Plate Coral Brown Jelly Disease

[wildman926]

Well, sad to say, but I just lost my simple, but very nice pink tipped plate coral. I was doing something in the tank, and bumped it. It came detached from the rock that it had fused to on opposite ends, and that is all it took. 3 days later it was completely gone. I tried to save it with 20 minute dips with iodine, but the brown slime kept coming back. The skeleton is 6" across, and would almost double in size when inflated. Here are some pics. The last pic is an older pic taken in February. It is the only pic that I have that shows him fully inflate. Next one will go on the sand bed.

 

[barry_keith]

Hate to see that, I love some fungia. I lost a very large colony of hammer to brown jelly.

 

[SKremk]

That sucks, but don't toss the skeleton. Babies will often regrow from the skeleton of the dead coral

 

[wildman926]

It was very rapid. I did not want to leave it in the tank, so it is outside. I should have kept it in there, but not worth it to me. The last pic above was in February, and it was much larger now. I just did not have a recent pic of it.

 

[Michigan Mike]

Second the sand bed is the place for them, sorry to hear it declined the way it did.

 

[DarkStalker]

That didn't look like brown jelly.
This kind of plate, long tentacle, has very little tolerance to tissue damages, probably when you knocked him it damage his tissue enough for an RTN.
Sorry for your loss was a beatiful coral

 

[usmc121581]

I almost lost mine the same way, it wasn't brown jelly though. I moved to a new house and torn the flesh. I lost 3/4 of the coral before it stopped and started to flesh over the Skelton, it's been 2 years and have almost regrown the entire Skelton. Sry for the loss, by the way that is some nice landscaping.

 

[wildman926]

The "RTN" pic is misleading, as I had taken the coral out of the tank, and cleaned off the bjd and had given it an iodine bath. That pic is after I did that. You can see some in the middle of the coral still. I was too bummed out each time I saw the brown jelly all over it to take a pic. I rushed each time to get it off and give it a iodine bath.

Thank you for the compliments. I appreciate them.

There is an upside. Before the bjd incident, I found some babies growing on a bubble coral blade. I clipped off the blade and put it on a frag plate. Here is a pic of it. It is actually 2 plates growing side by side. I found that out when I went to feed it. The food was being stretched as in tug of war. So I reached in, and gave it to the one that looked like it was winning, then gave the other side a small piece. Very cool -

 

[tektite]

For the future, if you have any LPS that get brown jelly disease, something that works much better than an iodine based coral dip is actually an insecticide. Bayer advanced complete insect killer, you can get it at Home Depot. I've used a solution of 10 ml Bayer per 1 cup water, dip the coral for 5 min. Gently baste away any brown dying flesh. Rinse the coral extremely well in a container of clean saltwater before putting back in the tank to remove any trace of the Bayer from the coral. The coral will be completely unharmed from the dip. See the thread by Whisperer here on RC for more info on Bayer as a coral dip, though the thread is mostly about SPS.

 

[wildman926]

Thanks for the tip. I will have to remember that. I have read about using the Bayer insecticide. But the decline was so rapid. Literally in a couple of days. I am wondering what is special about that insecticide, that it will not harm the coral. Very interesting.

 

[tektite]

Yes, brown jelly is a super fast killer.