Morgantown Reefing
New Member
Hi Everyone,
After a few years of googling questions that ultimately lead me to these forums, I decided to create an account and ask so here it goes..
Why are my Euphyllia corals dying/developing brown jelly disease while the rest of my LPS corals are doing just fine?
This post will probably be “long-winded” but I want to try and be as detailed as possible with what I do as maybe a more experienced reefer might be able to pick out my errors and diagnose the possible cause for this (i.e. Maybe I’m feeding to much, or is it because I’m storing frozen food in the fridge after feeding causing bacterial growth effecting my euphyllia, etc.)
A couple months back, I had the genius idea of wanting to create a ”Euphyllia garden” as the main focal point of my tank front and center. I order many of my corals online, so when they ship and get delivered, I promptly pull them out, drip acclimate them for 30 minutes to an hour, then dip them in CoralRX before placing them on a frag rack on the side of my tank For a couple weeks to monitor them as they become more adjusted to my system. I buy and add corals at a very slow rate as to not overwhelm my tank or the corals (current or new) and because It’s a lot easier on the wallet.
I’ve tried my hand with Euphyllias in the past when my tank was very young which didn’t make it unfortunately, but since then, I thought that my parameters have really evened out and have been very consistent for the last 6 - 8 months.
I do weekly water changes, filter floss changes every 2 - 3 days, running Chemi-pure elite which I switch out bi-monthly, and testing my parameters every week. I feed my fish and inverts once every other day and the remainder gets placed in the fridge (frozen mysis shrimp in a small cup of tank water and an algae pellet separately for the shrimp/hermit crabs/snails). I do use Reef Roids but only once or twice a week by using a 10 ml syringe and spot feed my corals as not to creat a spike in parameters. I also run a nano skimmer as to pull anything out that the filter floss and chemical-pure can’t might not.
As for corals, I had and currently still do have a nice Duncan which has nearly doubled in size, a nice Goniopora towards the side of the tank which is nearly always fully extended, two blastos that have already developed multiple heads, and a candy cane (the most recent coral added prior to the euphyllias) which has just now started to show signs of splitting. I also have some softies, pulsing Xenia and GSPs on their very own rocks, a Kenya tree and a ”mystery leather,“ and a nice Zoa garden that is starting to take shape in the corner of my tank. I have no SPS nor anemones.
For fish, I have a pair of snowflake clowns which I’ve had from the start, a six-line wrasse (the most recent addition to hopefully battle the bristle worm numbers), and a royal gramma.
The inverts and snails consist of a pin cushion urchin and blood red fire shrimp, as well as a few banded trochus snails, Mexican turbo snails, super Tongan Nassarius snails (which constantly lay eggs), and one fighting conch.
I have a 20 gallon Waterbox AIO thats been set up for 2 1/2 years now.
My parameters are as follows:
Salinity —— —1.025
pH ————— 7.9 - 8.0 (swings very lightly throughout The day between these two numbers)
Amonia ——— 0 ppm
Nitrite ———- 0 ppm
Nitrate ——— 0 ppm
Calicum ——- 439 ppm
kH ————— 9.2
phospahte — 0.23 ppm
temp ———- 76 F
Flow is intermediate, switching between pulsing/wave making and random flow, via the use of an Ai Nero 3 but nothing too strong or too light for my current corals.
When it initially started occurring, I would use a Turkey baster to remove any of the necrotic tissue before pulling out the infected coral and dipping it on coralRX with to no avail and the hammer coral, after a few more Turkey baster suctions And dips ended up dying a day later. I then tried Lugol’s iodine as a dip when my other Euphyllia coral, a two headed torch started showing signs. It seemed like it worked initially as once after the initial dip treatment, it managed to open up but then declined rapidly in less than a day. I then went to my old friend google for an answer and as always, lead me to Reef2Reef. I did end up stumbling upon a really detailed thread here when this issue started happening a month or so ago after all the Euphyllia were acclimated, added to the tank, and monitored for a few weeks before gluing the to the rock work:
www.reef2reef.com
At this point, when a third coral, another hammer, got infected I sucked out all the dead brown tissue, dipped it in Lugol’s, and placed it back in the tank not before adding one drop on lugol’s to the system and dosing 0.9 ml of Ciprofloxacin dissolved on RODI every other day, for three times in a five day period. Its been a week and a fourth coral, a hammer coral, has succumb to this nasty infection.
Should I continue to dose The antibiotic? Should I double the amount dosed? Should I dose every day instead of every other? Should I do nothing? Is there something I am doing causing this outbreak (i.e. Hands in water, bad food, etc.)? Any information would be greatly appreciated and again, I apologize for the very lengthy post but I look forward to hearing what you guys might know.
After a few years of googling questions that ultimately lead me to these forums, I decided to create an account and ask so here it goes..
