that battle (it just must be methodically removed with the "roots") so the tank does look nicer. I do still believe that brown jelly disease is a culprit because of the microscope viewing as well as the symptoms that the now dead corals had (and LPS had it earlier) but I won't deny that it (BJD) could be caused by stress/tank issue. The net (breeder net) was only put in to hold corals while I watched them (the ones that didn't look good). I keep it on hand because I also have freshwater fish and sometimes need it to raise fry.

[brandon429]

I think the two best canary corals for your tank, to reflect upon feeding and water changes, to set a baseline where we know mass is added, would be a duncan or a red war brain coral. those are two of the fastest mass building lps I know of. you can get 6 new heads sprouting off a well mysis fed duncan in 2 mos. In a year of straight CPR like feeding and water changes, it w have feeding heads mostly full size. you can quadruple those in another year, i vote duncan as the single fastest lps mass builder, in good conditions, of them all. just my opinion. red war coral is close 2nd im getting half inch a month.

[Fishgirl2393]

Red mushroom is now trying to turn to mush. It was fine this morning and just a few minutes ago, I found smile ALL over it and the edge is partially gone now too. Please help. This is clearly a disease.

[brandon429]

All the current conditions diagnosed are still in place, we cant

 

You are still phosphate stripping right?

 

 

In no way do I believe you have a tankwide disease. whats affecting your corals is the tank condition, not a disease. thats whats happened due to weakened, underfed state of corals/ it will manifest as simple melting in another's tank on down the line.

 

 

 

 

If you have or are removing some of the prior stressors, do a full 100% water change. Its exportive. allows you to clean, removes disease and chemical wasting from other corals that have died, has no effect on tank bacteria. Dont pour in rough and kick up your sandbed.

 

Anyone who has a sandbed and algae probs should rethink things

its really hard not seeing your actual shroom, underwater, in a simple close up pic. do post if you can, lets see if its looking ravaged by bjd or just ravaged in general.

[MikeTR]

There is not a thing in this tank that would be adversely effected by a 100% water exchange. DO IT.

[BulkRate]

I'm with Brandon429 and MikeTR on this... A disease would not effect as wide a variety of corals but a water chemistry issue would.

 

When in doubt... stop and reduce your variables. Take your chemical filtration offline except for a fresh change of carbon. No phosguard/gfo & nitrate binders or blended all-in-one bag products... nothing. If running a skimmer keep it online if only for aeration benefits and fall back on large-ish water changes with a decent salt mix. You don't have enough livestock in there to need much more short-term, and may find that it's enough to do so long. Just harvest (by removal, not magnet scraping) as much hair algae & macro as you see fit to export whatever's not kept in check via wc's.

 

Now might be a good time to examine any equipment that stays below the water line. magnets, heater housings, power heads and algae scrapers. Perhaps one is corroding and leaching something bad into the tank.

[brandon429]

I've done two just in the time span since we last posted.

[Fishgirl2393]

I removed my Phosguard a few minutes ago. Here is the red shroom (currently does NOT have the slime that it did earlier) and the ricordea (also no slime currently but it has been there).

I also plan on doing a water change tomorrow (got the water).

[brandon429]

I think that looks save able

 

Where there is anem tissue left we don't give up

 

 

Start target feeding it with Cyclopeeze and blenderized mysis specifically or reef roid slurry right on the coral

 

It will take weeks of sustaining that and these water changes to make a difference. Siphon off any areas that require it along the way

 

As soon as you try anything other than large water changes to deal with the increased nutrients, expect a decline

 

Consider the simplest cures...take out these corals weekly and blast feed them in a bowl then put them back in, nbd its not harmful. Several people take out their sun polyps and place in a bowl of substrate and water and a bit of feed with things sitting still. In 5 mins the polyps are out and they gorge them on mysis, let them close, then put back in tank

 

Remote feeding

 

Either way only feed and fresh water will save you. Any way you slice it, thats the cure here.

 

The way you write about getting the water change water makes me think you aren't changing it much. Your tank is too large for you to meet its demands

 

A pico would grow your corals ten times better. Struggles with this tank are associated with water changes being too much work, downsize is smart option so your wc are more effective. A single gallon of water can grow twenty times the amount of coral you are showing after one year at such rates you will never see these problems ever

[Fishgirl2393]

I often get 5-6 gallons of water at one time (though sometimes I don't get more than 3 or so) so I don't THINK water is a problem (but you are obviously right about small tanks going farther!) and I'll try to get that much (or more) every time I get it. I may look into an RO/DI unit eventually though. I don't have cyclopeeze but I do have the frozen "Prime Reef" by Ocean Nutrition (which has all sorts of "goodies" in it) and also have Brightwell Aquatics "Zooplanktos-M" and Kent Marine "ChromaPlex".

[BulkRate]

Best thing I ever did for my tank was switch to distilled + salt mix, and have the realization that the 10-15 minutes spent to mix up & DO routine water changes a couple times a week easily outweighed the amount of fussing/dosing/scraping/plucking and overall effort to "correct" parameter issues. Even "non-premium" salt mix like Instant Ocean or Reef Crystals can yield amazing results once you get into the habit of maintaining your water quality.

 

One of the guys at a local store pointed out to me in a moment of sage advice - "You're keeping a box of water... everything else is a bonus". Don't worry overmuch about phosphates/nitrates/ph... those will stabilize over time and the growth of stuff in the tank will tell you when they need attention, and calcium/alkalinity(maybe not this one - I'd monitor it)/magnesium will be replenished by change out until you get the kind of growth that actually requires dosing to support. It's the sudden changes (even for the "better") that kill.

 

Admittedly mine's 9 gallons, so yes that particular aspect is easier when 1 gallon represents a week's change-out. But given the number of problems you appear to run into having reliable water's a must... and the more hoops you have to jump through to get it done the less likely it is to get done. Being able to run up a 10-20% water change in short order should be nigh-reflexive if you ever want to stop fighting your tank and getting into the more enjoyable aspects of the hobby.

 

Any national brand that's steam-distilled would do, and I believe Walmart's purple cap jugs routinely go for less than a buck a gallon. Or bite the bullet and get a refurbished Spectrapure RODI unit - on a 20-30 gallon tank you're riiiiiight on the edge of where it would pay for itself in a reasonable time frame.

[Fishgirl2393]

Planning a water change either tonight or tomorrow night. Just fed the tank pretty heavily (not TOO heavy) with frozen Prime Reef (mysis is the first ingredient).

[MikeTR]

and what do you think you're "feeding" besides an algae problem?

your corals are withering away and you're still slacking on a water change..

[Fishgirl2393]

I actually did a water change just last weekend (and it was 5 gallons). However, I am feeding both the corals (which clearly ate) and the fish.

[Tamberav]

A pico would grow your corals ten times better. Struggles with this tank are associated with water changes being too much work, downsize is smart option so your wc are more effective. A single gallon of water can grow twenty times the amount of coral you are showing after one year at such rates you will never see these problems ever

 

+1

 

Since your only fish is a gramma, You could easily downsize and keep him.

 

It is better to have a fabulous pico with great equipment and the ability to do large water changes if/as needed than a 20g with budget equipment and being hindered by how many jugs you can buy/carry at a time.

 

My best looking softies was my 1st tank (12g) with minimal filtration (just carbon and floss) and regular 50% WC's. Anytime I did a 100% WC I had a huge growth spurt.

 

Just food for thought. I hope you are able to save your mushies.

[MikeTR]

K, n good luck to you.

+1