brown jelly-now what

[Swanwillow]

So, I have unfortunately lost a few wellso brains to brown jelly. I did dips, siphoned away the dead tissue, etc. But nothing worked. I'm keeping the skeletons in my tank in hopes that they come back.

My tank has been up and running for a year and a half. I've had quite a few losses, usually my own fault. (had a massive crash a year ago, due to changing the water with cold water, and some other minor frag losses) but these are the first losses of lps in about 8 months.

But my question comes to this:

Now that I know I have brown jelly disease in my tank, are there steps I should take to keep it in check?

Its a 36 gallon tank, lit with a 150 watt metal halide
I have many, many sps, 13 different small acan frags, a few other types of favias, brains, chalices, a bta, mini-maxis, etc. etc. (No leathers, the only softies are ricordea, zoanthis, and grandis palys)

I underfeed, so my lps aren't growing as fast as I'd like-but that isn't an issue for me, as its a small tank.

I've started removing the sand slowly from my tank, as it kept on getting stirred up onto my brains, and that caused damage, which started the opening for the brown jelly.

But.. now what? I have other corals in there that I don't want to lose, especially my acan garden!!! Do I just keep my parameters steady? How long does it take for brown jelly to get out of a system, or is it in there forever? When I upgrade my tank (going to a 60 gallon cube soon) will I have to worry about any new open brains I get also? And how do I stop an infection if it goes to any others?

Right now I have 3 skeletons, all taken out within a week of the first big wellso getting it. Just.. chilling out in my tank.

 

[Swanwillow]

Oh, and parameters

I do a kalk drip for topoff water.
ph is normally around 8.0-8.3, depending on the time of the day
0 ammonia, nitrite. usually run under 5 nitrate
My last alk test was a week ago, was on the low side of normal (I don't have the numbers infront of me, I'm sorry)
I run carbon in the sump, with a skimmer.

inhabitants are a pair of Amphiron Barberi, a male red scooter dragonnet, a pistol shrimp, derasa clam that I'm 'babysitting' for a few months, and a TON of corals.

Corals lost in the past 6 months are a catspaw (got hit by a moving anemone) and a RBTA (decided to go for a walk, hit the catspaw, then decided his walk should take him into my min-maxi garden)

 

[chrisfont23]

Check this out http://reefdreams.de/lang_eng/info_13_eng.html

 

[Swanwillow]

antibiotics are not good on a large scale, especially in a tank though. If I had access to them if/when another hit comes, I can most definitely try to find some... But that's hard to get without medical prescriptions.

 

[chrisfont23]

Lugols dip then? Tough to say. When it happened to my old torch I actually clipped the bad head off.

 

[Swanwillow]

I did that, it didn't stop the progression when they were alive. Which is extremely frustrating, I dipped all three of them.

 

[Osteoicthyes]

That's a tiny tank for so much stuff. You're starting to experience the problems that will only be amplified in a small tank. Minor issues can cause huge problems with such tiny amounts of water.

Adding cold water during a routine water change, for instance, wouldn't affect a larger system in the same manner that did yours. It was the ratio of the cold to warmer water that hurt you.

Victims of brown jelly, in my experience need to be removed without letting all the affected tissue slugh off and redistribute throughout the remainder of the tank. It is contagious and can spread to other LPS.

 

[Lpslover7]

I got it on my torch and luckly it stopped their. After it took out my 8 headed torch!!! So not so lucky i guess....

 

[MBIETZ]

I have had it happen to some damaged LPS but it hasnt effected any healthy corals i dont have any problems with it now but awhile ago i got it on an acan after a plate stung it and i figured if i was going to lose the coral i would lose it to aggressive treatment not brown jelly. I put it in a container with tank water and blew off all of the brown jelly with a baster then i replaced the water with new then tried blowing more off after that i dipped it in an iodine based dip then ran tank temp fresh water over the affected area to finish it off i neatly put super glue over the exposed skeleton so the brown jelly couldn't settle back in. I never had it come back and the acan looks great it has covered up the super glue since then.

 

[iamwrasseman]

a great way to rid lps corals of brown jelly and also the infection is 9 parts saltwater to 1part hydrogen peroxide for 30 minutes .H202 is a great oxidizer and can play an important role in tissue repair if used properly .