Help! Is this Brown Jelly Disease on my torch?

[DevilDuck]

Added this Torch about a week ago. Today, I noticed it's not extending and there what looks like tissue melt around the rim.

 

 

 

[Lloydpancakes]

Hey, have you spot fed it?

[DevilDuck]

1 minute ago, Lloydpancakes said:

Hey, have you spot fed it?

Yes, I spot fed it yesterday.

[Lloydpancakes]

The first time I spot fed my frogspawn it did that. Idk why. Pissed maybe. Honestly I don’t know if what’s in your pic is brown jelly, but I don’t think so.  

[DevilDuck]

I pulled it out into a container and used my coral feeder to gently blasted off as much of the weird brown stuff as I could. It came off in sheets easily, leaving just the white skeleton.

Since I didn't have any coral dip, I used drug store 3% hydrogen peroxide sprayed around the rim and let it sit in the container for a minute or two.

 

The hydrogen peroxide bubbled for a btt and the torch slimed a bunch. I took it out of the container and put it back in the tank. In a lower light, lower flow area. It appears to be recovering. Fingers crossed!  

 

I went ahead and ordered some Two Little Fishy's Revive just in case.

 

[Lloydpancakes]

I hope it works out dude. All the best. 

[ajmckay]

IMO it does indeed look like BJS.  Hopefully the peroxide works for you.  I had a really nice wall euphyllia that I used peroxide on, which I think helped, but ultimately ended up using an antibiotic. 

[DevilDuck]

2 hours ago, ajmckay said:

IMO it does indeed look like BJS.  Hopefully the peroxide works for you.  I had a really nice wall euphyllia that I used peroxide on, which I think helped, but ultimately ended up using an antibiotic. 

@ajmckay Do you remember which antibiotic you used? I want to have some on head just in case.

[ajmckay]

I used Chloramphenicol.  

 

It came in 850mg packets (in 6.5g of powder). I dissolve the entire packet into about 30mL of ethyl alcohol in a large feeding syringe.  I dosed 20mg/L and the treatment duration was 24 hours.

[mcarroll]

23 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

I pulled it out into a container and used my coral feeder to gently blasted off as much of the weird brown stuff as I could. It came off in sheets easily, leaving just the white skeleton.

Since I didn't have any coral dip, I used drug store 3% hydrogen peroxide sprayed around the rim and let it sit in the container for a minute or two.

 

The hydrogen peroxide bubbled for a btt and the torch slimed a bunch. I took it out of the container and put it back in the tank. In a lower light, lower flow area. It appears to be recovering. Fingers crossed!  

 

I went ahead and ordered some Two Little Fishy's Revive just in case.

 

I'm hoping for the best too, but that was a harsh treatment for an ailing coral....I'll be surprised if it pulls through after that.

 

Also, I'm sorry that the thread jumped straight to esoterica such as feedings and mythical aquarium coral disease treatments before it covered basics like lighting, flow and water quality, etc.  

 

Most corals require no feedings and suffer from no diseases in typical home reefs.   Our fish handle the feeding (pee and poo).  And the only time they seem to suffer from disease in the wild is when continuously subjected to a human waste stream...not gonna find that in a home tank.  

 

IMO you were just seeing bleaching, possibly also some physical damage from handling (during fragging, bagging, mounting, etc) and associated tissue recession/necrosis.  Similar as on an SPS during STN/RTN only there's a lot more tissue on an LPS so it's visually more apparent.

 

How old is this tank?  

 

Can you post your water quality numbers? (temp, s.g., ca, alk, mg, no3, po4).

 

Can you post a full tank shot that includes your flow and lighting?

[ajmckay]

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

I'm hoping for the best too, but that was a harsh treatment for an ailing coral....I'll be surprised if it pulls through after that.

 

Also, I'm sorry that the thread jumped straight to esoterica such as feedings and mythical aquarium coral disease treatments before it covered basics like lighting, flow and water quality, etc.  

 

Most corals require no feedings and suffer from no diseases in typical home reefs.   Our fish handle the feeding (pee and poo).  And the only time they seem to suffer from disease in the wild is when continuously subjected to a human waste stream...not gonna find that in a home tank.  

