Brown Jelly

[Falconeer]

Hello all, as a disclaimer, no I have not confirmed BJD in my tank. I have been doing RC searched and google searches though, to gather information about how to treat it if I do come to the conclusion that my Hammer frag has BJD.

I was hoping that someone would happen to have a good quality photo of the disease? I can't seem to find one either on google or on RC and i'd like something to compare my frag to.

The only reason I think I might have something infecting my hammer is that after the lights had been out for several hours, I noticed that my hammer looked different than it normally did. The coloring seemed wrong, the heads seemed deflated, and this was clear in a ring around the center of the frag.

All these observations are while the coral is completely closed. When it's open, it has looked incredibly healthy. It has been getting progressively fuller everyday, and new heads are growing steadily.

It has never fallen, or been jostled against a rock. I acclimated all my corals over 2.5-3 hours of drip acclimation, and my water parameters and light are fine.

I really hope this is not BJD as I really don't know what i'll do if it is (I'd have to borrow yet more money from my parents to buy the dips, or the stuff to frag off the dead heads...which would be a pain since this is a frag already).

Well, if anyone does have a good picture, please, please post it. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Falc.

 

[CNGH]

It's normal for it to look different at night. Deflation and off-coloring is normal. If it looks perfectly healthy when the lights are on, then it likely isn't bjd.

I feel ya on there not being many good pix of it but it literally looks like cloudy brown jelly.

Keep an eye on it. Something else might be irritating it. What do u have near it? Critter types? If u don't actually see a cloudy brown blob on it then u very likely don't have bjd.

 

[blasto_master]

My advice to you is too try to suck up all of the brown jelly. Then do a water change. The brown jelly is a bacterial infection on the coral. This happened to me before with a pectinia coral. I saved it by doing the following.

 

[Johnny C]

I have seen it before; brown strings coming out of the euphyllia. There's like a 1% success rate, GL.

 

[Ohiomom]

umm it could be pooping..more than likely

 

[kase]

Brown Jelly is deadly and i have not ever sucessfully found anything that will get rid of it. Just cut off the infected part and dip in TMPCC and then put coral back in tank. Just make sure the brown jelly doesnt float onto other corals or it will infect them too.

 

[vegaskid11]

Brown Jelly = Death

I have never been ble to save a head once its infected. You maybe able to cut that branch and move the coral to a new spot in tank. You will want to siphon out as much coral tissue and jelly mucus as you can.

 

[mkenny1818]

I have lost 2 scollys to Brown Jelly. It was so fast I could barely believe it... by the time I could suck it out and dip the bastard, most of it was consumed! Awesome.

 

[Falconeer]

Ok, well I have confirmed that it is brown jelly.

My plan is (since I would like to save it, and don't trust myself with cutting) to get a couple of 2.5 gallon tanks (one for each coral frag), fill them and put some eggcrate in so I can keep them upright.

I'd like to monitor each frag.

It's also worrying me that my goniopora is now not opening, though it's colors are still very good. SO I don't know if it's simply too high, or if it's sick too.

Gah. Too much stuff for a new reefer >.<

 

[Falconeer]

Does brown jelly only affect corals? I took a closer look at the suspected infection spot, and am no longer convinced that it has brown jelly, but possibly that I was simply making something out of a little discoloration.

The reason I ask is that to get all the stuff I would need to QT my corals and treat them should they be infected, I would need to borrow more from my parents, while I am still working on paying them back for the original setup.

They are incredibly hesitant to loan me more money if i'm not 100% positive that it's diseased or that I can save it. If I look at it financially, it'll cost me more to try to save all my corals than it did to buy them in the first place. However, i'll be sad if they die. They're really cool and I like them. Plus, they're my first corals.

edit: So symptoms of BJD are not physically on the skin of the coral? They "float" above it?

 

[Johnny C]

IMO the stress from setting up another tank isn't going to do any good to the affected coral(s), and will just be a PITA.

I'm not a pessimist (most of the time), but IMO I would just toss it now and be done with it. Sowwy!

 

[blasto_master]

What your coral is experiencing is rapid tissue necrosis

 

[handfed]

Ive had brown jelly on 2 different acan colonies, no luck saving them

 

[Falconeer]

I feel like I overreacted as it is looking fine today and the "brown spot" is not progressing any. Also, I don't think it's jelly because I tried to siphon it off and nothing would come off the coral.

However, I wold like to ask again, is the Brown Jelly symptom truly floating above the infected area? Or is it a slime that coats the infected polyps?

 

[Matias Ilhabela]

started in my reef for two days, I'm cutting the mouths hit and throwing away.

Photos
snif snif snif

 

[smogl00]

The only reason I think I might have something infecting my hammer is that after the lights had been out for several hours, I noticed that my hammer looked different than it normally did. The coloring seemed wrong, the heads seemed deflated, and this was clear in a ring around the center of the frag.

If this is the only evidence you have to think that your coral has BJD, it doesn't IMO. It most likely doesn't have anything else wrong with it on these grounds either. Almost every coral looks different at night, both in polyp extension, and color. If you wake up the next day and it is full and healthy and looking great like you said, you have no reason to think it has brown jelly disease. If you would have woken up to find your coral covered in brown jelly, polyps retracted and pretty much dead, this is brown jelly disease. It really only takes hours from what I understand, to take out a head. My opinion based on your information is that absolutely nothing is wrong.

 

[Johnny C]

I swear... something is in the air. Brown jelly IMO is pretty uncommon and it's been popping up a LOT lately (even for me).

 

[deviilsadvocate]

Does anyone have any idea what causes the brown jelly disease and any ways it can be prevented? I recently lost a large head of torch coral to something I think may have been BJD, and I'm affraid to lose the rest of them.. =/

 

[vegaskid11]

Great photos. This is quickly becoming pandemic it seems.

 

[garygonzales]

im getting brownjelly on my three headed torch as we speak........just lost my frogspawn to this 2 months ago too...no reason for it either.......it just sucks.......