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

[Andrew_Reef90g]

Good luck!

[Drs1685]

Hope everything works out well!

[ajmckay]

Thanks for the encoragement! I'll keep updating regularly until I feel it's sufficently "cured" or it's dead.

[dmasterx1x]

keep fighting the good fight. Really hope the frogspawn pulls through after all that.

[righttirefire]

That way you can seems me a frag

[ajmckay]

That way you can seems me a frag

 

As a bonus to going through all this I learned how to appropriately frag these. It takes a few weeks of preparation though. You slip a rubber band over the cut line and over a few weeks the flesh naturally receeds in that area. That way when you cut you don't tear any of the flesh as long as you're careful.

[Pinner Reef]

 

As a bonus to going through all this I learned how to appropriately frag these. It takes a few weeks of preparation though. You slip a rubber band over the cut line and over a few weeks the flesh naturally receeds in that area. That way when you cut you don't tear any of the flesh as long as you're careful.

 

Interesting, I always just cut along the grain one head in front of the infection. This seems much less stressful.

[righttirefire]

Aj, so it's doing better? Out of trouble?

[markalot]

For what it's worth I have a wall frogspawn that reached up over 6 inches and killed the head of one of my acans. I never forgave it and put it in a back corner of my 150. A Monti shaded it too much and it started to recede so I brought it back out in the light and it has recovered quickly. I have hope these are fairly hardy, unlike wall hammers, which all seem to die. Good Luck!

[ajmckay]

Aj, so it's doing better? Out of trouble?

 

Not calling it yet. That I can tell there's not any BSJ but the coral is still plenty pissed off. There's some additional tissue recession right around the area, I'm guessing because the mouth is lost. But it's looking okay. I'll post pics tomorrow.

[righttirefire]

Awesome aj. Best wishes

[tdannhauser30]

You are a dedicated coral owner, Most people wouldnt be putting this much effort in if there cat started acting funny let alone a coral! Respect to you and hopefully your efforts are rewarded!! keep us updated!

[ajmckay]

Update time. I'm not really sure what to think at the moment. Here's what I'm noticing:

1) There is still some slow tissue recession going on - but it looks clean. Like it's not turning to brown goo.

2) The mouths are really puffy (look bubbly - see pic 2)

3) Pics were taken at lights out so it wasn't as fluffy as it was during the day - I'll try to get a pic of that tomorrow.

 

So I'm not exactly sure what to think at the moment. My plan is to continue with very close observation.

 

 

[righttirefire]

You're awesome aj

[ajmckay]

Okay bear with me a little while longer - I have a good feeling about how things are going.

 

 

Pics:

Here's from Friday evening (5/1 - This is 1 week after the Chloramphenicol treatment on 4/24 and 3 weeks after initial symptoms on 4/12.). Note that it's looking half way decent during lights on. It's not as inflated as I've seen it, but looks decent still.

 

Here's some pics from tonight (5/3) after lights out:

 

 

So it seems that the tissue recession has slowed down or possibly stopped. I have yet to see any signs of BJS. My only actions since the Chloramphenicol treatment has been careful observation. I'll probably post the next update in a few days. I think if I get to 2 weeks with no signs of BJS I can call this infection beat. fingerscrossed

[righttirefire]

WOOHOO! that's awesome

[Markburns43]

Can you buy this medication or do you have to know some one i order to get it? Would be nice to have along side other methods.

[ajmckay]

Can you buy this medication or do you have to know some one i order to get it? Would be nice to have along side other methods.

 

Unfortunately no - this stuff is pretty difficult to get a hold of. Due to scarcity and the potential impacts from using a drug on a sensitive coral I saved it for a last resort. In other words I'm not sure this should be considered a routine medication in the fish medicine drawer but if you have some prize specimen LPS especially something like euphyllia or gonipora it might be something more worth having - as long as it's used responsibly as a last resort and once a BJS diagnosis is without a doubt.

 

Here are some of the things I tried:

 

- If you have a good relationship with a vet you stand the best chance of quickly getting a script there

- If there's a local aquarium with a vet on staff that might also work

- Order it from overseas or it's on eBay sometimes. You may need to do some math and have some measuring/dosing supplies if you go this route

- Ask around if anyone has some. If someone near you did get some chances are they have extra because you don't need very much and they can give/sell you some. This is how I got it - a local reefer had some left over and sent me a little bit.

 

One note on Chloramphenicol though... It's supposedly pretty potent stuff that can cause a life-threatening anemia in humans so if you do get some handle with extreme care. Equally important is that after treatment the treated water needs to be neutralized with lots of bleach before being disposed of.

[Markburns43]

That was some very important info on handling, and great to know. It would be nice to have so e as a last resort, i have a couple torches couple hammers and a massive 5 to 7 head frogspawn that im allways worrying about becuase they do sone pretty strange things but im getting better at distinguishing being a problem or just a euphyla being what it is lol. Any ideas why they are so susceptible to the disease and what might have caused it becuase i have no doubt in my mind that i wont ever have to deal with it and i hate losing corals no matter if it was a 20 dollar frag to a 100 plus .

[evilc66]

Just saw this thread AJ. What a freaking nail biter man! Hope things are still looking good. I've got my fingers crossed for you bud.

[righttirefire]

You're about due for another update and a conclusion of techniques tried

[righttirefire]

Come on aj! I need an update. Do I need to send a donation to your frogspawn's charity or a graduation / congratulation card

[ajmckay]

Hahaha! Yeah I think it's about time for an update, though I did say it would probably be a few days

 

Conclusion: I think that the Chloramphenicol did the trick . It's been 2 weeks since treatment and besides a little bit of recession due to destroying 1/2 a mouth the frogspawn has seen no more BJS and looks to be improving. It's been about a month since the brown jelly was discovered and in total it killed about 15% of the coral. I'm really glad that it's doing well though - if it would have died completely there's no doubt that I would have been confined to the $10 frag tank for the rest of my life !

 

Comparison pic, 1 week after treatment on the left, 2 weeks after treatment on the right - essentially no change in the last week.

 

So to summarize, in my experience when dealing with BJS:

 

1) Doing nothing is a bad idea - by all accounts the coral cannot fight off this infection by itself.

2) Observe new corals carefully and if BJS is discovered act quickly. If you have other susceptible corals remove them or remove the infected coral to prevent the spread of infected tissue.

3) Frequent daily to 2x daily aggressive removal of the infected tissue is effective in slowing the infection.

4) Iodine Dips are probably more for good measure - but provides some antiseptic effects that probably prevents secondary infections and possibly helps slow the progression.

5) FW dip didn't seem to do much except piss the coral off.

6) Peroxide dip seemed more effective than iodine dips alone but more stressful to the coral - in particular the mouths got all puffy after the peroxide treatment.

7) A single 24 hour treatment of Chloramphenicol was effective in treating the brown jelly disease and 2 weeks later still no sign

8) I maintained excellent water quality during the process - I believe this was also a major contributor to my apparent success.

 

I want to thank everyone for the continued support - I mean it's just a piece of coral but the encouragement helped me remember to post updates and document things so that others can hopefully use this information.

 

I hope to update this thread over time just to show that the coral's growing back!

[righttirefire]

You're a Rockstar

[ndrobey]

After reading all of this, I have crossed wall euphyllia off my want list.