Currently, I am experiencing what I think is a bacterial infection in my coral. I noticed during a water change Thursday. A couple of mushroom coral on the back glass were disentegrating. They had a brown slime on them. This had spread to my stylophoral which spread to my UC equisita and then to my slimer. I successfully snipped off a couple branches of the equisita and saved them. I also was able to cut above the infection on a slimer branch, saving the colony. I was able to cut off some of the infected branches on the purple style but due to the thickness and density of the colony I simply cannot cut out the infected area. This infection is spreads rapidly! The stylo is very large and the infection seems to have slowed a bit, so I may not have to go 100% damage control on it. Today is day 5 and I noticed this morning the base is now showing signs of disease. Without treatment it's likely my colony will be destroyed. I've lost euphyllia in the past to a same/similar brown slime infection. Has anyone else experienced this? Treatments? ABX?
Oh no! I think john might have some incite on this. He mentioned something like that on an scan thread a couple days ago
Yeah that's it http://aquariumcoraldiseases.weebly.com/brown-jelly-syndrome-bjs--brown-band-disease-brb.html I don't have ABX to treat. May try and pick up some tomorrow from The Fish Tank.
Mark, I want you to try something for me and let me know how well it works. This has not been proven, it is still experimental. The risk, do nothing and watch your coral die. Try this and maybe kill the coral , maybe stop the infection. Regardless, I want feedback.
ABX means antibiotics. No pics. The brown slime doesn't really happen on sps, just everything else. What you see on sps is tissue sloughing off.
So it looks like the sepsis storm has ceased! I noticed very little change yesterday and this morning no new death. This likely is a testament of how healthy and hardy the ORA purple stylo truly is. I probably only lost 10% of the stylo. Oddly enough, the part that died needed to be gone! The stylo was killing my equisita. I was trying to figure out how to kill off this section and make some room. My equisita was starting to take off and base out really well until it met the border of the stylo. They did not get along. Not only did the stylo win but the Chem warfare killed off 2/3rds of the equisita base, leaving mostly branches. I wish had had pictures of the infection spreading. It's quite dramatic. Because I'm medical, I relate this to necrotising fasciitis. Any coral with soft tissue gets a brown slime and simply disentegrates within minutes. Acropora don't get the slime, rather it looks like RTN. Small colonies and frags don't stand a chance. You simply have to be fortunate enough to notice this and clip off small frags. The stylo, because the branches are so thick was different. You could see the coral flesh and slime coat pealing away from the skeleton. The base growth, the part of the coral growing flat on the rock to gain new territory, went ultra fast. The branches went slower and I think this is why it didn't get consumed. The causative organism is specualative, but it might be wise for all to have ABX of some kind stowed away. I think it's likely that whatever the organism to blame, it's in your tank right now. Just like we 'all' carry MRSA on our skin. This event marks the third time I've seen this disease. Previously, I've lost mushrooms, months, and euphyllia. This time mushroom and sps. Bottom line, it spreads rapidly and if unnoticed for long it could potentially whipe out a tank. It also reminds me of a Forrest fire. I wonder if in nature the purpose is the same. Though devastating, brings a renewing and life to the ocean?
Glad it doesn't seem to still be spreading. Would doing major water changes help to slow progression?
Great question. I think.....no. The infection was spread via close proximity, cm not inches. The sloughing tissue or brown jelly actually touched the neighboring coral. The link I posted indicated an entire tank would be infected. I do not believe this is the case. My experience, I think, also shows coral have some ability to resist or fight off pathogens. Of course we know this is true due to studies on slime coats!
I guess my thinking is say you've got an infection in one part of the body ... well it's more likely to get worse and spread if you don't keep the area clean. So I was thinking doing extra water changes, concentrating on vacuuming around the infected corals, might help remove some of the bacteria and slow the progression. And I could be totally wrong but it SEEMS legit! Lol ;-)
Seems plausible. Your saying a WC would reduce the overall number of pathogenic organisms. I think scratch the keeping body clean part. That confuses human and coral physiology too much for me.
When I have experienced RTN events or sloughing off of SPS I blast it with a turkey baster and blow off as much "loose" tissue as possible. It doesn't always work but its better than watching it all die off.
BTW Mark, your MRSA comment reminded me of one of my "summer vacations" to Afghanistan. On my 2010 trip to Helmand Province, the world leader in heroin production as well as deadliest and most dangerous province in the country, one of my Team Leaders got a nasty, leaky infection within a matter of days. We think he picked it up in the hotel in Virginia on our way in country. It was certainly MRSA and he couldn't have had it in a worse country. He was pretty upset to be sidelined right off the bat but the Taliban in Helmand isn't JV. They are certainly the varsity team and as their #1 target, we need to be on top of our game. Sorry I got off topic. That is enough story time for now. LOL