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FAQs about Trachyphylliid Coral Social Disease

FAQs on Open Brain Disease: Trachyphylliid Disease 1, Trachyphyllia Disease 2, Trachyphyllia Disease 3, Trachyphyllia Disease 4, Trachyphyllia Disease 5,
FAQs on Open Brain Disease by Category: Diagnosing, Environmental (Pollution/Poisoning, Lighting...), Nutritional, Trauma, Pathogenic (Infectious, Parasitic, Viral) Predatory/Pest, Treatments 

Related Articles: Coral Pests and Disease; pests, predators, diseases and conditions by Sara Mavinkurve, Trachyphylliid Corals, Trachyphyllia Reproduction Report,

FAQs on Stony Coral Disease by Category: Diagnosing: Environmental (Pollution/Poisoning, Lighting...), Nutritional, Social (Allelopathy), Trauma, Pathogenic (Infectious, Parasitic, Viral) Predatory/Pest, Treatments 
FAQs on Stony Coral Disease by Type: Brown Jelly Disease,
RTN,

Easily loses to other stony corals, mushrooms, Zoanthids...

Help with an Open Brain, allelopathy likely   6/18/08 Hello WWM Crew! <Mike> I have a 14G Oceanic Bio-Cube. It's been an amazing tank, and I have been fortunate enough to have had minimal problems with it. In fact, it's been a dream tank for the most part. In the tank: 1 Clownfish 1 6 Line Wrasse <... needs more room than this> 1 Cleaner Shrimp Hermits 2 Cerith Snails 3 margarita snails Some Green Mushrooms Purple Mushrooms Pipe Organ Coral Leather Coral <... ditto> Open Brain Coral <... the loser here> (I'm upgrading to a new 34 gallon Solana Aquarium in July with MH lights! http://www.current-usa.com/solana.html ) <Oh! Much better!> My tank seemed to take a turn for the worse in the spring. It's been perfect for years and then something just seemed to happen. My frogspawn started splitting, which was amazing to watch. <But due to what prompting? Stress?> until pieces started rotting and falling off. <Ah, yes> I tried hard to save it, but no avail. My Pipe Organ coral also started to have some problems (and from what I hear that is a good indication of poor water quality). <Mmm, can be... in this case, allelopathy> So I increased my water changes, and made sure to diligently test the water. <Good moves> Small changes, multiple times a week and a 30% water change at the end of every month. Readings have been perfect. When things didn't get better I took samples to my LFS, hoping they would find something, and they have confirmed near perfect water quality. Only one thing out of whack, I do have high calcium. around 500 but they said it wasn't harmful. Is that true? <Likely so... as long as you have adequate alkalinity, magnesium...> The Pipe Organ is doing better, the Mushrooms, Leather Coral, and various frags are doing amazing (but they are hearty to begin with). My problem, is with my beautiful open brain coral (image attached). <I see> I read through the forums and have some ideas to implement. The image I have attached shows something I haven't been able to find on your site. in the middle of the brain coral, between the mouth and the mantle, there are 4 pieces of skeleton that are black in color. What is that!? <Algal et al. opportunistic growth on damaged, dying tissue living on septal teeth> As you can see, the open brain is slowly receding, making parts of the skeleton around the circumference visible. I read on the forums that in this state, the brains won't be able to survive on photosynthesis and normal feeding (I feed the system with a Phytoplankton twice a week), <... most everything here doesn't eat such> so now whenever the mouth is open I target feed it. It seems to react positively. The mouth eventually closes, and the coral puffs up. And when I say puffs up I mean puffs up. It inflates like a balloon. And then next day it seems to recede a bit more (or so it appears). When it puffs up the black pieces are not visible. It was recommended to me that I add a Strontium supplement into my routine, but it doesn't seem to be doing much. I also supplement with Iodine once a week for the shrimp. <Good> You will also see some algae growing on the exposed skeleton. I read something about Boring Green Algae or something like that, but it didn't seem to fit. Thoughts? <... secondary> To complicate the matters, my Clownfish , even with a nice big frogspawn and leather coral, has hosted in the brain coral (and has for years). They seem to be fine with one another. In this state though, I'm afraid he is hindering the healing of the brain. At times he can be found, "splashing and rolling around in it" . He gets very aggressive to others that come near it, flipping over snails and such. I think he may have ushered a few of them into the brain while trying to get them away. Perhaps that started the downward spiral? <Possibly> So, there it is. The only other thing I can think of that has changed is that I had to purchase a new type of salt. I have religiously used Instant Ocean, but recently had to switch to KENT (which is apparently supposed to be better for corals). Would that have made a difference? As for suggested ways to fix it, I have been given the following advice so far: <I'd switch back> 1) Someone suggested that I put a cube of shrimp or worms in the center and then cover the brain with a clear glass cup. Seems strange to me, but your thoughts? <Nah> 2) Someone also suggested I try scraping off any algae on the skeleton, and scrape the dark stuff away. but I'm worried that will do more harm than good. <Correct> 3) Freshwater Dip - but then I heard that it would just rupture the cells that are left <Nope> 4) Quarantine it <Moving it period is the route to go> What would you recommend and not recommend? At my wit's end here, any help would be appreciated. wit Thanks again for all your help. You have a tremendous site, and a great group of talented people. Don't know what we would do without you! Thanks, Mike <Hurry along that new tank and read here: http://wetwebmedia.com/cnidcompppt.htm  and the linked files above. Bob Fenner>

