Frogspawn brown slime?

lathamx

New member
Okay, I have been reading through several of these threads to try to find out what is going on with my frogspawn. I have had it for about 3 years and has went from 2 heads to over 25 heads. A few days ago, I noticed 3 were bare and the 2 next to it seemed to be "melting". Those 2 are now bare and now 2 more are "melting". What is this brown slime? and what do I need to do?
 
Iodine dip in saltwater (from your tank) ASAP if it is "brown jelly!" Time is of the essence if you don't want to lose this piece. SeaChem Reef Dip or Lugol's is your best bet. Follow the directions on the bottle.

I have put a mild airstone in mine dips before to help dislodge the jelly. After the bath, take a turkey baster and GENTLY blow off the jelly slime. I would take another container of tank water and use it for a "rinse tank" prior to putting in a QT tank or back into the main reef (if you don't have a QT tank).

You may have to do several dips to try to stop the infection over the next few days. Try not to spread the "jelly slime" around your tank. And you may want to slightly increase the flow around the coral for the next few days as well.

It sounds like this is a branching "frog" so you may want to go ahead and frag off the bad branches because it will only spread. Still do an iodine dip on the rest of the colony at least for prevention.

Sounds like a magnificent piece...Good Luck!
 
Thank you. I will go get that tomorrow. I have never really had trouble with corals (besides learning the hard way how hard it is to keep SPS and LPS in same tank). After I posted that, in desperation and fear, I pulled the piece out, rinsed and removed as much of the dead stuff as I could. I broke off about 7 dead heads, the main stem (you could tell from the smell that something was dying) broke what was left into 2 pieces and rinsed again. I have about 12 on 1 piece and 9 on the other. I will keep my fingers crossed.:(
 
You should be able to save it (or at least some of it....which is good!) and so far you've done the right thing. Just follow through with the dip(s) and that should help tremendously if the infection is not too far along.

Something is obviously stressing it out to make the "Frog" susceptible to the infection...consider anything that you've done different lately; a too close neighbor (chemical warfare); or basic water chems to try to find the stressor. You may also have to do a decent size water change and possibly add a polyfilter or carbon (not too much-for that in itself can be stressful to some corals) to aid in your efforts.

After everything has settled down, you might consider (if you don't already) try soaking some finely chopped krill or mysid shrimp in Selco and handfeeding it to each of the heads to help it regain it's health.

Treat it with a little extra TLC and it should recover.

Kudos to you for acting in time! Keep the thread updated and let us know how it's doing.

Take care :)
 
I want to thank you very much for your help and this site for the assistance. After that, I moved them to another tank because I had a hammer and a galaxia that I did not want to get infected. They seemed to be doing well and I had only done one dip then about 2 more nights later, I noticed 2 more heads affected on the one piece. (Shame on me for now following up with the dips). I broke of the 2 heads that were too far gone and rotting and there were more heads that were affected but I left them on there.

The final as of today is I managed to save 9 heads on the one and about 7 heads on the other. I have 2 corals now. The one looks fantastic but I have to be creative about positioning so that I do not damage any of the heads and it actually looks like it is growing again and the other looks much better but still looks like it is recovering and I will continue very light dips until recovered and keep a close eye.

Again, thanks for your help!
 
Congratulations! I am sooo happy for you (...and the "frog")! :)

You were diligent in taking action, and you were rewarded with not one...but now two....gorgeous specimens! You should be very proud of your work.

There are those unique moments like this when keeping these amazing animals is truly worthwhile.

Congrats again on a job well done!

Take care,
Kristy :)
 
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