Acan Disease

[Kurtl000]

Anyone know a treatment for acans that are slowly being liquified into brown goo by a white substance (fungus)? Usually starts on one end and moves across the colony.:headwallblue:

 

[~RuSh~]

Not sure. Have you tried any dips? Did you quarantine these pieces?

 

[The Alchemist]

Could be brown jelly disease ...


If it is its Very bad. Id frag and quarantine it will spread to other corals.

Pictures will provide the fastest diagnosis.

 

[willybub]

had that once on a colony and you should scrape off all the "gelly" parts right down to the rock and even some of the good coral within 1/4" of the gelly, i did this and it has come back. i would have fraged it but at the time i was not very experienced in fraging so that is a good option as well

 

[iamwrasseman]

i would treat with interceptor

 

[MechEng99]

I suggest googling "white band disease" and see if it matches what you have. The brown goo left is probably dying zooxanthallae, not brown jelly disease (brown jelly disease hasn't been proven as an actual disease to my knowledge.) Otherwise, it's hard to tell without a pic. White band disease is the only thing I know of that would do that from one side of a coral to another.

 

[iamwrasseman]

please read up on the use of interceptor as it is a very useful tool . you can dose your tank and it wont hurt very much as you may lose a snail , crab or two but i have used it a few times and it would have saved me thousands if i knew about it before i really needed it ,which was to late .

 

[MechEng99]

Interceptor treatment for what??? As far as I know, it's only used successfully on red bugs or other invasive pods. It's not an antibacterial or antifungal as it sounds the OP's issue may be.

 

[iamwrasseman]

considering the time that it takes to diagnose these problems we can discuss all of the possibilities for weeks. i have found that many times its acan eating critters that cause this and he may be able to save a few if he reacts swiftly . we have been digging into the ocean in new areas and these bugs keep popping up in the trade more often . i lost thousands from this years ago and have saved many readers collections with the suggestion of the use of interceptor .

 

[smithcreek]

A few weeks ago I bought a "rescue" coral at an LFS. Great looking acan echinata that was receding. When I got it home noticed the white line at the edge where it was receding. Gave it an iodine dip, checked it out the next day, thought it might still be receding, so I took a picture of it, pulled it out and swabbed the edge with straight iodine. Next day compared the picture and even thought it was only a mm or two decided it was still receding, time to chop. I cut the edge off that had the white line, took off about 1/8" good flesh along with the bad. Gave it an iodine dip and hoped for the best. It worked, the coral is fine, healed up and growing. So, I'll recommend cutting if you can't get it to stop otherwise.

First pic, if you look at the far left side of the acan you can see the white line. Second is right after I cut it, third is 2-3 weeks later (a few minutes ago).

 

[iamwrasseman]

even though my thought was to dose with interceptor ,smithcreek does have a good option for sure . if it is infested ,or diseased then it will be removed so that too is a good option .

 

[MechEng99]

What Acan-eating critters are you talking about? I don't know of any that are specific to Acan's (yes, there are worms and such, but they eat just about everything.) A good quality dip should alert the owner to any problems without going to Interceptor.

Please keep in mind that you are advising the OP to use a prescription drug that is NOT approved for generic use in a saltwater aquarium. Vets will prescribe it for red bug treatment, but I highly doubt any reputable vet will prescribe it to treat some undocumented possibly fungal/bacterial problem. When red bugs became a problem, it took quite a movement of reefkeepers to educate their vets in order to get the medication. Abusing the trust our vets have placed in us will hurt us all in the long run.

Without photos, smithcreek is right. If the coral is still receding with no luck, then it needs to be fragged. I'd also put some superglue along the fresh cut as the exothermic properties of the superglue should damage the tissue (yes, it's a good thing in this case). The dying tissue will be sealed inside the superglue...and hopefully trap any remaining infected tissue...and help secure the loose tissue to the skeleton so no further damage will occur.

If you'd like to read more about saving corals that are dying...check out my thread of the month...that is still going over a year later:
http://www.reefcentral.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=1918483

 

[iamwrasseman]

lol , dude it works great so i don't need a magnifying glass and a science degree to use it

 

[MechEng99]

All I'm asking is what's the reason for using it? What are you targeting? Are there some sort of Acan-eating pods we should be worried about that you've found and successfully treated against? I don't understand why you're treating for something if you're not actually treating for anything. Recommending a treatment should be based on something a bit more than, "it works great". Interceptor is a very narrow treatment. If the OP was going to treat for anything and everything, something a bit more broad-spectrum is better IMO.

