Coral wars??

[christyf5]

Anyone ever experienced this??

Woke up yesterday morning, my Seriatopora callendrium and yellow capricornis which have been next to each other for weeks are both covered in a browny goo. The cap is pretty much a goner, the callendrium is half gone. I frag the callendrium and save what I can of the cap. Put the cap in some small empty spots on the rock, put the callendrium next to another coral.

This morning the rest of the callendrium is gone and its taken out a two big branches of my blue acro colony that it was next to.

I've cut off every last little bit, thrown out the callendrium and fragged well below the affected areas on the acro as well as sucked up various mung that floated away, and done a 20% water change.

What the heck is this? Normal coral warfare? Those corals were next to each other for quite awhile so this isn't an instant thing, the callendrium does grow pretty fast so maybe it grew into the cap?? But in a normal situation the callendrium versus that acro, the acro would have won (they've been neighbors before). Does that goo have some sort of superpowers?

On the flip side, the cap pieces are unaffected by this so I'm hoping this doesn't continue in the tank. Pretty damned ugly thing to wake up to, two days in a row.

Now I gotta go find a piece of that callendrium, it was a beauty :neutral:

[Aquattro]

Sorry, never experienced that. Keep us posted.

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Not likely Coral warfare. I had this happen to a huge volleyball sized Green Montipora Capricornis, I believe this is caused by either a viral or bacterial infection. The coral seems to dissolve into a brown mucus type substance leaving only bare skeleton behind.

I did not find any way sto stop this, I even fragged off a piece far away from the developing infection and put it into my quarentine tank, it still eveloped this malady and completely died.

I would suggest keeping an eye on this but be ready to remove the Coral should it look like it will not pull through, I am not sure how contagious the disease is but I would not take any chances.

Hope this helps.......

[christyf5]

Thanks Ian,

For the most part only the backside of the callendrium closest to the cap was bare skeleton, the rest was slimy and looked like the tissue had just dissolved into brown goo. The part farthest away looked unaffected which I why I just fragged it. If I had known I would have turfed the whole thing. I've gotten rid of the callendrium but ugh, if I have to watch that acro go, man I dunno. I've had that piece for 4 years now. Guess I'll have to watch it like a hawk today.

I'll keep you guys posted.

[Chaloupa]

OH NO! I lost a few mille's when I first started with SPS to the same thing...fine, then a ball of brown jelly. Never was able to save one. Good luck

[christyf5]

OH NO! I lost a few mille's when I first started with SPS to the same thing...fine, then a ball of brown jelly. Never was able to save one. Good luck

But was it contagious? Am I going to watch my corals do this one by one? Just the ones that come into contact with it or were near to it? I'm a little freaked out here.

[Chaloupa]

There were very few corals in my tank then....but all the mille's died....I had 3 colonies and the same thing happened to each, and they were far from each other. It took maybe 24-48 hours....HOWEVER there were a couple of other corals that weren't affected AT ALL (acro's and monti's, maybe 6 or so corals...). And they were between the mille's.....I don't blame you for being freaked......I would be as it seems very odd that suddenly this happened. I'd like to say, don't worry...but I would be...

[i have crabs]

brown jelly disease maybe?
never actually seen it before but thats what it sounds like to me maybe started by the corals being close enough to fight
http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html

[MitchM]

It sounds like brown jelly disease, but I've only experienced it with some LPS in the past. I found it to be totally treatable by suctioning off of the brown jelly-like material, followed with a Lugol's dip, then keep the coral in a good alternating water flow. If the brown jelly reappears, repeat process.
Watch for reinfection at the edges of the receding edge of the coral.

Mitch

[MitchM]

But was it contagious? Am I going to watch my corals do this one by one? Just the ones that come into contact with it or were near to it? I'm a little freaked out here.


I found it NOT to be contagious. It seemed that the brown jelly only took hold in areas of necrosis on the affected coral.

Mitch

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

I was going to say brown jelly disease too.

I did find it to be infectious or at least it found a way to spread in an old tank of mine. Was just a 33G sps tank but wiped out the whole thing. Sounds exactly like what your describing. I never had any caps, so maybe they are "immune". Caps are pretty hard to kill.

[untamed]

Sounds very similar to what I've had happen to my hynorphora, and callendrium. So far, I've been unable to save the hyorphora even with repeated fragging and dipping. Three large colonies are now down to two frags. Whatever it was, it certainly moved large distances between the three colonies. It was the first thing that happened that started a nasty bad stretch there for my tank.

[MitchM]

I found that it was difficult at first to remove all the brown jelly. I repeated with longer and longer dip times, but with the same dip strength.
The infection was sometimes noticeable again the next day. It was a euphyllia that was infected in my tank.
It sounds like I was lucky that no other corals were infected.
It was many years ago that I went through that, so I don't remember if there were other things I may have done, but the coral did survive.

Because the skeleton was so massive, it wasn't possible to frag. Maybe that helped.

Mitch

[fishytime]

+1 on dipping with one of the available dips.