Lost three mushrooms

[Hara]

I'm saying poor water quality aggravates it and can help it to spread. It is bacterial in nature.

You want a magic cure and you arent gonna get it. If we arent helpful enough, I am sure someone else will be.

 

[Scoot]

I'm certainly not looking for a "magic bullet". Just a typical course of treatment.

If you assume, for the sake of argument, that my water quality is fine, then what would you suggest?

 

[Fluff]

Ok, sorry I can't help you. I thought you wanted to know how to treat it. I've tried to do that (through fragging and water changes (correcting chemical imbalance), sorry if that sounds vague. Hopefully someone will be along who can help you more. I have no idea what more to offer.

 

[Scoot]

So I'm stuck with "improve water quality" and removing affected areas as a treatment for brown jelly infection?

Sorry if I thought there was something more somebody could offer.

 

[Fluff]

No, you need to remove the infected corals. If not, it will continue to spread. And do water changes. Think of them as a failsafe measure.

 

[Scoot]

Well, that's specific, and helpful, which is appreciated.

The affected shrooms packed up and moved away (detached and floated to the other end of the aquarium). Only one was lost.

Should I scoop them up and discard those as well?

 

[Fluff]

If they are showing any signs of infection, yes I'd remove them to keep them from passing on the infection. If they seem intact and healthy, I'd just keep an eye on them.

 

[Scoot]

Lugols' won't help? Had many people suggest that over the last few days...

I'm wondering if I should sacrifice that frogspawn head, even though I don't see any brown jelly symptoms...

The shrooms that floated off to the far corder of the tank look fine.

 

[melosu58]

So I'm stuck with "improve water quality" and removing affected areas as a treatment for brown jelly infection?

Speaking as someone that recently went through this with my torch coral, I can say that I followed Hara`s and Fluffs perscription above to you with excellent results. IME They know what they are talking about here. We all like to think we have excellent water conditions and water test might show you that but we dont know what are corals are adding to our tank that there is no test for. All we can do is see the water is clear and nice looking but that dont mean a thing. There are many things that are in our tank that we cant see or test for.

 

[Scoot]

melosu58 - you understand my point though, that when somebody suggests "improve water quality", and you're already doing every darn thing you can, that's not much help, right?

So what did you do, to "improve water quality" to save your torch?

There's no one thing I can do, aside from daily PWC's, that I can think of.

See my point?

Now, if there's a specific water quality issue, like dissolved nutrients, etc., that affect this, of course I'd know what to do.

But with that broad of a suggestion, you might as well tell a Republican to "improve air quality."

The tips to remove infected corals - now that's something I can do.

 

[Innovator]

I'll go ahead and throw in some opinions First off, Actinodiscus/Discosoma often succumb to such maladies for no apparent reason as do Zoanthids, Xeniid, Sarcophytons, etc. In Discosoma, tissue will often shrink and bleach, seemingly unable to expand and/or regain health. It is not common for corallimorphs to survive once the "infection" has set in. I have been told this is a 75g? Even so, you do have quite a mix of coral sp. including those that can inflict a powerful sting to neighboring corals or even provide chemical means of defense. I mention this for future concerns regarding community coral mixing endeavors. However, the new salt switch could be a more reliable possibility considering it is the only thing to be changed in your routine. Many people do have problems switching salt brands so this very well could be the case and once mushrooms decide to go, there is relatively no turning back. The brown jelly you see is a protozoan infection and often seen in the corals you keep. Usually tissue damage initiates the infection and protozoans begin to digest the tissue at a rapid rate. Watch the rest of your stock! The dieing tissue of the mushrooms and other microorganisms are rather contagious to any nearbye corals and especially those that are weak to the infection i.e. galaxea, xenia, euphyllia, etc etc. As far as a cure is concerned, this post won't make your day. Mushrooms can be rather messy corals and even moreso when sickly. Your best bet is to siphon the remaining "residues," but if you can remove the rock (if small) then do so. You could also try a fw dip to help alleviate the mushroom, but at the risk of compounding stress. After siphoning any brown jelly a rock excavation might be in order and/or bump up the water motion to constantly keep "fresh" water flushing the areas. There are dips and pastes as remedies, but those are usually used on lps or even sps type corals. Giving the mushrooms a dip or paste will either kill the mushrooms slowly or kill it quickly imo. Sorry for the bad news, but these things do happen for no apparent reason at times. I would; however, lower you water temperature a bit for the meantime since brown jelly infections seem to prefer such conditions.

