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Brown Jelly Disease on my Torch Coral?


pdxluv

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Help, my torch coral is dying, is it Brown Jelly Disease?

 

Picture of my torch coral right now.

 

Here's a brief history...

 

The coral was healthy and extended about 2 weeks ago. But about 1 week ago, I was doing some tank maintenance and I accidentally knocked him down. So, I just stuck him on the substrate thinking I needed to move him away from my Metal Halides anyways. But 1 week goes by and he never opened, so I moved him back to the original location (mid tank). That was 1 week ago and he never opened. Just yesterday I noticed a pronounced "brown" stuff on him. And tonight (the linked picture), one of the heads "disappeared" completely, another head seems to have half of it with "brown jelly", the third head seems infected, and the remaining head seems like its not going to open and may be ill as well.

 

So, my question is, what's going on? Doing a bit of web surfing, is this "Brown Jelly Disease"?

 

I've been measuring my water Q every few days and every things seems correct.

 

I'm trying to get a QT up and running and I'm planning on doing a iodine dip. Anyone have any suggestions otherwise? Anyone know the dose amount? How long to dip? etc...

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I'm using API test kits.

 

Temp: around 78.4

SG: 1025

Amonia: 0 (or not detectable with my kit)

Nitrite: 0 (or not detectable with my kit)

Nitrate: 0 (or not detectable with my kit)

pH: 8.2

Alk: 8 dKH

 

Tank: Stock 29G BioCube with Metal Halide

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I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what to do...

 

I got the wrong Iodine (I got Tincture of Iodine instead) last night, so I didn't do a dip. Maybe it's not Brown Jelly disease after all?

 

I did use a turkey baster to try and siphon / blow off "stuff". When I "blew" on the "infected" heads, there were longish brown "slime" that would come off. For the smallest head, the first time I "blew" on it, the whole thing came off leaving just the skeleton, so, I guess he's a gonner. I have one head who is fully retracted into his skeleton but I got all the "slime" off him. I have the other two heads who I'm hopeful I can still save.

 

I've been doing Water Changes every two weeks, maybe I need to increase that to every week? I'm going to do a water change tonight and see if that helps.

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The last addition to the tank was a scooter blenny a month ago, and I have not noticed any nibbling by my other inhabitants (2 clowns, 1 yellowfin damsel, 1 six line wrasse, cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp, 2 hermit crabs, 5 snails).

 

The only other "corals" I have are green/purple mushrooms.

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Super weird... some hermits nibble coral. I had blue legs eating coral at night. It was like they knew I was watching them, or maybe it was the wrasse they were avoiding (: They also eat dead stuff so it's hard to tell if they are causing a problem or cleaning it up.

I lost a head off the torch when it fell into a spot where mushrooms were too close. Could that have happened to yours? Mine also got sand damage and there was a brownish slime but I don't think it was "brown jelly" as it did not spread to other polyps or to other LPS, and only the part that was buried was damaged, the other half of that polyp survived, but it took a long time to recover. Hope yours do too. At least if it is brown jelly you don't have other LPS in the tank to get it, so it's worth trying to save it.

Good luck,

Kate

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I lost another head. Again, using a turkey baster to try and blow away the brown slime and the head just disintergrate leaving only the skeleton. Two more to go. :( They at least are not retracted into their skeleton, yet...

 

Is it possible that when I "dropped" my coral on to the substrate, they got infected? That's the only thing I can think of.

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How's it doing now? I've got a feeling it got stung by the mushrooms, seems like to get brown jelly you would have had to bring the disease to your tank on some new purchase, but I don't know. Nobody even seems to really know what "brown jelly" is since if you scope it there are a variety of possible culprits in the slime and it goes so fast you can't forward it to a coral pathologist. At least that is what I read a year ago, and coral pathology is unfortunately a growth industry these days.

It was actually ricordea that stung and killed the heads off my torch, now that I think about it. The one head that lived is ok. You can have it if you want, I've got too much LPS. But you might not want coral with sweepers in a smallish tank anyways, they were even trouble in my 55.

Kate

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