Sick Elegance, Rose Brain health, & possible Lithophyllum sp. ID 10/18/07 Hi Folks, I have been searching your site for answers and with all the information I've read I am less sure than I was before I started. <It happens to all of us. :-)> I have a few questions and I am a recent student of this hobby so please bear with me. I am running a 265 gallon, 32in x 32in x 5ft, with a 29 gallon sump with skimmer, we don't do anything small in this house. Currently, I am in the process of slowly filling my tank, so I have started at one end with a 400W MH and 4-40W fluorescent actinic. I will be adding another 400W MH at the other end when I have life to put under it. First, I have enclosed a few photos of my rose brain, elegance and an unknown. The unknown was a skeleton covered in mushrooms that had a great shape. When I got it in my tank a tiny portion of the skeleton was still alive and started to regrow, recovering the skeleton with life, any idea what this could be? <Very nice recovery. It looks like some kind of Lithophyllum sp.> Under actinic only this glows green, but with MH it looks a tan colour. The other 4 pics are of my formerly healthy elegance and brain and their now sick images. The elegance from what I read on your site looks like the virus that Julian Sprung describes. Over the course of about a week parts of it started to shrivel. Now it's been like this for about 3 weeks. I am hoping for the best and just looking for suggestions. <There's been some recent promising investigation into the cause of (and possibly cure for) Elegance coral disease. Please see here: http://www.elegancecoral.org/Page_4.html > My brain on the other hand had almost tripled in size from this healthy photo(daytime) and now for about 5 days has continued to shrink. The colour is still good but there is no puffiness to it at all. <Actually, it looks a little bleached. You should move it to an area of less intense light or raise your light. For general care of these corals, please see here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/trachyphlliidae.htm > I have done a partial water change and then today I noticed that the little sponges that hitchhike on live rock, the one that look like cotton balls, have all started to die off. I can't figure out what has happened. My ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all at 0 and the ph is 8.4. <I think you probably have too much light over your tank. Some sponges don't like a lot of light.> Also in this tank, 130lbs live rock, Rhodactis mushrooms, 2 Fungia - green and orange Platygyra, Blastomussa, lg coral covered in Christmas tree worms, a Purple, a blue and a yellow tang, 2 small clownfish, a lg orange and green BTA and a small rose BTA, a sm Xenia, a frogspawn, chili sponge 3 cleaner shrimp, a debelius lobster, multiple mushrooms, candy coral, green star polyp, a red and yellow feather duster, many snails and hermit crabs, and of course anything that hitch hiked in on the live rock. Everything else in this tank appears healthy, eats normally and seems to be thriving. The only thing that has changed since just before the brain started to recede is the addition of 5 lbs of live rock, and the Rhodactis mushrooms and a move of the purple tang in from the QT. Should I just leave it or is there any suggestions about intervention? <I don't think the new additions are causing your coral troubles.> Thanks in advance for your help, us newbies really appreciate your time and consideration. Sara M.>
Coral bleaching? (Trachyphyllia) 2/20/07 <Hi, J & S. GrahamT here.> Thank you for all your help. <Welcome.> Bought a brain coral about 3 weeks ago. This white area was present in just the lower left about 1 inch. It has progressed and now I am worried. <See your picture, but I don't see the "white area".> This coral is about 16in down from 80w power compact light. <You do realize that that is the threshold for light penetration through the water, right? > Nitrates 10, nitrites 0, ca 420, pH 8.2, phos 0, kH 143ppm. I feed the coral Mysis early am or night and he eats well with good polyp extension every time. <Not everyday, I hope. ( http://www.wetwebmedia.com/trachyfdgfaqs.htm ) > There is no other stuff next to him. Tankmates: 1 yellow tang, 2 striped damsels, 1 Firefish goby, 1 false clown, 1 coral banded shrimp, 1 Condy anemone who stays under a rock 12in away (and does not move.) <Would venture a few diff. hypotheses. PC lights may be in need of changing, starving the symbiotic algae. The Condy *may* be sending some chemicals his way that are affecting his health. The Trach. may be responding to the difference in lighting from where it was collected, stored in the interim, and placed in your home-system. Which brings me to my last thought. Shipping stresses in general. This is still a new coral in your system, and has been moved around quite a bit in the past few weeks/months. Use the Google tool here on WWM searching for anemones and corals, light requirements, bleaching, etc. -GrahamT>
Thanks -JL

Burned Tissue hello crew, <Hi, Ryan with you> I have this awesome green Trachyphyllia that was in contact with one of my Favias sweeper tentacles, <Yikes> I have moved the two of them further apart. The Trachyphillia's tissue is damaged in one area, skeleton showing , about 1/4" on the bottom ridge. Is there any thing I can do to prevent further loss and possibly help it grow back? <A nice large water change of 20%. That's about it> I have been feeding the other areas of the coral heavy with Selcon soaked Mysis shrimp, I've been trying to get the damaged polyp to eat as much as I can , the end mouth won't take in the food but the others next to the damage will eat. <Leave him be, it will re-grow> Iodine dip??? Coral dip??? <Nope> Kinda in a hurry , thanks a lot all...<no problem! See ya, Ryan> 

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