Is my tank being overrun by Brown jelly disease or dinos?

[vdubers]

Hi so I’m having some issues with my tank. Things were going really good then corals started to go downhill. It started with my lobo receding. I assumed this was light or flow so moved it. My chalice then started to develop brown blobs but I put this down to my regal tang nipping at it. Now my gold torch has one head semi detached from the base and the other two heads on the same stalk are looking very sad. I put this down to flow and about an hour ago installed a flow barrier but it had me thinking this may be BJD? My montipora is also developing brown bits.

I also considered dinos and am dosing hydrogen peroxide for this. It could all just be different issues but if it’s BJD I can pretty easily get hold of some cipro to do a tank treatment.

Recent changes are adding the new gold torch on 7th September and started dosing tm bacto balance on 23rd August. The chalice was the only one with the brown blobs before the torch was added but it did coincide with swapping over to tm bacto balance. I have now stopped the bacto balance as it wasn’t working for what I intended anyway. I am running carbon and gfo. I did also have a salinity swing last week when my auto water changer messed up and am slowly increasing my salinity back up since then.

Tank parameters are included in the picture below. Alk is tested daily. Phosphate and nitrate once a week and calcium and magnesium once a month. Automatic water change of 1% a day. Photos taken with orphek orange filter so it’s not just all blue. Thanks for your help and sorry for the long read.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I don't see brown jelly or dino's, and your parameters look fine. The corals look like they are slowly dying, my guess is the light is too low.

What kind of light do you have, and what intensity? What do you have for flow in the tank? How old is the tank? How long have you had the corals?

 

[vdubers]

I don't see brown jelly or dino's, and your parameters look fine. The corals look like they are slowly dying, my guess is the light is too low.

What kind of light do you have, and what intensity? What do you have for flow in the tank? How old is the tank? How long have you had the corals?

Thanks for your reply. The tank is just over a year old. I would be surprised if it was light or flow for the chalice and the monti as both have been there for around 9 months. The gold torch is new however and I did think that one’s issue was too much flow. The lobo was also new around a month ago. I have a gyre on each side of the tank and it’s around 7.5ft. If my memory serves me right the larger chalice gets around 80par the monti around 200 par and the torch is getting around 100 par. I do have a par meter so can double check but I’d be surprised for them to be thriving and growing for 9 months then to suddenly not be happy with the light for the monti and the large chalice. No lighting changes.

 

[vdubers]

Sadly I lost three heads of the torch. They bailed. However I smelt them and the skeleton that I cut off and it didn’t smell that bad. Kinda just an algae smell so assume it’s not brown jelly. Still at a loss though as to what’s going on with the brown bits growing on my other corals. My UV bulb does need replacing could it be due to that?

 

[vdubers]

Also in case anyone is following I contacted my LFS I got the torch from to ask their advice. They suggested the polyp bailout was due to my nitrate level being too high. Now I know it’s higher than most people but I don’t have any algae issues at all and I always figured that was the main worry with higher nitrates. They also suggested some direct feedings for it which seems counter to their advice to get nitrates down?

 

[Reef Wizard]

Also in case anyone is following I contacted my LFS I got the torch from to ask their advice. They suggested the polyp bailout was due to my nitrate level being too high. Now I know it’s higher than most people but I don’t have any algae issues at all and I always figured that was the main worry with higher nitrates. They also suggested some direct feedings for it which seems counter to their advice to get nitrates down?

I dont think its the nitrates. The only parameter thats somewhat out of normal is magnesium and its on the higher end.

Might need an ICP to see if there is something else.

Have you dipped these corals in iodine? There could be somekind of bacterial infection

 

[Pod_01]

They suggested the polyp bailout was due to my nitrate level being too high.

I don’t have experience with torches. But your NO3 is not that elevated. I don’t believe that is the problem.

But couple of items that may have upset your corals are:

gfo. I did also have a salinity swing last week

GFO can remove other things and I had no luck with it. Some make it work, but I would stop.

Salinity swing can really upset corals, and it can take time for them to settle back in. I killed 1/2 my tank when I had large salinity swing.

Good luck,

 

[vdubers]

I dont think its the nitrates. The only parameter thats somewhat out of normal is magnesium and its on the higher end.

Might need an ICP to see if there is something else.

Have you dipped these corals in iodine? There could be somekind of bacterial infection

I am slowly lowering the mag I do plan to still keep it on the higher side though as I have a few gonis that are doing great and I think they like higher mag? 1400 is probably a safer bet though.

I did think maybe bacterial too. I have dipped the torch in iodine and seems to be doing ok now I’ve cut the dying heads off. I also moved it into slightly higher light and better randomised flow so I did the age old reefer mistake of too much at once and now not sure what one helped it .

