Antibiotic options for treating relentless STN/BJD

Hypnotoad · Apr 26, 2021

Hi everyone,

Back in January I noticed some Acans receding a bit from the edges of their colonies.

After that, I lost two hammers that just sort of withered away, a Hollywood Stunner colony lost a ton of tissue, and the Acans eventually lost all of their tissue. I also noticed some slight tissue recession on a sizeable Stylophora colony.

Fast forward to now, and I've now lost the Acans, Hammers, several Acro frags, and some good-sized Acro, Stylo, and Seriatopora colonies: probably about a third of my corals in total.

Now the plague is coming for my Duncan. This Duncan is about 6 years old, was one of my first corals, and it has been almost impossibly hardy, easily surviving every mistake I made as I took a crash course in taking reefing more seriously. Here's a picture of it this morning:

You can see some of the heads I've already lost, and I circled one that's on its way out. The skeleton below the head has brown goo on it that wiggles around in the flow. The only other coral I saw this on so clearly was the Stylophora.

I'm almost completely convinced I'm dealing with a bacterial and/or protazoal issue here, as I've watched the sickness spread from one coral to another.

Yesterday I performed a Coral RX and Iodine dip on the Duncan-just because I had some around-but I'm pretty sure it's not going to do anything. Iodine didn't help the Acans either.

I've been doing research and have seen some stuff on here about treating with Antibiotics.

This thread discusses dipping corals with Amoxicillin/Doxyciclyne

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/m...cies-with-doxycycline-and-amoxicillin.718086/
This one discusses whole tank treatment with Ciprofloxacin

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/e...ic-treatments-for-brown-jelly-disease.782438/
I have Amoxycillin, Doxyciclyne, and Ciprofloxacin ordered and on the way and am currently trying to figure out how I want to go about this.

The thread I linked about brown jelly disease says Cipro may not be very effective against vibrio, and I don't have a way to rule out that vibrio is the cause of my issues.

Some reports about antibiotic dips say it's ineffective as you're just dumping the treated coral back into a pathogen-ridden tank.

Does anyone have any experience, and/or follow up questions that might help me devise a treatment plan here?

Since I'm sure someone will ask, here are my parameters:

Salinity: 1.024-1.026 (it's a small tank, so things like filter socks filling up and overflow teeth getting clogged in my fuge mess with salinity a touch
NO3: 5ppm (Salifert)
P04: 0.055ppm (Hanna ULR Phosphorus)
CA: 420 (Red Sea)
Alk: 8.6 DKH (Hanna)
MG: 1310 (Aquaforest)
PH: 8.2 (Peak daytime) 7.9 (Just before lights on)

Parameters wander here and there (again, small tank) but I haven't had any super crazy swings in over a year.

I also stopped all carbon/amino dosing out of fear that I was feeding the nasties.

The only coral that has survived once the tissue loss started is-annoyingly-the Hollywood Stunner pictured right of center here:

Thanks for looking. Hopefully I can get this under control.

fishguy242 · Apr 26, 2021

@Eagle_Steve thoughts?

LRT · Apr 26, 2021

Hypnotoad said:
Hi everyone,

Back in January I noticed some Acans receding a bit from the edges of their colonies.

After that, I lost two hammers that just sort of withered away, a Hollywood Stunner colony lost a ton of tissue, and the Acans eventually lost all of their tissue. I also noticed some slight tissue recession on a sizeable Stylophora colony.

Fast forward to now, and I've now lost the Acans, Hammers, several Acro frags, and some good-sized Acro, Stylo, and Seriatopora colonies: probably about a third of my corals in total.

Now the plague is coming for my Duncan. This Duncan is about 6 years old, was one of my first corals, and it has been almost impossibly hardy, easily surviving every mistake I made as I took a crash course in taking reefing more seriously. Here's a picture of it this morning:

You can see some of the heads I've already lost, and I circled one that's on its way out. The skeleton below the head has brown goo on it that wiggles around in the flow. The only other coral I saw this on so clearly was the Stylophora.

