Urgent Plate coral covered in brown mucus/slime

My plate coral, that I have had for about 5 months has all of a sudden become covered in a brownish gray slime/mucus. I have always had him on a fine sand substrate, no corals have ever stung him, and my parameters are relatively the same as they have always been. The only change was 2 days ago, my wife was not paying attention and let the tank temp rise 3 degrees from 76 to 78.9 within 4 hours, could this have been the problem?

Any ideas as to what is wrong? My wife thinks this could be some kind of defensive reaction to something. Is it safe to give him an iodine dip? He has always been my favorite and I would hate to lose him and hate even more for him to infect the tank, if it is brown jelly.

My current plan is to do a 10% water change and gingerly siphon the slime/mucus off. Then, possibly do a 10 minute iodine dip.

Any and all advice/help is greatly appreciated.

 

Sounds like it could be brown jelly disease. I don't know what you can do about it. I've had three coral get it, because it is contagious, and I had to just throw them out. I couldn't save them.

I'm sure someone else on here will know...

 

That's the best course of action that you can take. If you can quarantine the coral while you treat it, that would be ideal to help prevent the spread of the disease.

 

kcbrad and amcarrig, thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.

Well, I siphoned off the mucus/jelly and I couldn't see much more than his skeleton. Optimistically, I still dipped him and then shook off any remaining mucus/jelly.

He did not have the death smell that would signify any rotting tissue. So, I put him back on the sand bed and hope that he has a glimmer of life left in him and that he can be my Lazarus coral. If the jelly/mucus returns, I guess I will remove him.

 

Yeah, mine smelled horrid when I took them out. So no smell is good, though skeleton is scary. I hope he can recover!!! Good luck.

 

Thanks, I am not holding my breath...wait, well actually I am. I hope there is some spark of life in there, it is very depressing to walk by him in his current state.

 

Is this the same thing? If so, what should we do?

Thanks!