Couldn’t hurt to iodine dip the other affected corals though just in case good shout!

 

[Reef Wizard]

I am slowly lowering the mag I do plan to still keep it on the higher side though as I have a few gonis that are doing great and I think they like higher mag? 1400 is probably a safer bet though.

I did think maybe bacterial too. I have dipped the torch in iodine and seems to be doing ok now I’ve cut the dying heads off. I also moved it into slightly higher light and better randomised flow so I did the age old reefer mistake of too much at once and now not sure what one helped it .

Couldn’t hurt to iodine dip the other affected corals though just in case good shout!

Let us know if iodine works.

 

[vdubers]

I don’t have experience with torches. But your NO3 is not that elevated. I don’t believe that is the problem.

But couple of items that may have upset your corals are:



GFO can remove other things and I had no luck with it. Some make it work, but I would stop.

Salinity swing can really upset corals, and it can take time for them to settle back in. I killed 1/2 my tank when I had large salinity swing.

Good luck,

Hmm I will have a think on the GFO. I get your point it’s just the best thing I’ve found to keep my phosphate in check.

I agree on the salinity swing though. Maybe that caused them to get ticked off/ lowered their immunity allowing some bacteria issue to take hold? It was a drop from 34.8 to 34.3 so not massive but also 100% not intentional . And that also doesn’t take into account tester error. Not impossible for it to have been a bit higher and dropped a bit lower.

 

[Reef Wizard]

Hmm I will have a think on the GFO. I get your point it’s just the best thing I’ve found to keep my phosphate in check.

I agree on the salinity swing though. Maybe that caused them to get ticked off/ lowered their immunity allowing some bacteria issue to take hold? It was a drop from 34.8 to 34.3 so not massive but also 100% not intentional . And that also doesn’t take into account tester error. Not impossible for it to have been a bit higher and dropped a bit lower.

That drop doesnt appear to be that bad. essentially half a point? I could be wrong though lol

 

[vdubers]

Let us know if iodine works.

Will do thanks. Would a general iodine deficiency in the tank cause this? I only ask because since I had the iodine out when I dipped the torch I also dosed some to bring the levels up to around 0.6. I didn’t do a test this time around as everytime i tested for the past 6 months it’s been 0.3 so I know it tends to run lower. Since then the affected corals have puffed up more and don’t seem to have gotten any worse.

I know there is a lot of debate around any benefit of dosing iodine so I didn’t really consider that before. I’ve only dosed it in the past as my Zoa’s seem to respond well.

 

[vdubers]

That drop doesnt appear to be that bad. essentially half a point? I could be wrong though lol

Yeah my AWC basically just replaced the daily 1% with RO water instead of new salt water for I think only one day so hoped it wouldn’t cause too much issues.

 

[Reef Wizard]

Will do thanks. Would a general iodine deficiency in the tank cause this? I only ask because since I had the iodine out when I dipped the torch I also dosed some to bring the levels up to around 0.6. I didn’t do a test this time around as everytime i tested for the past 6 months it’s been 0.3 so I know it tends to run lower. Since then the affected corals have puffed up more and don’t seem to have gotten any worse.

I know there is a lot of debate around any benefit of dosing iodine so I didn’t really consider that before. I’ve only dosed it in the past as my Zoa’s seem to respond well.

Im not that versed on iodine/iodide honestly.

 

[Pod_01]

Hmm I will have a think on the GFO. I get your point it’s just the best thing I’ve found to keep my phosphate in check.

I agree on the salinity swing though. Maybe that caused them to get ticked off/ lowered their immunity allowing some bacteria issue to take hold? It was a drop from 34.8 to 34.3 so not massive but also 100% not intentional . And that also doesn’t take into account tester error. Not impossible for it to have been a bit higher and dropped a bit lower.

When I had salinity swing it was from 35PSU to 28PSU. Your swing can irritate but I don’t think that is the main issue.

From my experience with reefing nothing good happens when I chase PO4. Most attempts led to dead corals so these days I let PO4 do its thing, and my average range is 0.1-0.3ppm and on few occasions I was in the 1 ppm and nothing bad happened.

Just as a reference in my reef I only use skimmer and GAC (2 tablespoons per 60 gal in mesh bag changed every 4 weeks). GAC if used aggressively will irritate corals as well from my experience.
My thinking is that I want the corals to do all the filtration and the skimmer and GAC supplements them. Also I am big into fish feeding so the fish can provide proper food for corals (ammonia and PO4 in the poop) and I want these to stay in the water column as long as possible.

Some pics:

I also keep Iodine at the sea water level. Things look better but there is no scientific proof so it may be just placebo effect. Mg I don’t measure, track or activity add.

Good luck,