BTW, I'm not a dude.

 

[iamwrasseman]

every coral has something that eats it ,every animal has something that eats it even we cant go into the bears den . yes there is a "bug" that i dont know what its scientific name is but i can tell you a short story that i have told hundreds of times . to prove this i have a couple of five gallon buckets FULL of acan skeletons from this incident . i had a problem about ten years ago when i was purchasing three to five lord colonies a week and fragging them and then resellng them to the lfs that were within a hundred miles of me . after i had 60 to 70 mother colonies that had cost me from $100 to $250 each and also a few hundred frags that i was selling and then "it " happened my corals started to die off with a wave like occurance . after 100 phone calls and every medication fragging tecnique and anythin that i was told to do ,raise mag get alk perfect ,raise cal, blah, blah, blah , and one month later i had maybe twenty or so frags that were melting before my eyes left .i was fortunate enough to be introduced to a doctor that is into reef tankstheir care and breeding to the next level and he helped me along with many others here on RC . he explained to me about " the little white bug from Australia " and that he had found that this little pesky bug would sweep waves of destruction on acans . he then agreed to take my corals and rehab them for me . six months late he gave them back to me and it was just like christmas as they were perfect . now all these corals were experiments of his and he used every different type of lighting on them and different types of food on them and did different things to each and every one of them . the ONLY thing that was done to all of the corals was that he used interceptor on all of them . now maybe the air in his workspace had something in it that healed and stopped this dead in its tracks but i am very much sure that it was the interceptor .i dont want to call him out but there are so many here on RC that know him or at least know of him and believe me i believe him . since then i have helped many with my experience and how to dose this" dog" treatment but please believe me it does miracles on thease infested corals . i really wish that some of the lfs would do a much better job on the erradication of such pests but the answer is not easy as the remedy is two fold at the least . first you would have to QT every coral and treat accordingly as you would also have to do with fish and much or what we are looking for cannot be seen with a magnifying glass so how can we treat for every possable infestation on every coral . yes we can but how much would you pay for a frag of this acan that now costs $150 ? would you pay $450 for it because of what your lfs did to be sure it was disease and pest free which isn't a 100% outcome . if this was to be happening when i was buying these $250 colonies i would have been paying $1000 for them and they would never have been bought . it is what it is and we cant afford for the lfs to do everything so we need to be prepared to erradicate these pesks .sorry but i have more to say but dont have all night so tell me what you think about this and then i will respond ?believe me "been there done that " and i live ,eat ,and breathe corals and fish for a living .sorry about the dude thing and there is nothing "wide spectrum" that will even touch these critters or there would not be so many treads discussing the use of interceptor .
thanks Dave

 

[iamwrasseman]

on another note it is up to the purchaser to QT ,identify medicate ,dip and do what ever it take to eradicate the pests for his of her tanks safety .if he or she doesn't then they are just asking for trouble at some point in time IMO & IME.please dont take the above wrong as when read it somewhat sounds harsh ,i did not mean it that way .

 

[MechEng99]

Not disagreeing with you one bit that it is up to the purchaser to QT/treat/etc. I have an insane QT/treatment protocol for all my corals, but yes, things still get through. I'm sorry you lost that many corals - that's never an easy thing to go through...financially or mentally.

Do you know if the doc you gave your corals to has any photographs of these acan pests or has published any of the experiments? I have not heard of any one else with this sort of issue (but I also have been out of the LPS loop a bit as I focus on SPS), and I'd be interested to learn more. Of course, if they were some sort of pod you had that Interceptor would work. Unless they're like Monti-eating nudi's in that they typically eat in a straight line, then I still don't think Interceptor is the best treatment in this case.

 

[tankfly]

I have use the following treatment successfully on 2 favia colonies for receding with the white band on the edge:

Put the coral in a solution of coral rx at the strength listed on the bottle. Use a small powerhead in the container and occasionally point it right at the affected edge. leave it about 15 minutes. Then repeat this with a bath of about 50 drops lugols iodine/gallon for 15 minutes. Then put in plain seawater for about 15 minutes to rinse off than place back in tank. I have done it on 2 colonies recently and have not seen the white band again. Its been about three months now and the corlas appear to be healed.

 

[MechEng99]

In iamwrasseman's defense, apparently there is something that may be related going on with Aussie corals:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1400291&page=6

 

[iamwrasseman]

not sure on the photos of documentation but i do know that it worked . there is a lot of info on the use of interceptor on rc and online so check it out for sure .