New Take on Brown Jelly Disease

[T-tank]

A New on Brown Jelly Disease (BJD).

Let me preface with: I am not a Professional nor a Marine Biologist. I am just a Hobbyist. This is my Observation.

From lite reading and being on R2R and other forums: Brown Jelly Disease kills Euphyllia quickly and spreads quickly; environmental stressors and bacteria (debatable) are the main causes. "Wall" types are more susceptible to this disease than the branching varieties. Some of these BJD deaths are in stable, ideal water parameters, flow, and light setting. There are no known treatments. The current best practice is to remove the dead head(s) and dip the remaining surviving head(s) in Iodine (or some other chemicals). The survival rate from this best practice is low.

My tank was about 1 year old when I experienced BJD in my tank. It wiped out 7 pieces of my Euphyllia, while other softies were doing fine. These dead pieces, ranging from single head to multiple heads of Wall Hammer, Branching Hammer, and Torches in various locations within the tank. I tested the water once a week at that time; these were approximate values (don't remember the exact numbers, but know it was nothing that jumped out for a softy tank):
Alk ~ 8.5 (Salifert)
No3 ~ 4 ppm (Red Sea)
Phos ~ 0.3 ppm (Hanna)
Cal and Mg were within operational ranges.

During the course of the 1.5 months with BJD, I noticed the Euphyllia died one piece at a time. Kind of make me question why would something so contagious kills only one piece at a time and not mass casualties. As I was cutting off the dead heads to perform "best practice", I noticed the skeletons were porous and the dead heads seemed like they were about to split (sign of the curve-in indent). The dead pieces were all mounted, either by me or from the seller. The BJD death eventually stopped without any treatments, leaving me only 2 colonies of frogspawn and a single head hammer (They are still alive today...knock on wood). So with these observations:

1) No multiple deaths at one time.
2) Porous skeleton.
3) Dead heads were about to split.
4) Mounted pieces.

I came to a conclusion, "Mounting Euphyllia MIGHT be another cause of BJD". Why? Since the skeleton is porous, I believe there are transport channels within this structure facilitating some nutrient or waste import/export from the base (Fig. A). When a seller/hobbyist mounts the coral base with either Crazy glue or Epoxy, it seals and reduces the transport pathways (Fig. B). The coral continues to survive relying mainly on the import/export nutrients/waste through the head. Once a head begins to reproduce (Split), it requires extra "energy" (Fig. C). Since the nutrient transport paths are reduced; with lack of "energy", the coral stresses out and die, showing BJ (Fig. D).

Using this theory to apply to what I read on this forum:

- The Wall-Euphyllia are more susceptible to BJD because they do not have extra Heads to serve as additional import/export pathways when we closed the base. Therefore, they might die before reproducing. This scenario applies to branching single-head purchase as well (as one single head, it acts like a wall variety). A branching COLONY has a better chance to survive since it has many heads serving as alternative pathways

- The "best practice" sometimes works because when we chopped off the dead head (Fig. G), we are now providing another import/export pathway. (Q: So why are the surviving heads still die? A: It might be too late from the stress.)

(Maybe related: I currently have two colonies of frogspawn that are putting out heads. Some of these newer heads, located on the shaded part of the colony, slowly died off so they were on the smaller size. I am wondering if these are "Sacrificial heads" generated to make more import/export pathways).

With that, there will be questions:

Q: How do I know that there are transport channels?
A: I don't; just speculating since they are porous.

Q: So why tightly-packed mounted branching colonies still striving?
A: A branching COLONY has a better chance to survive since they have many heads serving as alternative pathways. Also, if it has been fragged, then the cut site becomes a new pathway.

Q: Why are mounted, un-fragged striving colonies in Hobbyist tanks lasted for YEARS?
A: Might be related to how tightly-packed the original mounting adhesive was made. If the base was not 100% sealed than there is better chance to survive. Or, if the colony is putting out "Sacrificial heads" (more pathways).

Q: Why MY single head hammer survived?
A: Luck? J/k...I did not mount the piece so I cannot tell how tightly-packed the epoxy site was.

That is all I have. I've been buying Euphyllia again (7 months without buying). My new mounting technique is to mount/remount the piece without covering the base opening. Again, this is my observation. Hopefully, if true, it can help with unexplained deaths and spare the frustration. Now let me have it

 

[Flippers4pups]

Branching and wall can have the same results with BJD. The disease is really a infection. The “brown jelly” that we see is the dead and dying tissue mixed with Ciliates. The Ciliates are not the pathogen causing the infection, they are the clean up crew.

The infection is caused by bacteria. In most cases it’s gram negative. Studies haven’t been able to pin point the exact bacterial strain/a causing the necrosis, but theories suggest Vibro strains could be involved. Bad and good bacterial strains naturally occur in and around a reef in nature. The calcium structure has little to do with the bacterial route of infection. Infection is directly tissue related.

