Brown Jelly Disease: Under The Microscope!

[andrewey]

Would you be able to reword your question- I'm not entirely sure I understand, but I'll take a crack at it- correct me if I'm answering a question you weren't asking!

1) Yes, any coral that I perform testing on goes into dedicated tanks following treatment. This is both for observation and to prevent the spread of BJD to the other corals.
2) I assume by bacteria, you are referring to any bacteria associated with BJD? If so, it's a great question and one I can't answer! It's unknown what the causative agent is, but assuming it were some type of bacteria, it's still unknown whether BJD represents a specific type of bacterial infection secondary to a reduced host immune response or some other mechanism. The idea of reduced immunity is slightly complicated by the observations of how communicable the disease seems to be to otherwise healthy coral, although it is possible to explain this finding via a "the dose makes the poison" type of mechanism. As to your larger question, removal of the infected specimens seems to be the best treatment strategy and mitigates further spread of the disease.

 

[FL Gator]

That basically answers my question. So long story short I have some BJD on a Duncan. I cut the infected head and tossed it. I dipped the rest in 1:10. So do you think BJD lives in the tank and do you think there is a time table as to when you could reintroduce the coral to the tank?

 

[andrewey]

My personal opinion is that I would ideally QT the remaining duncan for 48 hours or so. Of the coral I've tested, I haven't seen any where the continued spread of BJD took more than 48 hours for the colony to present with symptoms.

If you're unable to rehouse the coral that long, then you can introduce it back into your tank, but I would put it in the front corner of the tank where the coral wasn't "upwater" of any other corals. After 48 hours, you can likely move it back to it's original location. I would also monitor the corals that were originally around the duncan for signs of BJD for the next few days. I've observed recurrent episodes of BJD affecting a tank, but these tend to be discreet episodes rather than chronic cases (however every ecosystem is different, so take that observation with a grain of salt).

 

[sdreef]

Nice work! I'm interested to know your thoughts if any of these might be suitable for an in tank treatment as a prophylactic to potentially mitigate the spread to other inhabitants for an established DT? Thanks

 

[Auto-pilot]

@andrewy
Read through your article and was pumped to see your experiments. I have used chloramphenicol on specimens as dips and I feel like these corals would have died without it. One meat coral had an infection inside of his oral disk and I'm not sure it was brown jelly BUT the next day this coral who I thought was a goner started to make progress in the positive direction. It healed up and made a recovery. I had a colony of wild acropora that I got online that the tissue had slow progressing necrosis. I treated it with chloramphenicol dips and its necrosis stopped and it made a full recovery. I've used it multiple times and I feel like it works. Maybe it's all in my head

 

[sdreef]

@andrewy
Read through your article and was pumped to see your experiments. I have used chloramphenicol on specimens as dips and I feel like these corals would have died without it. One meat coral had an infection inside of his oral disk and I'm not sure it was brown jelly BUT the next day this coral who I thought was a goner started to make progress in the positive direction. It healed up and made a recovery. I had a colony of wild acropora that I got online that the tissue had slow progressing necrosis. I treated it with chloramphenicol dips and its necrosis stopped and it made a full recovery. I've used it multiple times and I feel like it works. Maybe it's all in my head

What was your protocol for the dips? How did you make up the dipping solution and how often did you dip the colonies? How long did you dip for?

I tried something similar with using augmentin with an acropora with slowly receding tissue, but it didn't work for me. The coral tolerated the dips without an issue, but I wasn't successful in stopping the recession. I wonder if it was just the frequency and duration that I dipped for so I'm interested to hear your approach with the chloramphenicol.

 

[AquaBiomics]

Im in the bacterial camp for BJD.

My data suggests the pathogen is an unidentified species of Arcobacter. I've found this same type at very high levels in multiple samples of BJD. Since this group is very sensitive to ciprofloxacin, I did some experiments with this.

Since I only had one tank affected, it wasnt possible to replicate it. But heres what I have done.

I dosed cipro at a calculated low dose for a week, and measured the microbial community before and after. During this time:
a) the affected corals recovered
b) the putative pathogen (Arcobacter sp.) decreased dramatically
c) the rest of the microbial community was not harmed. In fact, it improved by all the usual metrics.