 

IMO you were just seeing bleaching, possibly also some physical damage from handling (during fragging, bagging, mounting, etc) and associated tissue recession/necrosis.  Similar as on an SPS during STN/RTN only there's a lot more tissue on an LPS so it's visually more apparent.

 

How old is this tank?  

 

Can you post your water quality numbers? (temp, s.g., ca, alk, mg, no3, po4).

 

Can you post a full tank shot that includes your flow and lighting?

He established his tank a little over a month ago.  It's a pretty standard 13g AIO that doesn't appear to have wildly inappropriate lighting or flow.  

 

 

Obviously he did some research and came across BJS and decided to try peroxide on it.  Having experienced it though I know that time is of the essence - even if it's a mythical disease. One thing I recall from experiencing it is that the smell of the brown slime is truly horrid.  Smells like pure death.  Anyways - how is what OP experienced any different than bleaching/tissue necrosis?  Sounds like we're talking about the same thing whether it's called bleaching/RTN/BJS.  I'm confident that the primary cause is damage during transport. Rolling around in a bag causes the sharp skeleton to pierce the soft tissues. 

 

Given the size of this frag and the high likelihood that all tissue would have sloughed off in a matter of a day or so he doesn't really have a lot to lose - it's not like he can frag his frag to try and save some tissue.  I probably didn't need to jump straight to chloramphenicol, but he asked so I answered. It's not like he's going to run to his LFS and pick some up, he would have to talk to a specialized vet to get that.

 

 

OP, how's the coral doing? 

[Lloydpancakes]

4 hours ago, mcarroll said:

I'm hoping for the best too, but that was a harsh treatment for an ailing coral....I'll be surprised if it pulls through after that.

 

Also, I'm sorry that the thread jumped straight to esoterica such as feedings and mythical aquarium coral disease treatments before it covered basics like lighting, flow and water quality, etc.  

 

 

Hey guy...relax.

[DevilDuck]

20 hours ago, ajmckay said:

He established his tank a little over a month ago.  It's a pretty standard 13g AIO that doesn't appear to have wildly inappropriate lighting or flow.  

 

 

Obviously he did some research and came across BJS and decided to try peroxide on it.  Having experienced it though I know that time is of the essence - even if it's a mythical disease. One thing I recall from experiencing it is that the smell of the brown slime is truly horrid.  Smells like pure death.  Anyways - how is what OP experienced any different than bleaching/tissue necrosis?  Sounds like we're talking about the same thing whether it's called bleaching/RTN/BJS.  I'm confident that the primary cause is damage during transport. Rolling around in a bag causes the sharp skeleton to pierce the soft tissues. 

 

Given the size of this frag and the high likelihood that all tissue would have sloughed off in a matter of a day or so he doesn't really have a lot to lose - it's not like he can frag his frag to try and save some tissue.  I probably didn't need to jump straight to chloramphenicol, but he asked so I answered. It's not like he's going to run to his LFS and pick some up, he would have to talk to a specialized vet to get that.

 

 

OP, how's the coral doing? 

Thank you all for the support and advice! 

 

The torch coral doesn't look great at this point, it is still mostly recessed in the skeleton. There was a little more flesh slothing off yesterday, I haven't noticed anything this morning. I've placed it on the sand bed of the tank where it gets shaded indirect light. I'll leave it be for now.

 

Not quite sure how BJD is "mythical". It's mentioned multiple times in multiple forums even this one. This makes it seem as BJD was somewhat common with euphyllia. I didn't experience the same tissue loss with my wall hammer coral. 

 

At this point, I'll chalk this up as one item in a long list of learning experiences. 

 

 

 

My Salifert test kits came in today and here are the readings. Keep in mind this was the first time I've administered these tests, so I may be off a little.

 

alk: 8.3 dkh
cal: 370 ppm
mg 1320 ppm

Salinity: 1.024 sg  (doing weekly water changes to get this up to 1.025 sg)

Recently I started mixing my own salt using Fritz RPM and RODI.

 

 

 

[Lloydpancakes]

8 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

Thank you all for the support and advice! 

