Brown Jelly on E. Divisa (Frogspawn) - Must save this coral!

[ajmckay]

 

honored

 

Hey so just in case can you give me any pointers with fragging this type of coral and supergluing the cut? I can't find much procedural info. Obviously you make the cut then apply the superglue, but for example do you use gel or regular super glue? Do you go to town or just a dab will do? Do you have to go down the skeleton or just the tissue? In or out of water? That kind of stuff... If you don't know I'm capable of devising a methodology, but I would rather build on someone elses my first time.

[ajmckay]

Time for my nightly update... First noticed BJS on 4/13, it's been 5 days.

 

When I got home tonight this is what it looked like:

 

As you can see there's quite a bit of new jelly infecting the area. I think more accumulated today than in the previous days. So my conclusion is that the cold tap water "shower" didn't really do anything positive.

 

As I might have mentioned I posted on my local forum asking for help obtaining Chloramphenicol and another member suggested a peroxide bath. So I prepared 1/2 gallon of water and added 30ml of 3% solution for 15 minutes. The last 10mL I squirted directly to the affected area. The infected area did bubble up a bit. We'll see how that goes.

 

I rinsed out the tupperware and rinsed off the coral in SW then did my regular iodine dip, 40 drops/gallon for another 15 minutes. Because I was changing water every 15 minutes the temperature never dropped too much.

 

Here's the after pic. I'm almost to the second mouth.

 

 

In other news, something good for a change, I believe I might have found a local veterinarian who worked previously at the Toledo Zoo Aquarium and who might be able to help me get the antibiotic.

[righttirefire]

Aj you're one of my favorite nano reefer! Wishing you the best

[Matt_95]

My orange walling hammer got brown jelly, I just used a turkey baster to clean off the jelly, and then I did two baths in Coral RX. I made sure to use the turkey baster to ensure it got the treatment right into all the bits of it's skeleton. It has recovered very well and it now even has new growth. Don't loose hope!

[Weasel Baron]

Chloramphenicol is borderline napalm, and the number and frequency of chemical dips youve done would put even a healthy colony into stress response mode/death throes. I would hold off, consider giving it a day or two sans-dip, and if it continues to recede then maybe fragging is the best option

 

 

Hey so just in case can you give me any pointers with fragging this type of coral and supergluing the cut? I can't find much procedural info. Obviously you make the cut then apply the superglue, but for example do you use gel or regular super glue? Do you go to town or just a dab will do? Do you have to go down the skeleton or just the tissue? In or out of water? That kind of stuff... If you don't know I'm capable of devising a methodology, but I would rather build on someone elses my first time.

 

when I was working it wholesale I had access to a diamond band saw. It was super maximum tight; shit used to cut through anything. find something as close to that as you can; a clean sterile cut w/ fresh saltwater in a healthy tissue area, maybe 5-6" upstream of the infection zone. Every area of the cut should be covered in cyanoacrylate. eliminate any possible area for freeloading bacterial or ciliates to infiltrate. Remember, if its an autoimmune/viral issue all youre doing is giving the coral a chance to fight it off

 

glue out of water, make sure the glue sticks when you re-submerge

 

most importantly

 

[vlangel]

I have always wondered if probiotics would work on brown jelly. I use them in my seahorse tank daily to out compete dangerous bacteria. It would be totally stress free, not terribly expensive and might help. I use Sano life mic-F and I get it from seahorse source.

[Jellyingabout]

I have always wondered if probiotics would work on brown jelly. I use them in my seahorse tank daily to out compete dangerous bacteria. It would be totally stress free, not terribly expensive and might help. I use Sano life mic-F and I get it from seahorse source.

 

just chuck a yakult in the tank

[ajmckay]

Aj you're one of my favorite nano reefer! Wishing you the best

Aww thanks :-)

 

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I found a local vet that has experience working in aquariums that will hopefully be able to provide some perspective and possibly the chloramphenicol. While i agree that it sounds very harsh really all my options are pretty harsh (multiple peroxide/iodine dips, chloram, or fragging - I'm most concerned about fragging).Either way I agree weasel the coral is pretty stressed for the moment. The hydrogen peroxide then iodine dip did have good effects though. I'm looking at it and so far I can't see any more brown jelly and its almost been a day. I hesitate to let out my breath though as I doubt I'm rid of this stuff. The coral is puffed up, but not as much as it was. I can see the skeleton ridges pretty good. Probably a function of the higher flow than anything, its getting blasted pretty good by solid laminar water movement.

 

I'll post some more pics tonight but I'm going to try and give it a few days before doing anything else. Of course the moment I see more brown jelly I'm going to have to act though.

[plainrt]

Best of luck sucks to watch stuff die

[ajmckay]

Best of luck sucks to watch stuff die

 

Thanks!

 

Okay, so no dips or anything tonight... Still appears to be free of jelly. Upon close inspection the coral still seems pretty pissed. The mouth(s) are sorta droopy looking. But it seems to be doing okay. I'm starting to get crap from my wife because "Everything revolves around the fish tank". I laughed, because it's true lately! Hahaha.

 

Weasel - really appreciate the procedures for frag n' glue. While searching on how to frag these corals the preferred method is to use a rubber band over the period of week(s) to cause the tissues to naturally create a clean area for the frag. Hopefully I get to do this someday (for good reasons). On that topic I found the diamond tile blade for my angle grinder so I'll probably use that if I end up having to do the deed shortly...

 

Anyways, obligatory update pics.

 

 

Sorry for the inconsistent lighting and grainy appearance. I'm sort of trying to train myself to shoot manual - like no light metering or anything (using a really old Nikon 50mm macro lens).

