What causes Brown Jelly Disease?

[Earl Karl]

I have brown jelly disease on my tricolor hammer coral frag, it's pretty much a goner. Does anyone know what causes this?

I thought it was high light that made one of the polyps close (I had two polyps, the other one received less lighting). The closed one then had brown jelly on its polyp next day, and the next day it spread to the other polyp, covering both of them. I am iodine dipping them with Seachem reef dip, but I don't think it would do anything.

 

[S-t-r-e-t-c-h]

In my experience, the best way to address brown jelly on Euphilia is to frag off dying branches. I've not found anything else to really be all that effective...

 

[Earl Karl]

Does anyone know what causes it though?

 

[CindyKz]

If you do a google search you will find opinions but I don't think anyone knows for sure.

I've gotten BJD on a number of corals. With euphyllia, fragging off the diseased heads (even if they only look "a little bad") followed by a Lugol's dip has been helpful.

 

[amps]

I had it wipe out half my tank last year. From my observations, the thinnest flesh around the base of the polyp where it was anchored to the skeleton was completely gone and looked like it had been eaten. I also noticed a distinct weakening of the skeleton in that area, like it would crumble with even small touches. Given how it spreads and how it appears to actually eat the coral rather than make it sick, I have to believe that it's some form of bacteria, dinoflagellate or protozoa that's causing the damage.

Liberal dipping with iodine seems to be the best way to save colonies/frags. I was able to save a handful of pieces by aggressively fragging them, dipping them with saltwater darkly tinted with iodine and then moving them to another tank.

I also heard it suggested on another forum that treating with erythromycin might fix the problem. A local vendor that specializes in extremely high end LPS told me that he does a prophylactic treatment with ChemiClean every 6 months and he has never lost a head to the disease. It seems that ChemiClean actually contains erythromycin as its main ingredient. That seems to backup the idea that it's caused by some sort of bacteria or other microscopic parasite.

 

[Earl Karl]

So it's been a few days since I've seen any bjd. I manage to save a head. Would it be fine if I added a torch or should I wait longer?

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Ideally you'd want to wait longer, and if you have the facilities to do it, you'd want to quarantine the new coral. As others noted, it's not actually clear what causes this, and you'd like to ensure that the coral in your tank is completely recovered and growing before adding new animals of the same genera. So far as I've read, BJD only affects euphyllia corals, so if you wanted to add something else, like zoas or acans, you could.

 

[Earl Karl]

Ok, it is in my qt now for couple of months. I did add chemiclean just to clean up any of that bjd. I guess it's best to wait. My other hammers and torches are still doing fine, just that one hammer was affected.