Why are my Euphyllia corals dying/developing brown jelly disease while the rest of my LPS corals are doing just fine?
This post will probably be “long-winded” but I want to try and be as detailed as possible with what I do as maybe a more experienced reefer might be able to pick out my errors and diagnose the possible cause for this (i.e. Maybe I’m feeding to much, or is it because I’m storing frozen food in the fridge after feeding causing bacterial growth effecting my euphyllia, etc.)
A couple months back, I had the genius idea of wanting to create a ”Euphyllia garden” as the main focal point of my tank front and center. I order many of my corals online, so when they ship and get delivered, I promptly pull them out, drip acclimate them for 30 minutes to an hour, then dip them in CoralRX before placing them on a frag rack on the side of my tank For a couple weeks to monitor them as they become more adjusted to my system. I buy and add corals at a very slow rate as to not overwhelm my tank or the corals (current or new) and because It’s a lot easier on the wallet.
I’ve tried my hand with Euphyllias in the past when my tank was very young which didn’t make it unfortunately, but since then, I thought that my parameters have really evened out and have been very consistent for the last 6 - 8 months.
I do weekly water changes, filter floss changes every 2 - 3 days, running Chemi-pure elite which I switch out bi-monthly, and testing my parameters every week. I feed my fish and inverts once every other day and the remainder gets placed in the fridge (frozen mysis shrimp in a small cup of tank water and an algae pellet separately for the shrimp/hermit crabs/snails). I do use Reef Roids but only once or twice a week by using a 10 ml syringe and spot feed my corals as not to creat a spike in parameters. I also run a nano skimmer as to pull anything out that the filter floss and chemical-pure can’t might not.
As for corals, I had and currently still do have a nice Duncan which has nearly doubled in size, a nice Goniopora towards the side of the tank which is nearly always fully extended, two blastos that have already developed multiple heads, and a candy cane (the most recent coral added prior to the euphyllias) which has just now started to show signs of splitting. I also have some softies, pulsing Xenia and GSPs on their very own rocks, a Kenya tree and a ”mystery leather,“ and a nice Zoa garden that is starting to take shape in the corner of my tank. I have no SPS nor anemones.
For fish, I have a pair of snowflake clowns which I’ve had from the start, a six-line wrasse (the most recent addition to hopefully battle the bristle worm numbers), and a royal gramma.
The inverts and snails consist of a pin cushion urchin and blood red fire shrimp, as well as a few banded trochus snails, Mexican turbo snails, super Tongan Nassarius snails (which constantly lay eggs), and one fighting conch.
I have a 20 gallon Waterbox AIO thats been set up for 2 1/2 years now.
My parameters are as follows:
Salinity —— —1.025
pH ————— 7.9 - 8.0 (swings very lightly throughout The day between these two numbers)
Amonia ——— 0 ppm
Nitrite ———- 0 ppm
Nitrate ——— 0 ppm
Calicum ——- 439 ppm
kH ————— 9.2
phospahte — 0.23 ppm
temp ———- 76 F
Flow is intermediate, switching between pulsing/wave making and random flow, via the use of an Ai Nero 3 but nothing too strong or too light for my current corals.
When it initially started occurring, I would use a Turkey baster to remove any of the necrotic tissue before pulling out the infected coral and dipping it on coralRX with to no avail and the hammer coral, after a few more Turkey baster suctions And dips ended up dying a day later. I then tried Lugol’s iodine as a dip when my other Euphyllia coral, a two headed torch started showing signs. It seemed like it worked initially as once after the initial dip treatment, it managed to open up but then declined rapidly in less than a day. I then went to my old friend google for an answer and as always, lead me to Reef2Reef. I did end up stumbling upon a really detailed thread here when this issue started happening a month or so ago after all the Euphyllia were acclimated, added to the tank, and monitored for a few weeks before gluing the to the rock work:
Experimenting with in-tank antibiotic treatments for Brown Jelly Disease
Brown Jelly Disease (BJD) is an issue many reefers have run into. Like most coral diseases, the pathogen causing BJD has not been conclusively determined. Here I will share some observations and test results supporting the idea that its caused by a bacterial pathogen, and so may be treatable...
www.reef2reef.com
At this point, when a third coral, another hammer, got infected I sucked out all the dead brown tissue, dipped it in Lugol’s, and placed it back in the tank not before adding one drop on lugol’s to the system and dosing 0.9 ml of Ciprofloxacin dissolved on RODI every other day, for three times in a five day period. Its been a week and a fourth coral, a hammer coral, has succumb to this nasty infection.
Should I continue to dose The antibiotic? Should I double the amount dosed? Should I dose every day instead of every other? Should I do nothing? Is there something I am doing causing this outbreak (i.e. Hands in water, bad food, etc.)? Any information would be greatly appreciated and again, I apologize for the very lengthy post but I look forward to hearing what you guys might know.