 

The torch coral doesn't look great at this point, it is still mostly recessed in the skeleton. There was a little more flesh slothing off yesterday, I haven't noticed anything this morning. I've placed it on the sand bed of the tank where it gets shaded indirect light. I'll leave it be for now.

 

Not quite sure how BJD is "mythical". It's mentioned multiple times in multiple forums even this one. This makes it seem as BJD was somewhat common with euphyllia. I didn't experience the same tissue loss with my wall hammer coral. 

 

At this point, I'll chalk this up as one item in a long list of learning experiences. 

 

 

 

 

I’m really sorry to hear that. Hopefully it pulls through. Also, I agree with you re forums making it seem like BJD is a common occurrence. I was absolutely certain that my branch hammer and my frogspawn had it not too long ago.  Ultimately I just sat back and kept an eye on them. Idk what the culprit was (could have been expelling zooxanthelle, could have been that they were taking a dump which is a thing they do apparently), but it worked out ok in the end.

[ajmckay]

10 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

Thank you all for the support and advice! 

 

The torch coral doesn't look great at this point, it is still mostly recessed in the skeleton. There was a little more flesh slothing off yesterday, I haven't noticed anything this morning. I've placed it on the sand bed of the tank where it gets shaded indirect light. I'll leave it be for now.

 

Not quite sure how BJD is "mythical". It's mentioned multiple times in multiple forums even this one. This makes it seem as BJD was somewhat common with euphyllia. I didn't experience the same tissue loss with my wall hammer coral. 

 

At this point, I'll chalk this up as one item in a long list of learning experiences. 

 

 

 

My Salifert test kits came in today and here are the readings. Keep in mind this was the first time I've administered these tests, so I may be off a little.

 

alk: 8.3 dkh
cal: 370 ppm
mg 1320 ppm

Salinity: 1.024 sg  (doing weekly water changes to get this up to 1.025 sg)

Recently I started mixing my own salt using Fritz RPM and RODI.

 

 

 

Oh I wasn't implying it's mythical necessarily - I know it's a real thing but it's still not completely understood.  Lloyd's experience with a coral recovering on it's own makes me doubt that it was BJS.  A good indicator is the smell.  If you were to suck out a small bit of the dead tissue and squirt it onto a paper towel or something that would be a good indication.   But either way once a coral starts sloughing off tissue it's a super bad sign and usually doesn't recover on it's own. 

 

The theory I'm most inclined to believe is that it's caused by a particular protozoan which enters the coral tissue through an injured section. 

 

For your water parameters, alk and cal might be considered a bit low considering where the mg numbers are...   I think 1.024 is fine for salinity as long as it's stable. 

I don't think that the water parameters are off enough though to cause sudden and rapid tissue death. 

 

For future euphyllia purchases, make sure the LFS takes their time packaging it up.  I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that they use a baster or something to gently fan it a few minutes beforehand so that the tentacles can retract before bagging it.  Also, consider bringing your own transportation materials.  Whenever I stop by an LFS now I have a plastic soup container and an insulated lunchbox.  Something like this is also commercially available to protect frags from rolling around in bags on your passenger seat.  I'm not implying that's what happened - I'm just suggesting it's something that makes sense. 

 

 

[DevilDuck]

The torch completely melted away to mush this morning. Fingers cross it doesn't spread. 

 

Thanks for the future transport suggestions @ajmckay I think I'm going to stay away from torches a while until the tank matures a bit more. 

[mcarroll]

16 hours ago, DevilDuck said:

alk: 8.3 dkh
cal: 370 ppm
mg 1320 ppm

Salinity: 1.024 sg  (doing weekly water changes to get this up to 1.025 sg)

Recently I started mixing my own salt using Fritz RPM and RODI.

Parameters look more or less pretty good to me.  The one other coral I can see pictured looks pretty good too.

 

IMO this was something that was wrong before you purchased the coral, or perhaps something that happened during purchase or during placement.

 

BTW, if interested in the topic of coral disease more generally, I'd suggest these two articles:

• Global microbialization of coral reefs
• Role of elevated organic carbon levels and microbial activity in coral mortality

Click through to read the source article on each one if it seems interesting from the commentary you'll see.  There should be PDF's linked.