Why does a seemingly healthy colony to succumb to this? No one knows, including academia. The thought is that a coral gets stressed by environmental change (insert your idea) and the coral becomes weakened, not too different than humans Immune systems being compromised. The weakened tissue succumbs to the bacteria and the process starts. In this case the immune system can’t ward off the attacking bacteria and necrosis starts.

The latest information I have from coral disease studies in the wild, granted brown jelly disease is not one of these but as with other hard coral diseases such as with Acropora, use of antibiotics such as amoxicillin have shown promise in stopping the advance of the bacteria. Studies taking it one step further have shown that the use of probiotics is also showing promise in stopping the advance of the bacteria.

On the question of why it spreads from one infected coral to another healthy coral near by is that once the bacteria starts to grow, it’s density increases. Down flow corals then can be infected easily by water flow direction. In our systems, we have limited space and have more chaotic flow.

Hope this explains a little for you.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Here’s a good video on stony coral disease in Florida and the Caribbean:


Here’s another one some years back on studies with acropora coral:


Now none of these speaks directly to BJD, so I apologize for that, but In some sense of what we are talking about here, I believe there is some similarities to these diseases and the approaches in research to find a cure.

 

[C. Eymann]

Branching and wall can have the same results with BJD. The disease is really a infection. The “brown jelly” that we see is the dead and dying tissue mixed with Ciliates. The Ciliates are not the pathogen causing the infection, they are the clean up crew.

The infection is caused by bacteria. In most cases it’s gram negative. Studies haven’t been able to pin point the exact bacterial strain/a causing the necrosis, but theories suggest Vibro strains could be involved. Bad and good bacterial strains naturally occur in and around a reef in nature. The calcium structure has little to do with the bacterial route of infection. Infection is directly tissue related.

Why does a seemingly healthy colony to succumb to this? No one knows, including academia. The thought is that a coral gets stressed by environmental change (insert your idea) and the coral becomes weakened, not too different than humans Immune systems being compromised. The weakened tissue succumbs to the bacteria and the process starts. In this case the immune system can’t ward off the attacking bacteria and necrosis starts.

The latest information I have from coral disease studies in the wild, granted brown jelly disease is not one of these but as with other hard coral diseases such as with Acropora, use of antibiotics such as amoxicillin have shown promise in stopping the advance of the bacteria. Studies taking it one step further have shown that the use of probiotics is also showing promise in stopping the advance of the bacteria.

On the question of why it spreads from one infected coral to another healthy coral near by is that once the bacteria starts to grow, it’s density increases. Down flow corals then can be infected easily by water flow direction. In our systems, we have limited space and have more chaotic flow.

Hope this explains a little for you.

^^^ 100% agree with above

 

[T-tank]

Branching and wall can have the same results with BJD. The disease is really a infection. The “brown jelly” that we see is the dead and dying tissue mixed with Ciliates. The Ciliates are not the pathogen causing the infection, they are the clean up crew.

The infection is caused by bacteria. In most cases it’s gram negative. Studies haven’t been able to pin point the exact bacterial strain/a causing the necrosis, but theories suggest Vibro strains could be involved. Bad and good bacterial strains naturally occur in and around a reef in nature. The calcium structure has little to do with the bacterial route of infection. Infection is directly tissue related.

Why does a seemingly healthy colony to succumb to this? No one knows, including academia. The thought is that a coral gets stressed by environmental change (insert your idea) and the coral becomes weakened, not too different than humans Immune systems being compromised. The weakened tissue succumbs to the bacteria and the process starts. In this case the immune system can’t ward off the attacking bacteria and necrosis starts.

The latest information I have from coral disease studies in the wild, granted brown jelly disease is not one of these but as with other hard coral diseases such as with Acropora, use of antibiotics such as amoxicillin have shown promise in stopping the advance of the bacteria. Studies taking it one step further have shown that the use of probiotics is also showing promise in stopping the advance of the bacteria.

On the question of why it spreads from one infected coral to another healthy coral near by is that once the bacteria starts to grow, it’s density increases. Down flow corals then can be infected easily by water flow direction. In our systems, we have limited space and have more chaotic flow.

Hope this explains a little for you.

Thank you for your input . My thought is, the calcium structure (skeleton) is not for the “bacterial route of infection”, it’s for exporting/import - waste/nutrient. When we plug this up, it can stress the coral which lead to your bacteria infection - death.

 

[C. Eymann]

Thank you for your input . My thought is, the calcium structure (skeleton) is not for the “bacterial route of infection”, it’s for exporting/import - waste/nutrient. When we plug this up, it can stress the coral which lead to your bacteria infection - death.


