"Mold" on corals?! please help me...

[Reef55]

I am not sure if this is the right forum, but I have a serious problem going on with my corals. There has been this strange type of brownish "mold" randomly appearing around my tank that looks like it is "eating" my corals. It envelops all (if small enough) or parts at a time of a coral, completely killing what it covers. I have seen it on the base of my torch (only one head, I removed it from the tank, brushed off the "mold" with a toothbrush, iodine dipped the coral, and put the coral back in the tank. That coral has been "mold" free for a few days now). It has killed a quadricolor anenome, an entire birdnest colony (about the size of a softball), and now it is moving on as shown in the pictures. The first picture is of the "mold" having completed enveloped a ricordia polyp (seen top left of photo):

Seen in the next photo is the "mold" covering part of my galaxia coral:

This "mold" brushes off rather easily, and sways in the current of the tank, but does not blow apart from the current. It is semi-translucent with small whitish dots inside it. If anyone knows what this is, or what I can do to stop it from spreading, please let me know. Thank you!

 

[Len]

The pictures don't work, but it sounds like possibly protozoans (with or without the assitance of secondary bacterial infection). I've never had a severe outbreak of this jelly-like/mold-like disease. For localized infections, I usually dip my corals in freshwater for 2-3 minutes. Iodine works too, as you found out. Antibiotics may help to stave off any opportunisitic bacteria as well, but problem is, it's use in reef tanks is not recommended. Most practical advice is to siphon as much of it out of your tank as possible (they should easily slough off), and in the process, do a large water change (50-75%). Sorry I don't have more insight.

 

[Anonymous]

I had one appearance of a brown jelly infection - it appeared on one polyp of a newly-acquired frogspawn. I siphoned of all the jelly I could, as Leonard suggests, using a turky baster. It reappeared (on the same polyp) the following day, so I slurped it off again. I lost the infected polyp, but it didn't spread to any other corals or even the other polyps of the frogspawn.

Based on that experience, I think Leonard's plan could help you salvage the polyps that are not yet infected. Good luck.