Possible Pathogen Based Acro Necrosis

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10079958#post10079958 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kip
who am I to wave my hand in the face of borneman, bingman, et al.... but so far, while not empirical which is necessary in the scientific community, i am seeing results out of the baths which were necessary in Kip's community :)
Click to expand...
I agree 300% lol-I was just making a comment but you are right kip the whole study ting sometimes is beyond me.
What really matters is that KIP's acros are not deteriorating AGREE.
 
i have bad seasonal allergies

i've been doing better lately... is it the allegra or the fact that it rained all weekend and finally washed some of the pollen away?

beats me... all i know is i am better

when i go thru another allergy spell again and i remember how the pollen needed to go away... i think i will still use the allegra
 
Actually allergies come out in the spring from the leaf molds left over from winter and from the pollen from the new leaves on the trees. Its usually a week and then done. Im on 4 allergy meds. Your lucky your only on one. :(
 
i do benadryl at nite, allegra and sometimes allegra D during the day, and flonase

a week and then done... we hadnt had a formidable rain here in about 2 months.... so the tree and grass pollen were ganging up on me. They were getting ready to beat down the front door and attack me. :)

well.. it is june... ragweed is right around the corner.... and then there is the perpetual problem with dust mites

but..... i digress :)
 
Kip, i hear ya. Im 15 trees, 8 grasses, 5 grass weeds, 6 flowers, lobster, clams, peaches, plums and nectarine. Mango skins. Cherries. Im on clarinex d, nasonex, astelin, singulair and drops for when the spring fall and winter stuff starts for the eyes. Oh, forgot the dust mites and indoor molds.lol.

Wonder what we can treat the coral for. Maybe seasonally allergic to their human counterparts.
 
I agree, with so many unknowns in the world of reefkeeping, you have to go with what works. We are not scientists by any means, but we all share the common interest of maintaining a thriving reef aquarium and share knowledge with each other to achieve this goal. There obviously isn't enough study in this problem that we are discussing to really point an exact finger on the cause, so we are left to speculate by our own observations. With this in mind, I will go with something that is working if it means saving my reef with the current info I have in hand.

Saltman- I think we do pretty darn good without phd next to our names. I think as reefkeeper we have solved red bug and almost finnished with the aefw's. Now its nuddis and well be doing good.
 
I agree, I would do anything to save my reef. And Kip has clearly exhausted all run of the mill treatments, But I have a few concerns with using ABX:

1) Bacterial resistance is more than just a theoretical concern. It is a tragic reality. Yes, it is more likely to happen if you don't wipe off all the bacteria, but how will you know? In humans we have tools like blood cultures, WBC counts, fever, etc... that help us decide that the infection is under control, but how does one know that a coral is no longer infected? The necrosis could simply be the extreme end of the spectrum of the illness, so we may be decreasing the severity, but not sterilizing the coral ( almost impossible to achieve). Bacterial resistance is a HUGE problem in medicine. Many diseases are becoming increasingly more difficult to treat, I just watched a 16 year old boy die from a skin infection with a multiple drug resistant bacterium. The liberal use of ABX is what resulted in the emergence of this type of drug resistant organism.

2) Even if Doxycycline (or any other ABX) can completely wipe out Vibrio, it will not kill all the different bacteria living in the aquarium and on the coral surface. So with repeated use you're simply selecting out the bacteria that are not sensitive to that particular ABX

3) Doxycycline causes permanent and disfiguring staining of the bones and teeth of children ( and fetuses) and it is therefore contraindicated in pregnancy and in children under 8 yrs. The major component in bone and teeth is calcium. How do we know that this is not happening to the skeleton of our corals? and what are the long term effects?

4) Chloramphenicol (as someone suggested in the thread) is also a broad spectrum ABX. It is effective, but can have serious side effects including causing your bone marrow to shut down resulting in aplastic anemia. Has anyone studied the effect of this ABX on acropora? I truly doubt it

5) What happens to the beneficial bacteria that is exposed to ABX?

