Brown jelly disease treated with clout?

[RoTTen2TheCore]

Hey guys.

So I have had a nasty breakout of brown jelly disease in some of my LPS corals.

I have tried doing a 30 minute Furan-2 dip, but to no avail.
I had some clout lying around and decided to give it a whirl. I know it is SUPER toxic and clearly states on the label not to be used with inverts, but BJD is pretty much a death sentence anyways, so what do I have to lose.

So, I dipped the infected coral yesterday for about 30-40 minutes each in a 1 gallon container with 1 tablet of clout and blasted out all the dead/infected tissue with a turkey baster. After the dips, I placed them each in a small seperate quarantine tank.

Took a look at the corals this morning and not only are they not dead, but no sign of BJD!!! It's still a bit early to tell if it worked completely, but I will keep you posted. Might even give them a second 20 minute dip later on in the evening just to be sure.

Any thoughts?

 

[Reef Frog]

What LPS corals are you treating?

I'm curious, are these compounds marketed as aquarium medication or are you using them off-label? Have you read about this procedure before or you doing a first of its kind experiment? What is "clout"? Are these anti bacterial compounds?

It sounds like you're off to a good start & hope you have success. BJ is said to be a bacterial infection but have never read an authoritative paper on the subject. Early in my SW aquarium journey, I had a nice favia colony on the sand bed that got BJ. I cut off a large portion of the rock & infected polyps, dipped the as yet unaffected area in a commercial iodine solution & moved it to better flow & higher light. The remaining portion survived & grew. I don't know what individual action did the trick, or was it all of them together or just luck? IDK. I also lost a green Goniapora to BJ after a more general decline in health after about a year of ownership, as so many newbs do but that's a different story.

Based on only observation, I do believe that the maximum water flow appropriate for the species may be helpful in preventing BJ and I seem to remember my favia colony looked a little sickly in a low flow area before BJ attacked so I've always had the impression that it's opportunistic disease affecting corals that are already stressed. Also, I believe that sometimes direct LPS tissue exposure to the sand bed may be a factor as well, but again only a hypothesis based only on observation & thankfully limited experience with BJ.

Anyways, best wishes & kudos for doing an experiment that may help out others. Hopefully you'll keep us updated on the results, even if they're not successful.

 

[RoTTen2TheCore]

Thanks Reef Frog!
I treated 2 gonioporas and one open brain.
This is the product:
http://www.petmountain.c om/photos/product/giant/114420S503568/external-parasite-aquarium-medications/clout-parasite-medication.jpg

I have used the medication for treating some stubborn hookworms in discus and it has always worked, but it is VERY harsh medication and really stresses the fish out. I only use it as a last resort. I have even seen a news report of an aquarium (like a zoo aquaium, not personal aquarium) that used clout to kill off some parasites and ended up killing over 100 fish.
All I have read is that BJD is cause by a protozoa that destroys the outer layer of the coral in order to feed on the zooxanthellae within. With that in mind, I figured that a harsh medication like clout should wipe out problem.

My results:
Open brain: Died from bleaching (definitely due to the harsh meds), but BJD completely gone!
Goniopora: Resisted the hardh medication really well! The BJ came back on one of them, but the other is doing well and is actually open right now, or at least whats left that wasnt killed by the BJD

I think that next time, I will try a small dose with more frequent dips. I also noticed that the biggest helping factor is blasting out as much infected coral flesh as possible since the infection appears to penetrate deep into the coral and the decomposing slime seems to protect the disease from the medication. Also, good flow in the quarantine is a big help.

I have seen first hand how aggressive this disease is and if I can give any definite advice, it is DON'T WAIT!!!! If you see something you think to be BJD, quarantine it asap until you can ID it for sure and treat it. I have seen 4 heads of large torch coral consumed in 24 hours.

 

[Reef Frog]

Interesting stuff in that post. I had no idea BJD was caused by a protozoan. I was under the impression that the cause was bacterial. If that's really the case, I imagine there may be other undiscovered tactics & chemicals that could be effective. Who knows...hydrogen peroxide, other anti-parasitic drugs, quinine, FW dips, iodine....? Just guessing but wouldn't it be great to find something that is not as harsh? Again congrats on having the gumption to experiment.