I plan to repeat this with replication after I finish moving my experimental tanks to the new facility.

@andrewey, got any more BJD samples? It'd be great to see how widespread this bug is in BJD samples. I already know its prevalence among tank samples, but have had a hard time getting my hands on BJD.

 

[AquaBiomics]

I should also add that I sequenced 18S DNA from my BJD samples as well, and did not find any interesting high abundance ciliates.

@andrewey, if you have any samples of your BJD we could also try to get an ID on your ciliates.

 

[sdreef]

Im in the bacterial camp for BJD.

My data suggests the pathogen is an unidentified species of Arcobacter. I've found this same type at very high levels in multiple samples of BJD. Since this group is very sensitive to ciprofloxacin, I did some experiments with this.

Since I only had one tank affected, it wasnt possible to replicate it. But heres what I have done.

I dosed cipro at a calculated low dose for a week, and measured the microbial community before and after. During this time:
a) the affected corals recovered
b) the putative pathogen (Arcobacter sp.) decreased dramatically
c) the rest of the microbial community was not harmed. In fact, it improved by all the usual metrics.

I plan to repeat this with replication after I finish moving my experimental tanks to the new facility.

@andrewey, got any more BJD samples? It'd be great to see how widespread this bug is in BJD samples. I already know its prevalence among tank samples, but have had a hard time getting my hands on BJD.

That's great information. It's really difficult to take a targeted treatment approach without identifying a responsible organism or knowing its susceptibilities.

Can I ask what was your low calculated dose of cipro and how did you prepare it for administration?

 

[Auto-pilot]

Im in the bacterial camp for BJD.

My data suggests the pathogen is an unidentified species of Arcobacter. I've found this same type at very high levels in multiple samples of BJD. Since this group is very sensitive to ciprofloxacin, I did some experiments with this.

Since I only had one tank affected, it wasnt possible to replicate it. But heres what I have done.

I dosed cipro at a calculated low dose for a week, and measured the microbial community before and after. During this time:
a) the affected corals recovered
b) the putative pathogen (Arcobacter sp.) decreased dramatically
c) the rest of the microbial community was not harmed. In fact, it improved by all the usual metrics.

I plan to repeat this with replication after I finish moving my experimental tanks to the new facility.

@andrewey, got any more BJD samples? It'd be great to see how widespread this bug is in BJD samples. I already know its prevalence among tank samples, but have had a hard time getting my hands on BJD.

I believe he had videos of his samples in an earlier post. My samples are full if ciliates. It looks the very similar to Andrewy's samples. Ciliates are just running around all over the place. I would like to add that I treat all of my corals with hydrogen peroxide and then with antibiotics. I find that the infections usually do not return if the coral is treated with chloramphenicol than if I just perform a peroxide dip.
When I dip coral I usually have a 1l container and use about 1/4 teaspoon of antibiotics that I mix in. I usually will let it sit for 2hrs and put it back into the water.
Not verry scientific

 

[Dr. Jim]

I haven't read thru this entire thread so please pardon me if this has been discussed...

....I am just wondering what others have concluded about the possibility of BJD being caused by a protozoa. Its been many years since I've seen it, but when I did, corals were always covered with tons of a paramecium-looking protozoans. Of course I always wondered if they were secondary or primary invaders. Has this been established?
(If they are the primary offender, then antibiotics shouldn't work).

 

[Auto-pilot]

....I am just wondering what others have concluded about the possibility of BJD being caused by a protozoa. Its been many years since I've seen it, but when I did, corals were always covered with tons of a paramecium-looking protozoans. Of course I always wondered if they were secondary or primary invaders. Has this been established?
(If they are the primary offender, then antibiotics shouldn't work).
[/QUOTE]

Yes look at the videos, it shows how the corals are covered ciliates that are eating the corals

 

[taricha]

Of course I always wondered if they were secondary or primary invaders. Has this been established?

