Brown Jelly Attack...?

[johanasu]

I noticed a few weeks ago that one of my mushrooms looked like crap (kind of literally) I siphoned out some brown goo and kept an eye on it. The mushroom disappeared and I siphoned out the remaining go. Things seemed ok for the last few weeks. Then two days ago I noticed some brown goo on another mushroom (first was a yuma, this was a frilly/hairy). Again siphoned what I could and watched it. Next day it was toast and the rest of the mushrooms on the rock were shriveled. Tried a fresh water dip to remove the rest of the slime and kept it under watch, about 5 mushrooms turned into two and the last two didn't look good. Moved the last two into a QT tank and did a water/H2O2 dip as a last resort. That was tonight.

Tonight I also noticed that two of four candycane polyps had brown jelly (I know it is traditionally seen on LPS so ....yeah). I took those out as well and did a RODI dip then a 1:1 RODI/H2O2 dip. Broke off the dead branches and put the last two heads in the QT tank.

I noticed that the branches had the following attached (see picture). Could carnivorous Asterina damage these corals and make them susceptible to bacterial attack?

I am mostly worried about my two medium large hammer colonies. The hammers are much higher in the tank and show no ill effects yet, as none of my corals have shown effects yet either. *Crossing fingers*

 

[briankmarsh1980]

Dont think the stars did this. Sounds to me like your water is the culprit. I could be wrong.

 

[SweetCoralline1]

^ I agree...I would do a water change and recheck all of your parameters. Something sounds off.

 

[johanasu]

"Unfortunately" my water params are fine. 1.026, 8.3, 80 deg, 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates and 0 nuisance algae. My other 60+ mushroom polyps are fine, as are all the other corals (Euphylia/Birdsnest/Acro/GSP/RBTA/cloves/purple gorgo/hydnophora etc) in the 110g tank. Just makes me question the plausibility of it being a water issue. I have however added a few frags recently that seem to have come with asterina that are a different color than the ones I'm used to. Just exploring the possibility that they are stressing out the corals they appear to be munching on.

 

[zibba]

I had brown jelly kill a hammer, mummy eye chalice, a small acan colony and a nice green birdnest colony on almost back-to-back nights, in that order. I tried water changes and cutting and/or dipping (revive, iodine, h2o2) but nothing stopped it.

By the time it got to the birdnest, I pulled the entire colony out before it was completely taken over. That's the only thing that stopped it. It seemed like it was just bouncing from one coral to the next.

I know I gave you a few mushrooms and some zoas for the school tanks awhile back. When I gave you those I hadn't seen brown jelly in my tank for about 6-weeks and haven't seen it since. Regardless, did any of those go into your 110?

And re: asternia starfish, I'd say they're not the primary problem; rather, they're just coming to clean up the dead coral tissue.

At the time all that was happening, Frick told me to try melafix. I bought some but didn't use it because I never saw it again once I removed the partially-attacked birdnest. Still have the bottle if you'd like to try dosing melafix.

 

[johanasu]

None of them ended up at home so I don't think that is the case Eric. Everything from you is doing great in the classroom. I'll post up some pics when I have a moment at work. I'll look into the melafix option. Thanks for the offer