Every found a hitchhiker inside of a coral?

[reefertanker]

Just to inform some of you, be careful what you buy haha. 2 weeks ago I bought a corky finger gorgonian and take into note that all my corals are doing great. I put him in and after a week he started to have a white coat around him and I wasn’t sure what it was. I’ve moved him all over for another week but he wouldn’t open and the white coats we’re getting worse. So I decided to frag what I could to save him. My water smelled very sewagy. Did a water change and started to frag. Once I cut a head off there was a pocket of empty space where 4 of the head met. Once opening I found a baby oyster inside of the coral. After saving what I could water no longer stinks and he already a happy coral. Oyster was inside the dang coral killing it!!!

 

[reefertanker]

Feel free to reply and tell me what you think!

 

[Timfish]

Seems to me a case of commonality being mistaken for causality. I've seen the white film on stresssed gorgonians without any internal oysters or "gall crabs" or similar type animals so I'm dubious the clam/oyster you found caused it. More likely it already had a problem when you got it and the stress of moving it to your tank let an infection get established. Animals that live inside colonial animals like corals or gorgonians are using the host animal as protection, killing the host doesn't bode well for survival. To be blunt, moving the gorgonian "all over for the next week" IMO would have likely caused problems even with a healthy gorgonian. Photosynthetic animals need to be left in one place so they can adjust their photobiology to the new conditions. What would have been prefferential to moving it would have been dipping it using one of the products marketied for dipping corals and returning it to the same location. Cutting off the dying part was a good call and I'm glad part of it has survived.

 

[reefertanker]

Seems to me a case of commonality being mistaken for causality. I've seen the white film on stresssed gorgonians without any internal oysters or "gall crabs" or similar type animals so I'm dubious the clam/oyster you found caused it. More likely it already had a problem when you got it and the stress of moving it to your tank let an infection get established. Animals that live inside colonial animals like corals or gorgonians are using the host animal as protection, killing the host doesn't bode well for survival. To be blunt, moving the gorgonian "all over for the next week" IMO would have likely caused problems even with a healthy gorgonian. Photosynthetic animals need to be left in one place so they can adjust their photobiology to the new conditions. What would have been prefferential to moving it would have been dipping it using one of the products marketied for dipping corals and returning it to the same location. Cutting off the dying part was a good call and I'm glad part of it has survived.

Wasn’t really sure what to think when all my other corals are okay and I got 2 other gorgonians that came the same time and they are doing great. I’ve noticed a lot of hands coming out finally on the one I cut. Also my water no longer stinks. I do frequent water changes and auto dose as well. But when it was going white a water change wouldn’t help either. Let it sit in a spot for a whole week. When I say moving it around for the second week I mean moving it in a spot for 2 days and seeing it getting worse so moved it another spot for 3 days and no improvement and then in the final spot for 2 and was clear something needed to change. I bought it from reeftopia.com and wasn’t satisfied.

 

[Timfish]

Keep in mind there are significant differences in the immune ssytems of corals at the genotype level. There's also research showing"decadal" memeory in corals. We like to think if one animal is doing well all should be doing well but the opposite is what should be expected. Each animal is different and might respond differently to the same stress event or environmental conditions. What I would have done is dipped it and returned it back to the same location. If it continued to go down hill then I would have cut or broken off the infected part. However, since a corals holobiont can be serioualy disrupted and teh coral can still look "healthy" I would have been ready to remove if teh infection continued to reduce the chance of it spreading.

 

[reefertanker]

Keep in mind there are significant differences in the immune ssytems of corals at the genotype level. There's also research showing"decadal" memeory in corals. We like to think if one animal is doing well all should be doing well but the opposite is what should be expected. Each animal is different and might respond differently to the same stress event or environmental conditions. What I would have done is dipped it and returned it back to the same location. If it continued to go down hill then I would have cut or broken off the infected part. However, since a corals holobiont can be serioualy disrupted and teh coral can still look "healthy" I would have been ready to remove if teh infection continued to reduce the chance of it spreading.

Thanks for the information. I’ve never dipped any of my corals but I can give it a try next time. Could have saved all those head maybe.