Thank you for your input . My thought is, the calcium structure (skeleton) is not for the “bacterial route of infection”, it’s for exporting/import - waste/nutrient. When we plug this up, it can stress the coral which lead to your bacteria infection - death.

I dont believe that to be the case, stony corals have a gastric cavity, so their "input" is the same route of "output" - their mouth.
They also have a basal plate in the skeleton, which is basically a wall between tissue and the rest of the theca (skeletal network).

 

[Flippers4pups]

Thank you for your input . My thought is, the calcium structure (skeleton) is not for the “bacterial route of infection”, it’s for exporting/import - waste/nutrient. When we plug this up, it can stress the coral which lead to your bacteria infection - death.

Nutrient import and export, including waste removal is done through the tissue, not through the calcified skeleton. Respectfully.

@C. Eymann, you beat me to it! Lol

Trying to keep it simplistic.

 

[T-tank]

I dont believe that to be the case, stony corals have a gastric cavity, so their "input" is the same route of "output" - their mouth.
They also have a basal plate in the skeleton, which is basically a wall between tissue and the rest of the theca (skeletal network).

I don’t know how stony coral grow/reproduce, but do each polyp “split” like euphyllia when stony makes a new polyp?

 

[C. Eymann]

I don’t know how stony coral grow/reproduce, but do each polyp “split” like euphyllia when stony makes a new polyp?

Depends some genus of stony coral, some make new heads via intratantecular budding, some do by extra tentacular budding and some do both!

 

[Cabinetman]

I just had a wall hammer I purchased from a tank shut down that was doing extremely well In the tank it was in but a few weeks after adding it to my tank it started with brown jelly. I would siphon off all I could each day to try to stop it from spreading but it eventually got bad enough I just removed it to stop the spread. That was about 3 weeks to a month ago and no
Other euphillia in my tank got it. And I have a quite I bit. Nothing was done to the hammer just moved from tank to tank. Personally I think it’s stress related and just the process of a euphillia dying. IMO Bjd is just the bacteria that consumes dying euphillia

 

[T-tank]

Nutrient import and export, including waste removal is done through the tissue, not through the calcified skeleton. Respectfully.

@C. Eymann, you beat me to it! Lol

Trying to keep it simplistic.

True, we see that they eat and poop at the head/mouth... but do we really know what is going on at the base opening? In the wild they put down their bases on non smooth surfaces. But do they really plug up that base.

 

[C. Eymann]

True, we see that they eat and poop at the head/mouth... but do we really know what is going on at the base opening? In the wild they put down their bases on non smooth surfaces. But do they really plug up that base.

Like I mentioned. the basal plate is basically a wall between the tissue and the rest of the skeletal structure, unless the coral was cut short/between this wall and the tissue, there isn't really an opening-per say.

 

[T-tank]

Haha... I think I should have said in my original post “ Tightly mount causes Euphyllia to stress out.... which can lead to bacteria infection.... and die...spewing out dead tissue and bacteria (BJ)”

 

[T-tank]

As n

Like I mentioned. the basal plate is basically a wall between the tissue and the rest of the skeletal structure, unless the coral was cut short/between this wall and the tissue, there isn't really an opening-per say.

As noted in my thread, I don’t know if the skeleton really have a pathway (just my speculation as it is porous). I would give up my theory if we can prove that “there isn't really an opening-per say”

 

[Flippers4pups]

I just had a wall hammer I purchased from a tank shut down that was doing extremely well In the tank it was in but a few weeks after adding it to my tank it started with brown jelly. I would siphon off all I could each day to try to stop it from spreading but it eventually got bad enough I just removed it to stop the spread. That was about 3 weeks to a month ago and no
Other euphillia in my tank got it. And I have a quite I bit. Nothing was done to the hammer just moved from tank to tank. Personally I think it’s stress related and just the process of a euphillia dying. IMO Bjd is just the bacteria that consumes dying euphillia

“IMO Bjd is just the bacteria that consumes dying Euphyllia.”

Technically BJD is the after effect, what we see ( The thousands of Ciliates and dead and dying tissue) not the bacteria causing the necrosis. It really should be called “Brown Jelly Infection! Lol

 

[T-tank]

If someone has an intact dead Head with long stem. Drop some food color in the head.... then wait at the base.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Essentially this drawing is very similar in structure with most large polyp stony corals:

There isn’t any pathway to the “gut” through the calcified base.

I could dissect one of my torches to see if there is a pathway, but.......

NO! Lol

 

[T-tank]

You are showing stony polyp structure.

 

[Flippers4pups]

You are showing stony polyp structure.

Anecdotally, that colony I have has been fragged too many times to count. All have been superglued either to rock or plugs. 10 years of growth and has produced close to twenty heads. I have had shading that has caused a couple heads to perish over the years, but none to BJD.

 

[T-tank]

Nice. Were the ones you fragged out still in your tank or did you sell them ?