Edit: Wouldn't hurt to throw in some carbon and perform extra water changes for a while, not to mention bump up the ca

 

[Sadielynn]

Ok here is one to think of as the others have covered most of it ...
if you have something that had brown jelly remove it as it is contagious .... now on to another possibility . Is it possible that some one sprayed something near the tank that could have cause the demise of some of your shrooms... that is something that you can not test for , perhaps something on your hands that you did not realize was there ?
I would suggest a largish water change along the lines of 50% -60% along with some activated carbon then for the next few days do some smaller ones of 10%-20% to see if that helps .... sometimes you can do things text book and it still is going to disolve/die.... and you really never know why it happened you can only guess ...

 

[Scoot]

Good thought, but the tank is in my dining room, and I work at home, so I'm around the tank pretty much all day and night, every day.

I'll dig out my carbon (everybody asked if I was using carbon, but nobody suggested to use it until the post above).

I think the damage is done - all but one shroom detached and floated away into a corner, where I'll leave them for now. But they look okay.

I did try to post yesterday, but the site went down or something, that I had some neosporin on a cut on a finger - I avoided putting that hand in the tank, but I think I might have accidentally.

It would have been a tiny amount, and it was covered with a non-medicated bandaid, but this popped up a few days after that happened. Another coincidence? Not sure.

Froggy is still not opening one of 3 heads.

Regarding other corals stinging/affecting the shroom or frogspawn, nothing with any feeler tentacles is within reach. My galaxea is well out of reach of anything (its feelers come out about 5" max), and my condy has never moved from its spot. AFAIK, I don't have anything else that can be dangerous to other corals.

I've added a good-sized bag of activated carbon.

I'm also prepping water for a 40% PWC.

 

[Innovator]

Usually when someone asks if you are using carbon, it means if you are not then you should be due to the detrimental effects you are witnessing. Are you using a filter sock or filter pads at the moment? If not, it would not be a bad idea to use one for the time being to catch any organics just as long as you change/wash them frequently. If neosporin is the only outside "chemical" introduced into your tank, then I do not believe that is the culprit. You have other corals that will react much more rapidly/negatively if a harmful "chemical" was introduced and if this was the case you would have an overall tank decline. As far as the coral mixing is concerned, more than likely the mushrooms were not stung, but my point was that you have corals with the potential to sting at great distances so be careful during placement. As far as you have seen, your galaxea has 5in. sweepers, but there are other determinants as to why the extension could extend to 14in+. The Euphyllia you have, whichever sp., also has the potential to produce long sweepers; although, not quite that of galaxea nor as potent not to mention there is the possibility of chemical warfare within the confines of your little glass box to which you would not visually notice until a coral is affected. More than likely, at this point in time, the Euphyllia sp. is recessing because of the protozoan infection your mushrooms succumbed to, their defensive mucusing, and the eventual die off residues. If you can include a clear pic of "froggy" that would help determine if the coral is just closing up as a defense, actual tissue recession, or possible infection setting in.

 

[Ducky]

No, you need to remove the infected corals. If not, it will continue to spread. And do water changes. Think of them as a failsafe measure.

I would have to agree with Fluff 100% water changes and removing the infected corals are allways good.

 

[Fluff]

I'll dig out my carbon (everybody asked if I was using carbon, but nobody suggested to use it until the post above).

I asked you if you were running carbon, as well as a few other questions you didn't answer. Had you answered them, I'd have told you to add some to your system to help removed chemicals and other nasties that may be in your system. To help remove some of the things that may be causing your corals to succumb to the bacteria. You seem to just disregard all the questions I asked and took my post about your water as a personal thing, instead of how it was intended. Which was to try and help you. Everyone has given you solid advice. Innovator has tried to explain the infection and everyone has tried to help you in curing it. I truly hope you can get the infection cleared up and gone and that your other corals remain healthy and thrive. Brown jelly disease sucks, but it happens and there isn't always a clear cut answer for why it happens. Removing the infected corals and providing damage control through water changes, fragging, coral placement reconsideration, etc. These are all things that can help you with control.