All,
An indo wall torch(~4 months home from LFS) began to show signs of distress in about half its polyps(poor inflation, failure to accept food, open mouth) which progressed within a few days to marching tissue loss yielding a brown jelly like substance that stripped clean with gentle siphoning to reveal white skeleton. In less than a week, about 1/3 the coral was gone. Whether this was actually the highly contagious "BJD" or some other infection that manifests in a similar way I don't know. I did not check the jelly under a microscope. No other corals were affected even though a significant amount of jelly was released into the tank by foolish actions.
After doing a great deal of research, and overcoming the disappointment that the general consensus seems to be that this syndrome generally leads to total loss of the wall, I decided to try chloramphenicol.
I found descriptions of treatment protocols scarce. A paragraph in the text “Invertebrate Medicine” by Borneman (2001)[1] was the most authoritative source of info I could find. Taking a shot in the dark I began treatment in a hospital tank with 33 ug / mL chloramphenicol (this is the same concentration it is generally used as a selective agent in molecular biology). Within 5 hours all the white tissue at the base of the coral peeled off and large chunks of polyps began to bail out; I was sure I had killed it and after 2 x 1 hr washes in antibiotic free tank water, returned it to the DT.
The coral continued to decline for several days after being returned to the DT. Every morning a small amount of tissue was found to have necrosed and the jelly was siphoned out.
I had a long weekend coming up and would not be around to siphon the jelly out, and I had already given up on this coral pretty much, so I decided to set up a 5 gal / 20L hospital bucket with only 4.5 ug /mL chloramphenicol and hope for the best. I also dug deep into empty coralites with precision tweezers to remove rotten tissue buried deep inside, I was aggressive and probably removed some healthy tissue as well; a euphyllia root canal if you will. On the way out the door my wife tripped over the cord for the hospital tank light, dunking it and ensuring the torch would be in the dark for the entire weekend.
Three days later when I came home no additional tissue loss was observed, the coral was moved to the DT after washing and has lost not one polyp in the last two weeks. Today for the first time it accepted food! I am cautiously optimistic. ~1/3 of the original tissue remains.
I can’t draw any conclusions from my uncontrolled wild ride experiment in chloramphenicol treatment, but given the paucity of information out there about this powerful drug I thought it best that I report my experience to the community.
I can’t be sure whether it was the lack of light or the reduced yet still clearly effective concentration of chloramphenicol that let the coral survive 3 days of treatment with a drug that had almost killed it in an afternoon. Perhaps chloramphenicol is best administered in the dark, as it is known to disrupt cell membrane function in protists[2], which can’t be good for photosynthesis, or maybe I simply found a concentration that lies within chloramphenicol's relatively narrow therapeutic window.
I hope my experience can help someone else save some coral.
[1]Borneman (2001) :
https://books.google.com/books?id=r...age&q=Borneman (2001) chloramphenicol&f=false
[2]Membrane action of chloramphenicol measured by protozoan motility inhibition.Arch Toxicol. 1996;70(12):850-3.
An indo wall torch(~4 months home from LFS) began to show signs of distress in about half its polyps(poor inflation, failure to accept food, open mouth) which progressed within a few days to marching tissue loss yielding a brown jelly like substance that stripped clean with gentle siphoning to reveal white skeleton. In less than a week, about 1/3 the coral was gone. Whether this was actually the highly contagious "BJD" or some other infection that manifests in a similar way I don't know. I did not check the jelly under a microscope. No other corals were affected even though a significant amount of jelly was released into the tank by foolish actions.
After doing a great deal of research, and overcoming the disappointment that the general consensus seems to be that this syndrome generally leads to total loss of the wall, I decided to try chloramphenicol.
I found descriptions of treatment protocols scarce. A paragraph in the text “Invertebrate Medicine” by Borneman (2001)[1] was the most authoritative source of info I could find. Taking a shot in the dark I began treatment in a hospital tank with 33 ug / mL chloramphenicol (this is the same concentration it is generally used as a selective agent in molecular biology). Within 5 hours all the white tissue at the base of the coral peeled off and large chunks of polyps began to bail out; I was sure I had killed it and after 2 x 1 hr washes in antibiotic free tank water, returned it to the DT.
The coral continued to decline for several days after being returned to the DT. Every morning a small amount of tissue was found to have necrosed and the jelly was siphoned out.
I had a long weekend coming up and would not be around to siphon the jelly out, and I had already given up on this coral pretty much, so I decided to set up a 5 gal / 20L hospital bucket with only 4.5 ug /mL chloramphenicol and hope for the best. I also dug deep into empty coralites with precision tweezers to remove rotten tissue buried deep inside, I was aggressive and probably removed some healthy tissue as well; a euphyllia root canal if you will. On the way out the door my wife tripped over the cord for the hospital tank light, dunking it and ensuring the torch would be in the dark for the entire weekend.
Three days later when I came home no additional tissue loss was observed, the coral was moved to the DT after washing and has lost not one polyp in the last two weeks. Today for the first time it accepted food! I am cautiously optimistic. ~1/3 of the original tissue remains.
I can’t draw any conclusions from my uncontrolled wild ride experiment in chloramphenicol treatment, but given the paucity of information out there about this powerful drug I thought it best that I report my experience to the community.
I can’t be sure whether it was the lack of light or the reduced yet still clearly effective concentration of chloramphenicol that let the coral survive 3 days of treatment with a drug that had almost killed it in an afternoon. Perhaps chloramphenicol is best administered in the dark, as it is known to disrupt cell membrane function in protists[2], which can’t be good for photosynthesis, or maybe I simply found a concentration that lies within chloramphenicol's relatively narrow therapeutic window.
I hope my experience can help someone else save some coral.
[1]Borneman (2001) :
https://books.google.com/books?id=r...age&q=Borneman (2001) chloramphenicol&f=false
[2]Membrane action of chloramphenicol measured by protozoan motility inhibition.Arch Toxicol. 1996;70(12):850-3.
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