I'm almost completely convinced I'm dealing with a bacterial and/or protazoal issue here, as I've watched the sickness spread from one coral to another.

Yesterday I performed a Coral RX and Iodine dip on the Duncan-just because I had some around-but I'm pretty sure it's not going to do anything. Iodine didn't help the Acans either.

I've been doing research and have seen some stuff on here about treating with Antibiotics.

This thread discusses dipping corals with Amoxicillin/Doxyciclyne

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/m...cies-with-doxycycline-and-amoxicillin.718086/
This one discusses whole tank treatment with Ciprofloxacin

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/e...ic-treatments-for-brown-jelly-disease.782438/
I have Amoxycillin, Doxyciclyne, and Ciprofloxacin ordered and on the way and am currently trying to figure out how I want to go about this.

The thread I linked about brown jelly disease says Cipro may not be very effective against vibrio, and I don't have a way to rule out that vibrio is the cause of my issues.

Some reports about antibiotic dips say it's ineffective as you're just dumping the treated coral back into a pathogen-ridden tank.

Does anyone have any experience, and/or follow up questions that might help me devise a treatment plan here?

Since I'm sure someone will ask, here are my parameters:

Salinity: 1.024-1.026 (it's a small tank, so things like filter socks filling up and overflow teeth getting clogged in my fuge mess with salinity a touch
NO3: 5ppm (Salifert)
P04: 0.055ppm (Hanna ULR Phosphorus)
CA: 420 (Red Sea)
Alk: 8.6 DKH (Hanna)
MG: 1310 (Aquaforest)
PH: 8.2 (Peak daytime) 7.9 (Just before lights on)

Parameters wander here and there (again, small tank) but I haven't had any super crazy swings in over a year.

I also stopped all carbon/amino dosing out of fear that I was feeding the nasties.

The only coral that has survived once the tissue loss started is-annoyingly-the Hollywood Stunner pictured right of center here:

Thanks for looking. Hopefully I can get this under control.

Definitely check out Google searches and folks using Cipro dips/baths for rtn.
No experience with bjd but can tell you ive brought a shroom back from dead and falling apart with Cipro bath. Seems like alot of successful stories come up with same good outcomes for rtn.

Eagle_Steve · Apr 26, 2021

fishguy242 said:
@Eagle_Steve thoughts?

Cipro can treat vibrio and is used in humans for it if it is doxycycline resistant. The issue becomes trying to figure out a dosage. In humans it goes by weight, but who knows for corals. Being as most of this is still very new to the hobby, some of us have been using cipro and others in our tanks or hospital tanks.

For bjd and stn, I have had success with cipro .125 mg per liter and in severe cases have used .250 mg per liter. We won’t get into just dissolving a 500 mg tablet to a 100 gallon frag tank for a course of 7 days, as I don’t think that was actually needed. It was more of a wonder what would happen thing, as stuff was receding quickly. All did recover and no ill affects, but probably not needed.

In regards to vibrio, if you look at the results of the aquabiomedics testing, it was reduced in the counts when cipro was used.

My suggestion would be to dose .125 mg per liter at lights out as indicated in the “treating bjd” thread you linked. If you do not see improvement or at least the issue slowing its spread, move to .250 mg per liter and dose everyday at lights out for 5 days. You will also need to remove carbon and turn off UV (if you have it).

I would also suggest you use pictures to keep track of the corals. For example, use your Duncan as the indicator. Take a picture before you start and then a pic every day. You can then compare these pics to see if anything noticeable is happening. We all know that the eyes can lie, especially if one is emotionally attached to corals. I am one of those that gets attached, so pics are always taken.

As for the other medicines, I only have experience with is amoxicillin via dips and levaquin via hospital tank treatment. Well we can call it dips, but I have used amoxicillin in my frag qt tank as a whole. The dosage was .500 mg per liter. This was effective for some stn on most acros, but some still perished.

Anemones are a whole other beast, as I have used numerous different antibiotics to treat them with great success over the years. We can save that for another time though.

Also, if you do treat the tank, please keep us updated with dosing, results, etc. The information from it will add to the existing info and hopefully at some point we can eventually come up with a tried and true method.