That's kind of the big Question in the research. BJD contains both abundant bacteria and a particular ciliate. Some papers lean toward the ciliate as the cause, others toward the bacteria. The ciliate is responsible for the characteristic "look" of the disease.

 

[Cell]

Do we know if the brown jelly itself causes necrosis or if its merely a symptom/product of the disease? Along with an effective treatment, I'd be interested in learning more about how it spreads/progresses.

 

[taricha]

Do we know if the brown jelly itself causes necrosis or if its merely a symptom/product of the disease?

Under low power magnification, the brown jelly resolves into rafts of individual ciliates that have ingested the zooxanthellae from the coral and thus appear brown. In that sense, the brown jelly is a symptom. But you can suck up the brown jelly from one Coral, transfer it to another and spread the infection that way, so it certainly contains the disease causing agents whatever those are.
This thread itself has really good info on the question.

 

[Cell]

Under low power magnification, the brown jelly resolves into rafts of individual ciliates that have ingested the zooxanthellae from the coral and thus appear brown. In that sense, the brown jelly is a symptom. But you can suck up the brown jelly from one Coral, transfer it to another and spread the infection that way, so it certainly contains the disease causing agents whatever those are.
This thread itself has really good info on the question.

Thanks, I guess I'll read through it!

 

[SaltISlife]

I just discovered this thread. But i have been experimenting on my corals which are going through a disease. It only affects lps but a vast array of them. I first noticed my encrustibf chalices dying. First it was 1 then the next one then the one next to it and they all (4) died in two weeks.

I then started noticing it spreading to my favias on the other side of the tank. This is when i started to take action. I started dipping them in metronidazole and also coral Rx thinkjng it was parasites or worms or something for 10 minutes versus dosing my whole tank.

I saw no improvements. And i saw nothing come off the corals. I then starting to take a qtip with hand sanitizer aka alcohol and dab it on affected areas and to ny amazement the recession stopped and the coral started healing in those areas. Unfortunatly it wss spreading to other parts of the coral. This lead me to believe its some sort of infection and not a water quality issue.

By now it had spread to my basketball sized bubble coral. Although on none of these corals i saw no brown jelly disease. They simply just started getting holes all over their bodies randomly and would die. Leaving behind grey detrius in those areas.

The bubble would get a hole here and there eventually all over, spreading and getting larger and larger.

I started dipping my favia in doxycycline as i have used that stuff on myself for infections and my cats in the past. And to my amazement after two dips two chunks of my favia stopped dying and to this day 2 weeks later are still infection free and growing over old skeleton.

However dipping the bubble coral had no effect. It has now spread to my orange fungia, my trumpet corals and an acan and a 2nd bubble.

I decided to take an affected coral out and put it into another reef tank i have and it spread to that tank. Which shows its deff an infection. And not water related like magnets or whatever.

100 gallon water changes did nothing. Carbon and poly filter did nothing.

I decided to do more dips trying potassium permanganate. This had some affect on a brain coral and completetly stopped infection saving the coral. Unfortunatly it stained it brown and its taken over a week to start to eveb regain its original color.


Desperate now that its alreading to all my lps i decided to try koral recover from brightwell. Which by smell and look contains tea tree oil. Lavender and other essential oils. All of which are anti fungal and microbial. Smells similar to melefix or herbtana if anyone has heard of that.

Day 4 of using it i saw only tiny improvements but nothing satisfactory. I decided to then dose my entire tank in doxycycline hyclat. Im on day 3 now. But within 2 days i noticed major slowing down of infections on my trumpet corals. Normally in 2 or 3 days a head would be gone. But now its either stopped completetly or stopped 90% of the way. Only half the head is gone on one. And the original small sections that started on others have halted.

Unfortunatly for my bubble coral it was 80% dead so i am unable to see if itll help that coral. As its now at the point of no return just flesh falling off and im sure the coral is in the mode of saving small sections of itself to come back later as ive seen on bubbles many times.

I will report the 2nd bubble that got sick. Is improving or has halted in progression. I can only see small signs of holes on the body or skeleton but nothing that wasnt there prior.

I plan to do a full 7 days of doxycycline if i can find more of it locally. I only have enough for 4 days. So i might have to rush order more online instead.