6) and finally, are we really sure that this phenomenon that we have all suffered from is due to a pathogen? and if so are we sure it is bacterial? The condition stopped suddenly in my tank, could the improvement that KIp experienced have simply coincided with the start of ABX ?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not discounting Kip's or anyone else's vast experience in reef keeping, and I'm truly happy that things are working out for him, but I'm seriously concerned about the potential harm of wide spread and routine administration of ABX to corals as preventive treatment. How would you feel if your kids' schools decided to give all the kids ABX once a month just in case? I think you would agree that that would be a bad idea.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10085172#post10085172 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by montrealreef
I agree, I would do anything to save my reef. And Kip has clearly exhausted all run of the mill treatments, But I have a few concerns with using ABX:

1) Bacterial resistance is more than just a theoretical concern. It is a tragic reality. Yes, it is more likely to happen if you don't wipe off all the bacteria, but how will you know? In humans we have tools like blood cultures, WBC counts, fever, etc... that help us decide that the infection is under control, but how does one know that a coral is no longer infected? The necrosis could simply be the extreme end of the spectrum of the illness, so we may be decreasing the severity, but not sterilizing the coral ( almost impossible to achieve). Bacterial resistance is a HUGE problem in medicine. Many diseases are becoming increasingly more difficult to treat, I just watched a 16 year old boy die from a skin infection with a multiple drug resistant bacterium. The liberal use of ABX is what resulted in the emergence of this type of drug resistant organism.

2) Even if Doxycycline (or any other ABX) can completely wipe out Vibrio, it will not kill all the different bacteria living in the aquarium and on the coral surface. So with repeated use you're simply selecting out the bacteria that are not sensitive to that particular ABX

3) Doxycycline causes permanent and disfiguring staining of the bones and teeth of children ( and fetuses) and it is therefore contraindicated in pregnancy and in children under 8 yrs. The major component in bone and teeth is calcium. How do we know that this is not happening to the skeleton of our corals? and what are the long term effects?

4) Chloramphenicol (as someone suggested in the thread) is also a broad spectrum ABX. It is effective, but can have serious side effects including causing your bone marrow to shut down resulting in aplastic anemia. Has anyone studied the effect of this ABX on acropora? I truly doubt it

5) What happens to the beneficial bacteria that is exposed to ABX?

6) and finally, are we really sure that this phenomenon that we have all suffered from is due to a pathogen? and if so are we sure it is bacterial? The condition stopped suddenly in my tank, could the improvement that KIp experienced have simply coincided with the start of ABX ?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not discounting Kip's or anyone else's vast experience in reef keeping, and I'm truly happy that things are working out for him, but I'm seriously concerned about the potential harm of wide spread and routine administration of ABX to corals as preventive treatment. How would you feel if your kids' schools decided to give all the kids ABX once a month just in case? I think you would agree that that would be a bad idea.
Click to expand...

Hey Kip a couple of posts back i did mentioned the resistance theory and i have to agree as a doctor but as an obsessed reefer there's just no way I'm going to sit back and watch my reef die.

I would not incorporate it as pre- treatment for any new comers but-man the alternative is just not viable for me either-so treat away buddy.

That's my irresponsible reefer voice not the MD voice LOL;)
 
Hey Kip,

As I mentioned earlier, I would do anything to save my reef, and I understand that you tried evrything before you used ABX. I would use ABX if my corals were still crashing.

As for the routine dipping however, I would advise against it. Over the years, I think it has bceome clear that the best possible preventive measure is quarantine. But given how this phenomenon appears after a long latent period, perhap we should be doing a a long quarantine of eight weeks or more, and only treating corals that seem affected.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10085172#post10085172 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by montrealreef


Don't get me wrong, I'm not discounting Kip's or anyone else's vast experience in reef keeping, and I'm truly happy that things are working out for him, but I'm seriously concerned about the potential harm of wide spread and routine administration of ABX to corals as preventive treatment. How would you feel if your kids' schools decided to give all the kids ABX once a month just in case? I think you would agree that that would be a bad idea.
Click to expand...

Just as reefgirl mentioned, these have been random cases and I think I will only apply the treatment if Ive exhausted all other means of checking parameters, etc(like in Kip's case). Because of the uncertainty in the treatments, I'm going to hold off using it as a regular QT practice.
 
the corals didnt respond as well to this most recent treatment... same dosage, same volume of water, same circulation... but this time i treated about two dozen frags at once.... the other difference was that these corals were mounted to rock bases.

an acro crab in a mini-colony survived and is doing well, a few mini-strombus snails survived, but almost all of the frags in this treatment faded if not bleached.

did i kill a lot of bacteria at once and the waste from it "burned" the corals?

i dunno.... but goes to show there still is a lot more work to be done on this subject.
 
same dose 200mg to 20g of bath water

two same corals... others different

there were two of the same frag in this batch... 1 looks ok and the other is on its way out the door


i am chatting online with a friend that is going through this same necrosis problem

this is gonna be really sad if this is a hobby-wide epidemic
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10092468#post10092468 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kip


this is gonna be really sad if this is a hobby-wide epidemic
Click to expand...

Easy there Chicken Little... A good many of us aren't even convinced your problem is a pathogen :) So ixnay on the kyisfallingsay :lol2:
 
if not pathogen then what.... having a hard time believing this is an environment problem when it is happening amongst 3 different systems
 
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