What is this nasty disease?

[tebstan]

What the heck is going on with this zoa frag?

A few weeks ago, I thought there was a bubble algae growing in the center so carefully plucked it out. Once I had it out of the water, I thought it looked odd for a piece of bubble algae....

Now, the whole frag looks like a disease is turning it into pimply strawberry like bubbles.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss9/TebstansTank/Problems/DiseasedZoaFrag10-11-11.jpg


It seems to start like this:
http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss9/TebstansTank/Problems/DiseasedZoaFragcloseupC10-11-11.jpg

And progresses into this:
http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss9/TebstansTank/Problems/DiseasedZoaFragcloseupA10-11-11.jpg


I don't plan on putting this frag back in the tank. It's so nasty looking I'm going to assume it's a goner. But how concerned do I have to be about it spreading? No other zoas are affected, that I can see, so far. There's a two polyp frag about 3 inches away from where this one was, and no other zoas for a good 6 inches past that.

[edwin-orellana]

I've never seen or heard of anything like that ...but have you tried dipping it in coralRX or Revive?

[tebstan]

Not yet, I will tomorrow. It's spending the night in a specimen cup.

I took a scalpel to it and hacked away anything that looked too offensively gross. Half of it is gone. The frag is so small, I'm not concerned about it's survival now - it's a lost cause.

I am worried it will reappear on other zoas in the DT. Could it be parasitic, like a bot fly larvae, eating away at the polyps from the inside out? Or is it bacterial, a festering infection stretching the polyp out like a boil?

[A. Grandis]

OH!!! That hurts!!! :hmm5:

It should be an internal bacteria infection.
Different than I've seen around!!
It would be interesting to see pictures of it's progression to know how it will look like after that. It may help others.
Scary!

Most of the time, infections like that means the colony is a goner and you should watch the other colonies for a while just because we have no idea where it came from.
The bacteria could be in the system and waiting for any opportunity to attack!
If was only in the colony that you've removed, there is probably no further problems.

I've learned that most of the time there is a bacteria infection those zoas can't be saved. If we cut the affected area out and dip the rest in Lugol solution, to avoid the spreading of the infection, there is a better chance for the remaining polyps. The space from the infected area should be of at least one healthy looking polyp a part.

Lets wait and see if anyone out there had something similar happening to their zoas...

Good luck,
Grandis.

[MikeandNicole]

If it is bacterial I would get some Furan II and do a dip.

[Friday Night]

Good god. Xfiles stuff. +1 bacterial dip dip dip.......

[innate1]

silver linning I guess is that you aren't too concerned about the frag you lost but man that is some scary looking stuff. I hope it doesn't spread.

[organism]

Are you sure that's not algae? I've seen a macro algae that looks exactly like that, has some gooey stuff on the inside, and it can crowd out polyps and look like it's growing right from the mat.

Here's a link from google, looks about the same...

http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploader/2011Q2/pic63.jpg

[tebstan]

Wow, if it looked like that I would keep it.

What a fine line between pretty and hideous!

It's possible some of those bubbles were algae, because they were filled with goo that was... non zoa like. But those grubby ones on the bottom left with vericose veins and pimples... those were zoa polyps. I found brown goo (zoa like) and what may have been part of a skirt when I sliced those open with a scalpel.

Whats the name of that macro? I'd like to read more about it.

I did a dip on the frag, and have it in a specimen cup under the tank lights. It still hasn't opened, but I don't hold high hopes.

[Der ABT]

looks like red bubble algea to me...have a few that will move zoas and make it look like they are blowing up.

[Katar1975]

Wow what a scary disease if that is so. I would really like to know what happened to understand what caused that to your zoos.