 

 

[DevilDuck]

25 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

Parameters look more or less pretty good to me.  The one other coral I can see pictured looks pretty good too.

 

IMO this was something that was wrong before you purchased the coral, or perhaps something that happened during purchase or during placement.

 

BTW, if interested in the topic of coral disease more generally, I'd suggest these two articles:

• Global microbialization of coral reefs
• Role of elevated organic carbon levels and microbial activity in coral mortality

Click through to read the source article on each one if it seems interesting from the commentary you'll see.  There should be PDF's linked.

 

 

Thanks @mcarroll I'll read through the pdfs this weekend.

 

I've been following this recent and active thread on reef2reef about the treatment of BJD with common aquatic antibiotics and dips: 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brown-jelly-disease-under-the-microscope.294341/ . The OP takes a good scientific approach to trying various treatments, they are finding doxycycline may have a positive effect for treatment. 

 

 

[mcarroll]

 

On 1/23/2021 at 11:52 AM, DevilDuck said:

Thanks @mcarroll I'll read through the pdfs this weekend.

 

I've been following this recent and active thread on reef2reef about the treatment of BJD with common aquatic antibiotics and dips: 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brown-jelly-disease-under-the-microscope.294341/ . The OP takes a good scientific approach to trying various treatments, they are finding doxycycline may have a positive effect for treatment. 

 

 

Another almost-duplicate thread to the one you posted that I ran into via Google: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/experimenting-with-in-tank-antibiotic-treatments-for-brown-jelly-disease.791/

 

If you want to read something more authoritative and scientific for comparison, I would point you to a less-"mythic" assessment: Assessment of the microbial communities associated with white syndrome and brown jelly syndrome in aquarium corals (PDF here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/46170645.pdf) 

 

They conclude ciliates, not bacteria....but they also include LOTS of caveats and don't go so far as to recommend anything like a treatment.  

 

Even with their research, the situation is still not very clear yet at all.  (I don't think their Brown Jelly Syndrome, from the PDF, is what most folks on the forums end up calling brown jelly disease either.  I think the lions share of forum reports, maybe even 100%, are just simple cases of damage and necrosis, a likelihood which the authors also take care to point out early in the article's Introduction.  The citation on that point is one of "our boy" Eric Borneman's scholarly journal articles, interestingly enough.  His Corals book is HIGHLY recommended.)

[ajmckay]

On 1/24/2021 at 1:31 PM, mcarroll said:

 

Another almost-duplicate thread to the one you posted that I ran into via Google: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/experimenting-with-in-tank-antibiotic-treatments-for-brown-jelly-disease.791/

 

If you want to read something more authoritative and scientific for comparison, I would point you to a less-"mythic" assessment: Assessment of the microbial communities associated with white syndrome and brown jelly syndrome in aquarium corals (PDF here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/46170645.pdf) 

 

They conclude ciliates, not bacteria....but they also include LOTS of caveats and don't go so far as to recommend anything like a treatment.  

 

Even with their research, the situation is still not very clear yet at all.  (I don't think their Brown Jelly Syndrome, from the PDF, is what most folks on the forums end up calling brown jelly disease either.  I think the lions share of forum reports, maybe even 100%, are just simple cases of damage and necrosis, a likelihood which the authors also take care to point out early in the article's Introduction.  The citation on that point is one of "our boy" Eric Borneman's scholarly journal articles, interestingly enough.  His Corals book is HIGHLY recommended.)

Lots of good reads.  I once went on a quest to find Borneman's book - but at least at the time it was unavailable or ridiculously expensive.

 

As for treatments - I think it's really hard to know what to do (or not do) here.  In a lot of cases these necrosis events happen to new frags/colonies within about a 2 week period.  And it usually results in the loss of the coral.  So I personally don't think that there's much to lose in attempting treatment - where the usual suspects (water chemistry, flow, lighting, other inhabitants, pests) are deemed to be okay.   It may not work, but then again it may help. 

 

At this point we've at least identified that certain corals are more susceptible, we should be particularly gentle during transport and acclimation.