Lexinverts Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 2 hours ago, SuncrestReef said: Apparently it can spread to any corals in your tank. I am seeing it on 9 of my 50 corals now. These pictures actually look like dinoflagellates. Didn’t we see that on a Monti in your tank a while back? Do you see bubbles in the strings of brown? If you do, I bet they are Dinos. If it is Dinos, you might try a UV sterilizer and frequently blowing them off of your corals with a turkey baster. In my experience, if I blew them off all surfaces several times per day and ran a UV sterilizer, they eventually went away. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted December 30, 2018 Author Share Posted December 30, 2018 (edited) 16 minutes ago, Lexinverts said: These pictures actually look like dinoflagellates. Didn’t we see that on a Monti in your tank a while back? Do you see bubbles in the strings of brown? If you do, I bet they are Dinos. If it is Dinos, you might try a UV sterilizer and frequently blowing them off of your corals with a turkey baster. In my experience, if I blew them off all surfaces several times per day and ran a UV sterilizer, they eventually went away. I had dinos a while back, but this is different. These photos aren't my best, I just got back from New York and quickly snapped some shots in a panic. This is a much thicker brown layer, no bubbles, and it has spread from one colony a couple weeks ago to 20% of my coral collection today. The coral flesh is deteriorating at a rapid rate, so very different than what I saw with dinos. The Hollywood Stunner lost about 2 inches in a week. Tomorrow morning I'll take a sample and examine it under my microscope to get a good view. I do have a UV sterilizer running 24/7, except when the return pump is running slow for feed mode. Edited December 30, 2018 by SuncrestReef 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdxmonkeyboy Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 well, on the bright side its slowly the Hollywood stunner growth down 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youcallmenny Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 7 hours ago, pdxmonkeyboy said: well, on the bright side its slowly the Hollywood stunner growth down Is it bad that was one of my first thoughts too? @SuncrestReef Sorry about your troubles. I've had SPS do things like that because of lack of flow too. I'd do a big water change or two and up the flow some and see how it does. If that isn't it though, and I don't ever say this lightly, that seems pretty suspicious and indicative of something in your water that shouldn't be. A Triton test or whatever probably wouldn't hurt while you're dealing with it at home. Good luck and keep us updated! I love your tank and the work you've done, be a shame to see it get any worse. I'm also looking forward to some slide shots. I know dying coral isn't the most fun aspect of the hobby but it can provide some very interesting insight for future treatment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted December 30, 2018 Author Share Posted December 30, 2018 I think Jeff @CuttleFishandCoral nailed it with the Brown Jelly diagnosis. Here's a view of the ciliates under my microscope, and they appear to match the Helicostoma nonatum described in this article: http://aquariumcoraldiseases.weebly.com/brown-jelly-syndrome-bjs--brown-band-disease-brb.html When I first saw it on a frag early this month, I used a turkey baster to clean it off, thinking it was just detritus. That likely spread it around my tank to all the other corals. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youcallmenny Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 Wow! Hey, can't argue with that. I've contracted it before on Duncan's and Euphyllia and 1-2x/day turkey baster blast seemed to slow and then halt it eventually. Come to think of it I have actually had this happen to an SPS once and it was also a green birdsnest. There was less than 10% of it's tissue left when I caught it. It's grown back now but it was close for a while. Nice video, more of us need microscopes I think! Is the orange and green a dye you added? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted December 30, 2018 Author Share Posted December 30, 2018 7 hours ago, pdxmonkeyboy said: well, on the bright side its slowly the Hollywood stunner growth down I have been meaning to trim it and kept putting it off because it looked so nice. Now I have no excuse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexinverts Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 19 minutes ago, SuncrestReef said: I think Jeff @CuttleFishandCoral nailed it with the Brown Jelly diagnosis. Here's a view of the ciliates under my microscope, and they appear to match the Helicostoma nonatum described in this article: http://aquariumcoraldiseases.weebly.com/brown-jelly-syndrome-bjs--brown-band-disease-brb.html When I first saw it on a frag early this month, I used a turkey baster to clean it off, thinking it was just detritus. That likely spread it around my tank to all the other corals. Great microscope work, John! There are definitely cilliates there. But those little brown spheres on the slide also look like dinoflagellates to me. It looks like the cilliates are eating at least some of them. Maybe the algae colonize where the cilliates are feeding...? What a mess! What did Jeff suggest that you do? If it were me, I think that I would take everything out that I could and dip it in KCL (food grade, 1 tblspoon per gallon) or Revive or maybe Melafix. If I couldn't take out a piece to dip, I would hit it with a turkey baster and crank up my UV sterilizer. Good luck! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted December 30, 2018 Author Share Posted December 30, 2018 My plan is to siphon off as much brown jelly as possible, remove infected corals from tank, cut off dead sections, dip in Revive (only thing I have on hand), then return to tank for observation. Unfortunately I don’t have a suitable frag QT set up. I already run my UV 24/7, so I can’t turn it up to 11. 