I do not believe api said 4 day dose is enough for this type of infection. It might work for fish cloudy eyes and so forth but i know in people they want you to take 7-10 days worth. So thats what i plan to do for the corals. I fear if i stop to soon itll just create resistant bacteria.

I have enough erythromycin for 7 days.. but i want to stick to doxycycline. As it is for gram positive and negative bacteria. Andcim not sure what im dealing with. The popular erythromycin people use is gram positive mainly which is interesting as most Vibro in salt water is gram negative. So im unsure why people like to use it in salt water.


I will also note thr original posts in this thread. The guy mentioned doxycycline for api says fresh water only. Thats probably because they never tested it in salt water. Api tends to stick to fresh water supplies only mainly.

Doxycycline is part of the tetrcycline family and tetracycline actually gets inactivated in high ph and calcium and salt water aquariums. Doxycycline does not.

So doxycycline should be fine for salt water display tanks. I will report it hasnt killed any snails. Fish. My star fish or sea urchins. I also frankly do not care if i wipe out my bio filter. I dunno why people in the salt water hobby are so afraid of that.. in my 20 years in fresh water no one was afraid of that. Grab a bottle of beneficial bacteria from fritszyme 9 if youre that paranoid to reseed the tank

It has turned my display tank pink though. With each day progressing it gets darker and darker. This pic is day 2. But day 3 its like really purple now and its hard for my lights to penetrate the water.



I will note i am also doing this antibiotics in conjunction with the herbal treatment. There are a few studies out there with topicsl treatments using doxycycline and essential oils actually increasing effectiveness of killing bacteria. Also very little evidence that they harn eachother or deactivate eachother. So that is good enough to me to continue using both together.


Also to answer questions on brown jelly. Brown Jelly in my experience from what im going through is NOT the cause of this. I noticed 0 brown jelly on my corals. Only a grey detrius in the wake of flesh loss. I only started recently seeing brown jelly on the bubble coral.. but thats after 80% of thr coral was near dead. I think brown jelly is just a opportunistic infection or secondary infection.. and not the root cause. I firmly believe this.


Also im surprised no one here has tried potassium permanganate. Its kills protozoa and bacteria and fungus. It worked on a favia i dipped. But i did a strong concentration for 10 min that stained and stressed the coral. But infection stopped. I would dosed the whole tank much like ive done in fresh water (we fresh water people have done pot perm alot) but unfrotunatly with my snails. Urchins and star fish i cant do it in the main tank.

but with all you guys with microscopes why not get some.. and test it ? I bet itll kill all those bacteria and ciliates and stuff youre all wondering about causing brown jelly.

Just gatta dose it right. You can go by color. But genrrally 0.10grams per 5 gallons should be enough for long tern baths. And for dips you can do 0.05 grams for 1 gallon.

0.05 grams is the scoop on a salifert test kit fyi

 

[Muffin87]

Also im surprised no one here has tried potassium permanganate. Its kills protozoa and bacteria and fungus. It worked on a favia i dipped. But i did a strong concentration for 10 min that stained and stressed the coral. But infection stopped.

It sounds like you might be right.

The active ingredient (or one of them anyways) in Polyp Lab Reef Primer is potassium salts according to the manufacturer. Someone here argues it's actually potassium permanganate.
According to this reef builder article it can indeed treat Brown Jelly.

 

[Reef Republica]

Just came across this AMAZING thread!!! Truly amazing info packed in here. Thank you to all of you that have been workin so hard on all of this. If there has been an updated thread, my apologies.. but this is good stuff right here.

 

[taricha]

Just came across this AMAZING thread!!! Truly amazing info packed in here. Thank you to all of you that have been workin so hard on all of this. If there has been an updated thread, my apologies.. but this is good stuff right here.

This was good. Here's the most up to date info thread. Brown jelly has a bacterial cause and it can be treated by antibiotics in a tank setting.

Thread 'Experimenting with in-tank antibiotic treatments for Brown Jelly Disease' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/e...ic-treatments-for-brown-jelly-disease.782438/