My poor frogspawn :(

[jacob cumberland]

I bought a beautiful frogspawn months ago and it was doing great!!! I’ve done a few water changes since but the other day I woke up to my frogspawn looking a little deflated (not the first time). Then I noticed it was excreting something. I was alarmed and tested my water. Everything was in safe parameters. By the next day the 2 major heads were dying. It appears the dying process has stopped but something shocked the coral because now the other heads are restricted. Good news is I have about 8 other small heads sprouting and they look healthy and unharmed. Any suggestions? What could have happened?!?! 

[+KimP]

That's always a bummer! I'm no expert in frogspawn and this is usually what happens to mine after a few months or sometimes years. I would be tempted to frag off the healthy heads and do an iodine dip. I've had really good luck with that in the past. 

[+underbyte]

I would guess brown jelly syndrome, doing a dip would help if nothing else.

http://aquariumcoraldiseases.weebly.com/brown-jelly-syndrome-bjs--brown-band-disease-brb.html 

[Timfish]

DIpping should at least slow down brown jelly but what are the water parameters?   There's a wide range of what's considered "Acceptable".  All corals need phosphates and can store phospholipids.  Keeping phosphates too low and not feeding fish much might result in a malnurished coral.   Excess nitrates can also cause problems, allowing zooxanthellae grow unchecked retaining photosynthates normally released to the corals as food as well as compete for available phosphates.   (You may have read about the "Redfield Ratio")   In my expericences brown jelly usually, not always, a secondary issue and something is stressing the coral.  Other variables to look at besides nitrates and phospahtes are changes in lighting from it's previous tank, carbon dosing can cause problems,  history of other corals dying in this tank, big changes or unstable alkalinity and/or calcium and/or magnesium,  and a long term downward trend (not weekly or daily changes) in pH.    If you dig into the aging question the picture gets far more complicated as there are three "ages" we're talking about, genotype, colony and polyp, ant at the polyp level just a few months can have significant physiological differences (tabling and plating corals are examples where all the growth is at the edge).

 

Like KimP mentioned, I occasionally have a polyp or two die for no apparent reason and it doesn't progress beyond that.   Unfortunately we are still a long way from being able to identify or treat many corals diseases.    Research presented at C4 2016 showed at siginificant differences in the immune responses at the genotype level to bacterial infections.   Additionally in ROhwer's "Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas". he relates having post doc students at a symposium on coral disease ask researchers to identify pictures of diseases and they were rarely able to do so correctly.    Unfortunately we are still pretty much in the dark ages when it comes to identifying and treating coral diseases.

[julespinkyd]

On 8/25/2020 at 9:12 AM, Timfish said:

DIpping should at least slow down brown jelly but what are the water parameters?   There's a wide range of what's considered "Acceptable".  All corals need phosphates and can store phospholipids.  Keeping phosphates too low and not feeding fish much might result in a malnurished coral.   Excess nitrates can also cause problems, allowing zooxanthellae grow unchecked retaining photosynthates normally released to the corals as food as well as compete for available phosphates.   (You may have read about the "Redfield Ratio")   In my expericences brown jelly usually, not always, a secondary issue and something is stressing the coral.  Other variables to look at besides nitrates and phospahtes are changes in lighting from it's previous tank, carbon dosing can cause problems,  history of other corals dying in this tank, big changes or unstable alkalinity and/or calcium and/or magnesium,  and a long term downward trend (not weekly or daily changes) in pH.    If you dig into the aging question the picture gets far more complicated as there are three "ages" we're talking about, genotype, colony and polyp, ant at the polyp level just a few months can have significant physiological differences (tabling and plating corals are examples where all the growth is at the edge).

 

Like KimP mentioned, I occasionally have a polyp or two die for no apparent reason and it doesn't progress beyond that.   Unfortunately we are still a long way from being able to identify or treat many corals diseases.    Research presented at C4 2016 showed at siginificant differences in the immune responses at the genotype level to bacterial infections.   Additionally in ROhwer's "Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas". he relates having post doc students at a symposium on coral disease ask researchers to identify pictures of diseases and they were rarely able to do so correctly.    Unfortunately we are still pretty much in the dark ages when it comes to identifying and treating coral diseases.

Alright Mr. Timfish 🙂 Thanks for the detailed post.