[ajmckay]

Guess what time it is ! Daily update !

 

Since the carpet bombing activities of Friday night I haven't noticed any discernible brown jelly forming. The rest of the coral looks find and puffed up a little fuller today.

 

Today I got some snails and a zoa rock so while messing in the tank I decided to try to suck something out of it with the syringe. Nothing for several tried. Then finally I decided to hit it with a little bit of a stream and a little chunk of something flew out. IMO it seemed to be jelly, or at least dead coral tissue because it wasn't very slimy/jelly yet. Then again it could have been a chunk of leftover food or something too so I'm not 100% sure. I'm anxious to see what I find tomorrow.

 

[NorthGaHillbilly]

looks like youve got it stopped, which is a huge achievement IMO with a wall euphillia. Thank you for documenting things so well.

[Weasel Baron]

any updates? all's well?

[ajmckay]

any updates? all's well?

 

You know, I was thinking of doing an update but last night got home late.

 

The white skeleton part is starting to attract some algae, but I'm not seeing any new for-sure brown jelly. There is 1 suspect spot, however, it was after lights out and solid enough that it didn't get sucked up last night with light pressure from the syringe (so it could have been a darker than normal tentacle). I didn't want to go to town on it until I am for sure because it's right at a mouth that's 1/2 dissolved and it's already pretty sloppy looking. I can see all the mesenterial filaments hanging out - but they look healthy so I'm not going to mess with those until I'm certain there's more BJS. I think tonight I'll know for sure if that spot has turned to slime or not.

[ajmckay]

Bad News Not only did I find brown jelly tonight, but I found that it had been growing incognito, seemingly underneath healthy looking tentacles!

 

When I started sucking up it just kept coming! As you can see from the pics I had to remove a decent bit. I forgot to replenish my peroxide, so I just did an iodine dip - which I'm beginning to think is possibly just slowing it down, but definitely does nothing to stop the brown jelly.

 

I'll be carefully considering my course of action from here on out. It will consist of one or more of the following action items.

 

1) More frequent peroxide dips. These royally piss the coral off - but I might be able to get away with every other day. Possibly experiment with a lower dose, or a concentrating the treatment to the affected site.

2) Quarantine and treat with Chloramphenicol

3) Emergency Fragging & super glue

 

 

 

 

As you can see I removed quite a bit. Quick question to Euphyllia people. How does the flesh look on the sides of the coral? It might be in my head but it seems to be receding very slightly...

[Pinner Reef]

The receding is probably just from all the dips it's been getting. But I don't think it's related to the brown jelly. I was wondering if anyone has looked at that goop under a microscope.

[ajmckay]

The receding is probably just from all the dips it's been getting. But I don't think it's related to the brown jelly. I was wondering if anyone has looked at that goop under a microscope.

 

I can send you some Hehe

 

People have looked at it under a microscope and the brown jelly is teeming with bacteria, ciliates, etc... but it's unclear which is the causal agent and which are opportunistic feeders since many of these same organisms are found on healthy corals as well.

[Pinner Reef]

Ya I figured it would be something like that... But no thx on the sample.

[Weasel Baron]

set your "final line" now, at least a few inches above what you'd want as a final frag. If the tissue recession gets to that point, consider fragging or abandon the idea all together. the recession from the base way upstream of the infection site has me a bit worried.

 

best of luck man, keep us updated

[ajmckay]

Time for a horrible update... Tonight I noticed MAJOR BJS all over the coral. As in it's not even fraggable at this point.

 

It's progressing very quickly and starting to slough off. I'm putting it into QT tonight and tomorrow I'm hitting it with Chloramphenicol :furious:

 

Here's a video, look in the back in the middle where the three branches connect and then look sort of in the middle where it was originally fragged. (note that it looks like it was fragged properly as that area showed no signs of distress when I got it).

 

To really see it you really need to watch in HD & full screen. Excuse the flying particles I just fed the fish.

 

[Andrew_Reef90g]

Hope the antibiotic helps

[ajmckay]

So today I got some cloramphenicol. It came in packets that had 6.5g of powder containing 850mg chloramchenicol.

 

I got some ethyl alcohol 70% from the store and mixed some up. Not the easiest stuff in the world to mix up.

 

My plan is to leave it in the treatment tank (a 3g with 1 whisper 10 power filter (empty) and a small powerhead for 24 hours or so.

[righttirefire]

Aj, I was hoping this was the it's cured post.

[Thomas898]

Hope the new treatment works man, never seen a more determined attempt to save a coral! Best of luck

[ajmckay]

Okay I feel I'm due for an update.

 

Friday I treated the coral with Chloramphenicol. I did this in a 3g QT tank. Here is the coral as of Friday night - note the abundance of brown jelly on the upper right hand side of the exposed part. It was all stringy and goopy when sucking it up. After sucking up the brown jelly I did a 15 minute iodine dip as usual.

 

The packets contained 850mg chloramphenicol (in 6.5g of powder). Given I don't have a scale that's accurate enough I decided to dissolve the entire packet into about 30mL of ethyl alcohol. Even in alcohol it doesn't dissolve that well though so I actually mixed it in a syringe so I could shake and then immediately dose. I dosed 20mg/L and the treatment duration was 24 hours.

 

Here's the setup:

 

Here's the coral 24 hours after treatment

 

I'm hoping this did the trick. Upon close inspection I don't see any new stuff forming. Tomorrow I'll probably remove it from the tank for observation (I can use the baster to move the tentacles out of the way to see what's happening at the skeleton). All the dips and messing around have this thing really really stressed. I really don't want to mess with it more - hoping that this did the trick.