HELP colony healthy to melting in 1 week!

[zathrus]

My whole colony of green button polyps, palythoa I think, called green fiji
polyps when I bought them, are dying this week. After being in my tank for
over two years and expanding from a single polyp to at least 50, suddenly
the more mature members of the colony do not open and are are developing
a brown mucus layer over their ends. They are also withering and coming
apart like a rotten onion.

This is very distressing, and yesterday I removed the least affected parts of
this colony to my quarantine tank, and moved the most affected parts to
another different tank. This was not easy because they are growing directly
on my base rock.

The first polyp affected, and the most progressed by far, is the very polyp the
the colony started from. This polyp and one or two other mature polyps had
in the past 6 months had white radial streaks on their disk from time to
time, but careful target feeding seemed to have eliminated this in the past
month and they all looked good.

Is this condition related to zoa pox? Has anyone had this before and are
there cures, like is a FURAN-2 dip effective? Here are before during and after
pictures. I hope you have a strong stomach for the sight of suffering corals.


The original polyp in 2008

The healthy colony as it looked on March 3, 2010

The diseased colony on March 13, 2010

The disease progresses quickly. March 15, 2010

Today I see that most of the heretofore unaffected polyps seen on the left in
the photo above are now also diseased. Also today a second colony of palys
about a 6 inches away (upcurrent) is now showing the early symptoms.

Please help me ye Reef gods!

 

[eclown]

I have had this, or looked similar, happen to me. I moved the colony to an isolated spot in the tank and they came back.
I think that perhaps chemical war was the culprit. Some are more sensitive than others. A mushroom coral might not effect some, while others lose the battle.
If you can't move them and there is something near it. Make a choice.
Just my hunch.

 

[zathrus]

Thanks.. very interesting.
I wonder if it could be that purple spotted mushroom
you can see in the picture. Part of the colony might
have been touching him. This might have gone on for
3 months, ever since that mushroom floated there
and attached.

But the assumption here is that toxins absorbed by
one polyp can move on to kill everything attached to
it through stolons. If so, is it my job as coral doctor
to flush out these toxins somehow, rather than trying
to cure a fungal / bacterial disease.. such as with the
Furan-2? Or would that dip still help the coral regain
its balance since parasitic bacteria and fungi could
already be taking advantage of the palys' weakness.

 

[650-IS350]

can you dettach that colony of the rocks? I suspect you have bacterial infection on that colony. Those bottom polyps are usually very tough and invasive growers. Look in to doing some furan dips or at the least some iodine dips.

 

[mrbigshot]

brown jelly disease maybe? iodine dip, lots of siphoning ad maybe a vit-c treatment.

 

[650-IS350]

Cut out the dead or dying polyps too to stop infection spread.

 

[zathrus]

can you dettach that colony of the rocks? I suspect you have bacterial infection on that colony. Those bottom polyps are usually very tough and invasive growers. Look in to doing some furan dips or at the least some iodine dips.

I'm going to try the Furan-2 tonight. Unfortunately this old
colony is on my unremovable base rock. I did have some
luck pulling the sickest ones off the rock a few days ago.
But your point is if I don't pull them All this will continue..?

 

[Ritten]

I'm gonna take a stab at the frogspawn or hammer (not sure which) right below it.

 

[650-IS350]

I'm gonna take a stab at the frogspawn or hammer (not sure which) right below it. possiblity also

 

[zathrus]

Thanks for all the ideas and advice!

Since my last post I dipped the worst looking colony in Furan-2 solution for
20 minutes. While handling my original polyp came off in my hand but I
dipped it also. Here are more recent pictures of the affected button polyps.

1. The untouched sick ones in my display tank still look about the same
though one polyp seems to be opening again.

2. One sub-colony in the display tank that had no stolon attachment to the
sick colony (on the right side) still looks good! Note the second sub-colony
in the center, right next to the mushrooms - perhaps right on the brink of
disaster but so far doing okay.

3. The second colony in the tank (unpictured) is apparently unaffected after
all and the polyps are opening again after I moved a white hammer coral it
was in contact with.

4. The dipped colony is unchanged in appearance. I do see one or two small
open polyps.

5. A less affected frag of the same colony, in quarantine but not dipped, is
doing much better. I am ready to put this one back in my display tank.

All this tells me that you experts were correct - this is not a disease but
rather intra-coral aggression. I would rule out the galaxia because it is
closest to the only healthy colony in my DT (#2 above). I don't suspect the
hammer because the second colony (#3 above) was in direct contact with
another frag from the same hammer and it didn't develop this full blown
malady. My #1 suspect is still the purple spotted mushroom, or the green
striped mushrooms next to it, and now that there are no mushrooms touching
polyps anymore I would expect everything not too far gone to recover now.
I'll post an update in a few days after a couple more Furan-2 dips.

 

[jordan3548]

I am thinking it could be that galaxea coral due south of them in the pics they are known to have 12 inch tantacles and from what Ive heard can sting the living crap out of other corals