Sick Frogspawn any help greatly appreciated!!

[UABsleeper]

Hey guys so I'm new to the saltwater world and was wandering if yall could help guide me as to what I need to with my coral..

So bought this Frogspawn yesterday and my lfs acclimated it slowly did a coral dip with coral rx and added to my system by yesterday evening the coral had begun opening up and thought all was good this morning I woke up to find this

On the left side of the coral is some purpleish color algae growing and the rest of the coral is closed up.. I was wandering what it was and what could possibly be the cause and is their anything to do??

The tank has been running about 2 months and other corals look great? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[cloak]

What exactly are your parameters? What kind of invertebrates do you have in your tank? That brown stuff your seeing on the skeleton might be Brown Jelly Disease.

http://www.reefaquarium.com/2012/coral-diseases/

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/corals

 

[UABsleeper]

Sg per refract. ~1.024, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate ~5, ph ~8.0 I have other euphyllia in the tank opened up and look great


It's a biocube 29 with
Watchman goby and pistol shrimp
2 clowns
Red fire shrimp
2 torches
Duncan
Zoanthids
Ricordia
Dwarf red leg crabs, and snails

Not sure if it's that it's almost a purple hair like algae it appeared on my sandbed a couple of days ago after changing the flow in my tank for the torches..?

 

[UABsleeper]

this is what the algae looks like that started growing on my sandbed you may can see the strings and stuff growing from it? Oh and thank you very much for your quick reply

 

[curtisbenm]

Looks like cyano on the sandbed. How long do you run your light cycle? High phosphates?

 

[UABsleeper]

So Can cyano get on corals? And I probably run my lights to long actinic abt 12 hrs 10k about 8 hrs and moon lights stay on usually

Phosphate could be a little high?? Don't have a test for it but do weekly water changes have purigen chemipure elite and aquaticlife internal mini skimmer

 

[curtisbenm]

Water changes and running chemipure elite has done the trick for me. But if you overfeed and/or run your lights too long your not fixing the problem. i dont keep any frogspawn, but perhaps it isn't happy with its current lighting/water flow or phosphates.

 

[UABsleeper]

True true thank you for your help I may try doing a water change and putting it higher in the tank to see if that does the trick!

How long do yall typically run your actinic?? 10k that's something I haven't been just real clear on?

 

[that Reef Guy]

What do you Calibrate your Refractometer With?

 

[UABsleeper]

I calibrate it with RODI water!

 

[Marty.h]

If it does appear to have brown jelly turn all pumps and circulation of to remove it you don't want it spreading as you have a nice hammer there and you don't want that getting it.

Was it fully open in LFS is there any chance it got damaged on way to yours

 

[UABsleeper]

At the lfs it was opened up but not 100 % I didnt notice that it was not opening all the way in the corner until getting it acclimated so I guess it could have been damaged?? Not sure 100% though I did a water change.. Another coral dip just to see if that helped at all and moved it higher in the tank

Does the brown gel alge always appear brown? Because when I pulled it out it is almost a purple like color with with several long hair like things coming off of it but is crazy how quickly it is taking down the coral..?

 

[Marty.h]

Brown jelly moves very fast and can spread if you have a feeling it's brown jelly as said remove or could cost you others here is my duncan

Before

Around 24 hours later from start of first infection spotted

It then spread and wiped out my other duncan and my torch.

That's why when I see it on my other torch I just cut that head strait off did not mess about.

 

[UABsleeper]

Oh wow that is crazy.. I will keep a close eye on it. I can't make myself throw out the 40 dollar frag yet I hope that's not what it is though..

I really appreciate yalls input and that Duncan was awesome

 

[Marty.h]

It was a £240 duncan and my other was £90 and torch was £40 so I lost a few quids worth and it was an absolute awesome duncan was sad to loose it

You say a $40 frag but if that wipes out others it's going to owe you a heck of a lot more sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to save others

 

[that Reef Guy]

I calibrate it with RODI water!

And that is the problem.

Most Everyone that I have talked to lately with Problems was Calibrating with RO for some reason.

It throws off the Reading by 4 to 5 Points Typically.

So if your water Reads 1.030 on the Refracometer it is actually probably 1.026

You need to Calibrate those with A Proper Calibration Solution NOT RO Water.

I recommend the Glass Bobbing Hydrometers (Not Plastic Swing Arms) as they are the most accurate out there and you do not Calibrate Them.

Most likely the Problem is that your Salinity is waaaay off.

 

[UABsleeper]

And that is the problem.

Most Everyone that I have talked to lately with Problems was Calibrating with RO for some reason.

It throws off the Reading by 4 to 5 Points Typically.

So if your water Reads 1.030 on the Refracometer it is actually probably 1.026

You need to Calibrate those with A Proper Calibration Solution NOT RO Water.

I recommend the Glass Bobbing Hydrometers (Not Plastic Swing Arms) as they are the most accurate out there and you do not Calibrate Them.

Most likely the Problem is that your Salinity is waaaay off.

Ha 4-5 points off that's a pretty significant difference and I don't think that's my problem considering the coral had only been in the system for a day before the issues broke out.. Especially considering that all the other euphyllia coral, snails, shrimp, and crabs are doing great.. And not to mention my salinity stays very stable with my tunze ato

And I think that if people do experience problems with their refractometer it is in large part due to poor quality of his or her RODI water..? Just my opinion.. and right after I bought the refractometer and calibrated I took it to my lfs and compared it to their Milwaukee digital refractometer and they measured the same salinity so that's good enough for me! Plus I keep my salinity at the same as the lfs where I buy my corals so their shouldn't be much of an issue with acclimation either

 

[UABsleeper]

If it does appear to have brown jelly turn all pumps and circulation of to remove it you don't want it spreading as you have a nice hammer there and you don't want that getting it.

Was it fully open in LFS is there any chance it got damaged on way to yours

So I hate so say that you were right it def was brown jelly disease by late last night the rest of the coral had begun to disintegrate I went ahead and removed it from my aquarium.. Called my lfs and he said two of his other frogspawn had heads that had died and offered me store credit.. Hopefully it will not spread to my other lps coral..

this took less than 10 hrs to occur

Thanks for all of yall's input and making reef2reef a wealth of knowledge to us saltwater newbies I really appreciate it!

 

[Marty.h]

Hopefully it does not spread keep a very close eye on your other LPS if you see anything not right inspect sadly if you do see a head infected remove it I didn't with my duncan and learnt the hard way. As I said got it on one head on my torch over a week ago now I instantly turned all flow and pumps off and cut the head off all been good so far

 

[Tunnelrat]

I know all about brown jelly disease. Last year I lost a whole tank filled with hundreds of dollars worth of corals to it. The problem is by the time you find out what it is it is too late. The only decent treatment that I could find while battling it was iodine and even that seemed to prolong the inevitable. It's such a nasty bacterial disease. I shiver just thinking about it. Sorry for your loss, I just hope your battle is over.