🤣 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted December 30, 2018 Author Share Posted December 30, 2018 47 minutes ago, youcallmenny said: Wow! Hey, can't argue with that. I've contracted it before on Duncan's and Euphyllia and 1-2x/day turkey baster blast seemed to slow and then halt it eventually. Come to think of it I have actually had this happen to an SPS once and it was also a green birdsnest. There was less than 10% of it's tissue left when I caught it. It's grown back now but it was close for a while. Nice video, more of us need microscopes I think! Is the orange and green a dye you added? There was no dye. Those were the natural colors. The microscope has a white light, but as the magnification increases it takes on more of a yellow tint. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertareef Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 15 hours ago, Lexinverts said: I would send in an ICP test ASAP to ATI or Triton. If you are seeing ‘brown jelly’ on your corals I suspect that is a result of some other stress and not the cause itself. @albertareef recently had a similar experience of slow decline and it turned out that he had a piece of metal mixed with his media in his calcium reactor. good luck! Thanks for reminding me Andy! lots of good advice on here. I would also be concerned that the brown jelly could be symptomatic of a different stressor so would encourage the ICO test ASAP as well as some more aggressive water changes if you are equipped for that. As others have mentioned, the smaller daily changes are great for maintenance but if something is off (like a contaminant, toxin etc.) it won’t overcome that. If you have another tank setup for isolation/qt you could try removing and dipping the affected corals while you trouble shoot the main system. I wasn’t really able to do any of these counter measures when I started haveing issues (for various reasons) And basically lost everything - not to freak you out. 😳 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Tavan Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 I still have some Prime stop dip if you want to give that a try. It’s the new dip that seems to be working pretty well. Worked better than bayer or coral rx for my issues with STN 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willapa Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 Can you frag some of the high end ones and put in a coral QT tank until things start to rebound? It would be like an insurance policy. All my birdsnest started to get funky a while back with something and basically cut a healthy arm off, dipped, then put in another tank. The frags took off but the main colony never recovered. Losing the colony sucks but at least you have a baby to replace it.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdxmonkeyboy Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 I thought you treat that with antibiotics? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willapa Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 I treated the frags and colonies both with a melafix bath and the frags recovered quickly but colonies still looked terrible for a couple of weeks and decided to sacrifice them so not to keep spreading any infection. That seemed to contain it. Some other corals like stylo and monti cap started to look infected as well but were all cured by the melafix for the most part. Can you treat the whole talk with melafix? I was just doing a 5 minute bath.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted January 11, 2019 Author Share Posted January 11, 2019 I got my ICP test results today. It shows high Arsenic, low Iodine, and low Strontium. The arsenic is concerning, both for the aquarium and our drinking water. The EPA acceptable level is 10 ppb (or 0.01 ppm), so my water was over 3x the limit. Apparently RO/DI filters out certain types of arsenic, but not all without a pre-oxidizing it first to go from As (III) to As (V). I'm going to test the tap water next to see if the water going to my RO/DI is the source, or if something else I put into the tank caused it. My last test back in July showed low Silver, low Bromine, high Copper, and low Iodine: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milesmiles902 Posted January 11, 2019 Share Posted January 11, 2019 (edited) Have you thought about testing your post-RO/DI house water too? Edited January 12, 2019 by milesmiles902 Didn't read it all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milesmiles902 Posted January 11, 2019 Share Posted January 11, 2019 (edited) -- Edited January 12, 2019 by milesmiles902 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted January 18, 2019 Author Share Posted January 18, 2019 My tap water ICP test shows zero arsenic. That's a relief! Must be something I'm putting into my tank that introduced it. I'm sending in a sample of RO/DI to test next. Tap water results: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Tavan Posted May 14, 2019 Share Posted May 14, 2019 (edited) So my RODI test came back with 0.014ppm of arsenic. that's weird...especially since the arsenic level from the tank is 0 I'm honestly not super impressed with ICP-analysis. I sent a sample 4/30 that they said they never received. So I sent a new sample 5/9. Somehow they ran both today and the numbers don't correlate. How can my water change that much in 9 days without a water change Edited May 14, 2019 by Manny Tavan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manny Tavan Posted May 14, 2019 Share Posted May 14, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrabbyCrabs Posted May 15, 2019 Share Posted May 15, 2019 That is good enough proof that their testing machines or handling are not up to real lab quality. If someone is interested in finding how good these places are. Send in two samples taken from same tank at the same time except have someone else send in the other sample. If they don't match nearly 100% you have your answer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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