Putting a sea apple to sleep

[robinhood]

Hi guys,

I guess i will use the freezer unless anyone has any better ideas.

One last chance hAs anyone wittenessed what looks like a flesh eating disease on a sea apple or cumber. My sea apple has lost almost all of the sKin on his back. and the leasons look quite deep and spreading.

There appears to be some white bloches showing now on his belly. I have no idea what to do next. If you are interested in the hystory of this case you can read my thread entittled Emergancy !!!! in this forum.

The little guy still seems to be eating. its really strange i found some phyto but there seems to be no difference in his behaviour. He is now in my QT so if he goes nuclear he will not affect the other tanks.

Suffering is a quality of a much more complex nervous sytem than a sea apple is quipped with i would guess. I would be willing to try a long shot (with in reason) at this piont as it really looks unlikly he will make it if i dont try esomething.

Im lost, any help would be appricated.

[robinhood]

He has not in any way produced any slime. Sea apples often slime up when under attack or stressed. Thought it might give a clue.

[sirspeedy77]

The regular feeding of food soaked in garlic clove juice is very nutricious at building the immune system and getting rid of current problems... I have had great success at ridding my clowns of clown fish disease.. i only wonder if it would help you..

1 clove of garlic
1 small cup of water ( out of your tank of course)
Normal daily feeding
Soak it for about 20 minutes.

after 20 minutes, take out the carlic and feed. The water will look milky because of the oil in the garlic but i assure you it is harmless.

I just read the other part of your story.. Sorry bout all your trouble, however now that he is in the QT tank you can start feeding him by hand with someting other than brine shrimp.. BS have almost 0 nutritional value. phyto and or some severly processed mixture of scallops, and seaweed, soaked in garlic sauce sounds like it is gonna be a winner.. you can get some fresh seaweed from most grocerie stores.

Kepp me up to date, im curious how this will end.

[robinhood]

Mixture is soaking as we speak the poor guy is really in bad shape. Parts of his skin is actually hanging of. But luckly he is still going through the motions of feeding. and still moves around. KI can start any type of water activity though as hew just curls up like a ball.

Any suggestions as to time periods or frequency of feeding.

[sirspeedy77]

I would keep up the garlic for as long as he shows signs of improving.. Though i dont know whats wrong in the first place.. And i hope you know that im not implying garlic as the cure all, the first step in fixing someting is to know whats wrong.. Although garlic is a very good fix for many parasites and builds the immune system up to help fight bacterial infections. unfortunatly we dont. does it look like a parasite is eating our friend, or could it be bacteria..

Another member mentioned in the other thread something about fish.. Do you have any? if so what kind? How many? Have you added any live rock or ANYTHING to the tanks lately? you said they were all connected somehow, is it possible for a small creature to get through the lines from one tank to another? what are the current water parems on the qt tank?

Just building a list of info to get familiar with the situation. Answer these for me and we will give it a shot.

[robinhood]

I am going to buy a camera to day to take a picture of his body. So atleast some one might be able to use it to catch the situation quicker next time.

It really looks like something ate him.what finally killed him i think is it eat throujgh all his fatty tisue right down to his bouls and then they burst through. It must of happened early morning. I fed him slowly all night until around 10:00 but it was getting wores for sure.

I think it must have been a parasite. But im lucky in many ways. i run completly filterless tanks so they run very naturally and all conect. I do put the odd bag a carbom in the sump and of course i have a very good, large protien skimmer. I dont lose many fish or others. This sea apple i have had for 2 years and my last los 1 year ago was a seahorse from extreme GBD.

Any who, i have grown in experience from this. and will move much fatsre next time. of course trying to pry a sea apple of a large peice of live rock is stressfull for both parties, the pryer and the priee.

Thanks for your help. I am going to build a small web site in the next few days to document my system as it is quite simple but very different form most.

I added some live rock about 2 month agos and did sir up the substrate as i redesinged the tank. i was carefull and i didnt think it was so bad at the time. But i guess i must have stired up some critter that likes sea apples. I am keeping an espeically close eye on every one else for a while and will take readings in each tank to make sure everything is ok.

Again thangs for the help, and i will post my site on the forum when im done.

[sirspeedy77]

sry to hear he didnt make it... just a quick thought, is it possible any predators cam in on your live rock... something to think about...

[PrematureEvaporation]

Sorry to hijack this thread...but I see it's old so I thought I'd add some photos to this. We too have had our Sea Apple fall to this flesh disease. It started off very small but has grown...and you can even see his flesh is like it is melting off of him. We have put him outside (-20 below tonight) and so we are deep freezing him...so sad. Hope we can attach a photo here.

[PrematureEvaporation]

[Doodaa]

Hey PrematureEvaporation! I live close by you in Northern Iowa. I hate this cold, but it certainly will freeze your sea apple in no time! I have no experience with them. Hope someone knows what this is so it can be prevented next time. Good luck!

[dendro982]

I'm terrified now.
I have 2 sea apples, one big, same kind as on photo above, and one small, paler with more bright tentacles. Have them for 10 moths or so, so far, so good, but anything may happen

Can you post any advice on their keeping? Like food, amount, frequency, dosing device (if any), preferred salinity, alkalinity, temperature, artificial salt mix?
Any information will be extremely useful.
I particularly worry about amount of food, necessary to keep alive the 6" apple.

[zhenya]

Can you post any advice on their keeping? Like food, amount, frequency, dosing device (if any), preferred salinity, alkalinity, temperature, artificial salt mix?
Any information will be extremely useful.

Here you go, I hope Rob Toonen's article will do it for you. Although keeping this creatures is possible I personally never attempted one.

Aquarium Invertebrates

[dendro982]

Thanks!
Any tips from personal experience?