brain troubles...

[FishKid]

I thought my brain was on the road to recovery, now the situation is critical, allong the edge, about 2-3cm of its skeleton is showing, and on very close observation, yoiu can see very thin black and grey striped worms festering out of hte gap.. there is also a bulbous looking polyp type creature ( i dont know what to call it growing on the brain by the gap, it kinda resembles a xenia polyp(same coloration) but does not open, but my xenia is on the other side of the tank. im starting to think im gonna lose it!

[bongobrian]

It sounds to me like the brain is being eaten by the worms. I know that corals (especially brains) can have animals that live within them like small crabs and such, but I would be suspicious of worms. What type of brain is this? open brain or closed? I have a Wellsophylia brain (type of open brain) that has a small crab that lives inside of it. Anyway, did you notice the coral was deteriorating and then later you noticed the worms? or were the worms there before and during the time when the coral seemed to start receding? I'm just trying to figure out if these worms are the cause, or simply a result of the coral starting to die. I would think getting rid of these worms would probably be your best bet. How you would do that, I'm not really sure. Maybe by doing a high-salinity dip... but that would also put your coral at risk as well. I wouldn't worry about the other polyp-type growth. It sounds pretty harmless.

[tendar]

You might try getting a piece of pvc and setting the brain on it about 3" off the sand bed with none of the flesh touching the pvc. This help and keeping the worms off it if they are the problem.
I'm not for sure if you can with LPS corals but try a iodine dip kill off what ever is bothering it.
My green brain was huge at one time after moving to new tank 6 mounths ago it slowly declined to almost nothing them my angle started picking at what was left of it. It was down to almost nothing just some meat in the center so I set up a 10 gall at work for a nano tank so I decided to move it there 2 weeks ago and it is actually starting to come back. It is inflating what there is any way and starting to grow back.
You may want to post this on coral form on reefcentral and see what ERIC my suggest.

Hopfully some one will chime in on if you can give it a iodine dip or not.

[FishKid]

its an red/green open brain

i didnt really look at that brain close enough to notice the worms before it was receeding (you have to squint to see them, after further observation they resemble, god i forgot the name of them ill try to describe em,, little ball with worm like tentacles coming out, Dr Ron Ided them as harmless infuana)

no other coral touched it on that side, and i didnt see my hermit ever go near it (i doubt it, but you think the crab ive been trying to find took a little nibble at it and the wound got infected or the worm things were attracted to it?)

btw i was able to blow some of the worms away with my turkey baster (more uses than a set of allen keys!) so ill try that again tomorow, also the brain is already on some pvc

mark

[bongobrian]

You can definitely do an iodine dip with lps corals. I've had good success with bringing several corals back to health with that technique.

[FishKid]

i can see that it is trying to grow back at a descent rate, so i will hold off on iodine for now, i however have found the problem, there was a near microscopic aiptasia on it, which i skillfully inflated with boiling water (no damage to brain) hopefully it will come back strong