Zoa's Being Covered in White Film - Pics

[ReeferMo]

I just bought this frag from my lfs last Thurs. By Friday night, this film was developing, and this is what it looks like today. Yesterday I dipped the frag in Lugol's for 15 minutes and most (about 75%) of the film came off, but it is back today, as you can see in the pics. Is this a type of fungus? Any ideas what can be done to get rid of it? All params are normal, and all the other inhabitants are OK. Thanks for looking.

 

Mo

[yoshiod9]

yeah, that's a fungus and half of your little colony there is probably dead. what you need to do is get a flat bristled toothbrush and gently brush away as much of the fungus as you can. the healthy polyps may be covered by the fungus but if you touch the polyps and they feel kinda mushy, it's too late to save them.

 

i just bought an amazing bright red colony for 20 bucks cuz they had fungus alllll over the rock(except for 3 polyps or so) i spent almost an hour removing the fungus with a toothbrush and a pair of tweezers. don't be afraid to liberally use lugols solution directly on the polyps. goodluck!

[Blind Tree Frog]

That stuff just killed a rock of mine. I'll have to scrub it off the rock now I guess.

 

If I just drop the rock in fresh water for like an hour, that should kill the fungus I'd assume, but how much of the other stuff on the rock (like the coraline) will die as well?

[yoshiod9]

well an hour dip would pretty much kill anything...lol. i dunno bout the coralline though. make sure that when you guys do a fw dip that you have temp and ph acclimatted to your tank!

[yoshiod9]

what do you mean it killed a rock of yours? if it was only liverock then that rock was still cycling because the fungus comes from die-off...

[Blind Tree Frog]

I had a rock covered in a colony of button poylps that died off and turned white.

[yoshiod9]

oh ok, then yeah, the fungus is from the dead polyps and i would just take out the rock and scrub it down with a toothbrush to remove as much of the stinky fungus as possible.

[Blind Tree Frog]

Don't have a toothbrush handy at work. I do have a large cup that I can fill with bottle water though (hence the above question... about the only thing on the rock I care about is the coraline, and the tank is cycled and running happily, so the rock can die for the post part and should come back fine after being in the tank for a bit)

[Phiche Master]

IME zoos with fungus=dead....I ve saved a couple by scraping off the infected ones and isolating the non infected ones. Reef infections have a way of affecting everything in the tank, so be vigilant.