Hypnotoad · Apr 26, 2021

@Eagle_Steve and everyone else,

Thanks for the feedback and advice.

Anything odd I should expect with the Cipro? Skimmer Going Nuts/ALK/PH/Oxygen etc?

Eagle_Steve · Apr 26, 2021

Hypnotoad said:
@Eagle_Steve and everyone else,

Thanks for the feedback and advice.

Anything odd I should expect with the Cipro? Skimmer Going Nuts/ALK/PH/Oxygen etc?

I had no noticeable changes with anything at the .125 or .250 mg per liter dosages. Skimmer pulled a hair more dark crap than usual, but that could have been any number of things.

Huskymaniac · Apr 26, 2021

This happened to me after dosing flucanazole. Unfortunately everything that got infected ended up dying. Nothing that I was doing had any impact. Some of my euphyllia that started to get BJD were transferred to new aquariums and given 12 hour temp controlled baths in amoxicillin. Those all survived. I believe the key was moving them to a new tank. When it was all said and done I lost about half my tank.

Hypnotoad · Apr 27, 2021

Gonna keep documenting this while I wait for the Cipro to get here on Thursday.

Here's a pic from a few minutes ago. Looking noticeably worse this morning.

Hypnotoad · Apr 28, 2021

Spreading dramatically. Meds get here tomorrow

LRT · Apr 28, 2021

Crushing to watch. Hopefully mess hurry and she makes full recovery.

Hypnotoad · Apr 28, 2021

So this weekend, while I was doing research, I ordered Amoxicillin, Doxycycline, and Cipro.

The Amoxicillin just got here, others are coming tomorrow.

Temped to try a temp controlled Amoxycillin bath in a bucket with a pump today, then start the whole tank cipro bath tomorrow.

Any reason this is a terrible idea?

Maybe I should wait, but this is hard to watch without doing anything.

68 Stang · Apr 28, 2021

I dosed cipro following the directions you cited to stop what I believe was BJD in my New York Nicks coral. I lost three heads prior to dosing and didn’t lose another head after dosing. Several other corals did not look good and they have all recovered to what I believe was the result of Cipro. No side effects, nitrates stayed at 10 or so phosphate stayed at about .03. Skimmer was shut down after dosing for a few hours. I did dose the Cipro at lights out. My only concern was the Cipro does not completely dissolve but I still dosed the mixture and will certainly do it again if this ever happens again in my tank.

Hypnotoad · Apr 28, 2021

Ran a bucket with a pump and some Amoxicillin for about 20 minutes. Blew all the crud off with the pump too.
Still some tentacles in some of the heads that were covered.
Clowns were made at me. Hopefully they'll be happy when there home doesn't die.

LRT · Apr 28, 2021

I dont think the amoxicillin hurt anything.
Do you plan on Cipro baths as well as whole system treatment?

Hypnotoad · Apr 28, 2021

Was planning on just doing the system treatment and keeping an eye on things

LRT · Apr 28, 2021

I've never had a bad experience with cipro bath. Only almost good instant results or nothing at all. The Aquabiomics is a lower dose designed for whole system treatment. I think a higher dose bath. Or few baths would bring best results for super infected coral. I had a shroom literally falling apart dieing and the bath brought it back to life.
All I did was 125 mg/half gallon system water for 2 hrs a night. 3 nights total.
You will most likely see instant results if its whats killing your coral.

Hypnotoad · Apr 28, 2021

@LRT ,

Thanks for the insight!

I'm attracted to the whole-tank treatment because I've watched this plague move from coral to coral for the last 3 months, so I'm not only interested in saving this Duncan, but also in keeping other corals from getting sick.

I will keep an eye on things and do targeted baths for the Duncan as well if it looks like it needs it.

LRT · Apr 28, 2021

10 4 sorry for confusion. I would definitely treat the entire system as well as give bath to most infected corals. Looks like there's tons of different strains and pathogens. I believe cipro treats a majority of them. Cipro either works and works really well and super fast or not at all. Hope you have a treatable strain.