Hammer Coral Help

[jml1149]

I found this guy at the LFS this past Saturday before Easter, completely closed up with just a touch of flesh showing. I took him home, and in my tank, in a couple of hours, it turned into this:

Pretty good! Tonight I came home, and it's receding and has a whitish mucus coming off it. Gave it a little blow with a turkey baster, and it looks like this:

Not great. This is my first wall hammer and I know their picky. But does this look like brown jelly? There was nothing brown about it, just a very white mucous looking thread coming off and complete recession of that one area. Any help appreciated [emoji45]

 

[jml1149]

Parameters as follows:

S.g. 1.025
Alk: 8.9
Ca: 440
Mg: 1200
Phos: 0.02
Nitrates < 5ppm hard to distinguish that color on Salifert kit

Two Kessil a160we running at 50% max for lighting

In a low flow area on bottom of tank.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Yes wall Euphyllia are a ***** to keep, and most will certainly die. BUT there is hope if you do an iodine dip.

http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html

 

[jml1149]

Should the dip be repeated on a daily basis or something like that?

 

[Jeff4777]

Yes wall Euphyllia are a ***** to keep, and most will certainly die. BUT there is hope if you do an iodine dip.

http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html

I was under the impression Euphyllia were easy.. I put mine in the tank and haven't given them much thought without issue.

What you mean by "wall Euphyllia"? Not familiar with that term.

edit - searching it I found it referring to a type of Euphyilla, frogspawn. Interesting. Wall coral.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

There are two types of Euphyllia, branching and wall, this describes their skeleton. The wall Euphyllia's are more prone to disease like Brown jelly and anything can bring it on. I've got a wall hammer now that I've had about 4 months or so and it's doing well. The only reason I picked it up was that it's never been fragged. Easy to tell if they have been or not. So since I found this one at a great deal I decided to try it. And so far so good!

 

[jml1149]

I followed the instructions on the site link provided, and did two iodine dips today, roughly 5 hours apart.

15 drops iodine tincture from CVS (2% concentration) in 750 ml tank water. Let sit for 20 minutes and put back in tank.

Vitamin C on the way tomorrow, thanks Amazon Prime.

Appreciate the comments and responses, at least I don't feel alone. It's frustrating watching.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Good luck with it, I've never been able to keep a wall Euphyllia alive once they get the brown jelly disease, but with any new corals it doesn't hurt to do an iodine dip to kill off any bacteria they might have.

 

[jml1149]

And neither will I. Didn't take long:

You can see the white fuzz coming off the top part. Very disheartening.


There's still flesh hanging out throghoit the coral, is there risk to leaving it in the tank or should I just pull it?

As a side note, the Vitamin C arrived today, but had opened up enroute. It arrived in a soaked envelope and a puddle in my door, as the mailman put it between my screen door and the main door. Sigh.

 

[jml1149]

Well I pulled out the coral and dropped it in a bucket. I sucked out all the dead flesh, and there's still maybe two inches of live coral left. It's back in the iodine now, with a cc of vitamin c that didn't spill on my door. Can't hurt right?

 

[jml1149]

Sorry, placed it in a bucket for the treatment, then back into saltwater as in a "qt" setup. This morning the smell was rancid. End of the road for this guy. It was obviously fragged, so that's a lesson learned.

And I'm beginning to wonder if my emerald crab took a swipe at it, injuring it and starting the downfall. Never will I ever, have crabs in a reef tank again. Like ever. The BA is still a problem and this guy takes interest in all of my new additions. Even the hermits make me nervous now. Thanks.

 

[jml1149]

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/c_bingman_040697.html

Interesting article. Perhaps would have been worth a try? May be tough to get, I found an online Canadian pharmacy that ships to the US and includes free Viagra with every shipment. No really.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Sorry to hear that, Also sorry that I was out of pocket I had a spine surgery on Thursday and just got home today.

Yeah this does suck and It seems mainly the wall type that this happens most with once they're fragged. If you have a complete skeleton that has no straight edges where it's obviously been cut then you're good. So if you do ever get another one take it out of the water after swishing it around and make sure the skeleton is complete. If not pass and get a branching one.

 

[leviburns89]

Looks like the early stages of brown jelly disease.

Lost a couple euphylia due to this.

From what I learned, euphylia get injured very easily, and heal very very poorly, thus leading to infection. Brown jelly being the most prominent.

Before

After

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Duncan's also get BJD very easily

 

[leviburns89]

Duncan's also get BJD very easily

That sucks. Just bought a nice double head duncan. It seems very happy and healthy, but I will def keep an eye on it and iodine dip if I see the slightest goo forming

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Duncan's are pretty hardy and easy to grow and keep. They are just fragile and if they get nipped from a fish or something hits them too hard BJD hits them quickly. I've not been able to save any yet that got BJD.

I have a new pair of Duncans one with green tentacles and one with purple tentacles. Really cool contrast. I just hope that they stay healthy. I'm sure the culprit in my tank has been my Cherub angel and lately he's been behaving himself and leaving my corals alone. Hopefully that keeps up

You can see all of the Duncan's on my page as well as all of the large Duncan colonies that I've lost and some of my wall Euphyllia too.

 

[leviburns89]

Yeah, been reading a lot of problems with wall euphylia.

And angels can demolish corals. It's like once they've had a taste, they go nuts.