STINAPA EMERGENCY: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) is in Bonaire

[agd]

Similar pattern to the spread of lionfish. There were none in Bonaire until they arrived....with the currents

Mel, are you inferring that the disease spread may have been waterborne and not delivered at the hand of a gloved diver? Gasp! Eco-heresy!

 

[junkyard_dawg]

Dang....this sucks.

Heading back to Bonaire for the first time in 6 years.

I have some kids joining me this time, glad they get to see it now.

Karpata used to be one of my favorite sites....hate that we will miss it but understandable.

 

[scubadada]

I have been in Bonaire since Wednesday, today is the 3rd diving day of two weeks. Only Karpata and La Dania's Leap are closed. In addition, boats are not doing the north sites inaccessible from shore. Boats are going to Klein Bonaire. That leaves a large protected area in the north from diving. Sites are open from 1000 Steps south.

All of the tank pick up wash tubs are open to everyone, including the ones at Sand Dollar/Den Laman Dive Friends. We stay at Den Laman and use the private pier for access to Bari Reef. The rinse tubs on the pier are only used after diving Bari. If boat diving from the pier, gear is rinsed out in the tubs by tank pick up.

 

[Pipehorse]

I have been in Bonaire since Wednesday, today is the 3rd diving day of two weeks. Only Karpata and La Dania's Leap are closed. In addition, boats are not doing the north sites inaccessible from shore. Boats are going to Klein Bonaire. That leaves a large protected area in the north from diving. Sites are open from 1000 Steps south.

All of the tank pick up wash tubs are open to everyone, including the ones at Sand Dollar/Den Laman Dive Friends. We stay at Den Laman and use the private pier for access to Bari Reef. The rinse tubs on the pier are only used after diving Bari. If boat diving from the pier, gear is rinsed out in the tubs by tank pick up.

@scubadada given your profession I wonder what your opinion might be vis a vis effectiveness of rinse tubs from spreading disease from coral to coral at different sites?

 

[scubadada]

@scubadada given your profession I wonder what your opinion might be vis a vis effectiveness of rinse tubs from spreading disease from coral to coral at different sites?

Hi Peter, @Pipehorse

That's a good question, short answer is I don't know.

Last I read the etiology of SCTLD was still not known with certainty. The fact that it seems to respond to amoxicillin impregnated epoxy glue would make you think it is due to a relatively antibiotic susceptible bacterium. I wrestle with the fact that they have not been able to isolate and identify the bacteria, the microbiology should not be terribly difficult. The effect could be due to the epoxy glue, I am unaware if glue vs. glue + antibiotic has been tried, to answer the question. Other infectious etiologies have been mentioned, viruses for instance. Viruses would not respond to an antibiotic. It is also possible that corals that have already been injured by heat/bleaching, nitrogenous waste, etc. are susceptible to some infectious agent, like an immunocompromised host.

Assuming that the etiology is an infectious agent, soaking could be effective if the soaking agent is active against the implicated pathogen and is at a high enough concentration for a sufficient amount of time. So, that is a lot of assumptions. To be honest, I don't know what is in the rinse water and if the other conditions are also met. I tried to send STINAPA an email, but their contact form is not working, and they do not list their email address, it's Bonaire. You might have luck on Facebook, I don't use it.

 

[tursiops]

Many of the researchers working on corals and specifically SCTLD report their findings, provide links to references, and argue endlessly on The Coral-List Archives.
See also: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease in the Caribbean.

 

[drrich2]

Assuming that the etiology is an infectious agent, soaking could be effective if the soaking agent is active against the implicated pathogen and is at a high enough concentration for a sufficient amount of time.

One thing I'm curious about. With humans, antibiotics do a couple of things:

1.) Kill a target microbe to get rid of it. If you're dealing with something the body is normally not exposed to (e.g.: you got amoebic dysentery from drinking contaminated water), this may work well, since hopefully you don't get exposed to that again.

2.) Kill enough of a target microbe to mitigate the damage it causes while the human immune system learns to recognize it and fight it off more effectively.

So, using antibiotic via glue to fight SCTLD...what is the goal? If you kill the disease causing microbe, but more is drifting amongst the water column to recontaminate the coral after your glue wears off, then what? I've not heard of corals having a specific immune system that learns to target a specific threat (after all, a coral polyp is one cell; thus, it won't have antibody producing cells and such inside itself the way the human body does).

I admire the people trying to fight the disease as best they can. I just wonder what the projected viability of the antibiotic glue approach is.

 

[scubadada]

Hi Richard, @drrich2

The antibiotic glue would seem to be only local therapy for affected coral. This is, obviously, not systemic therapy for the infected/contaminated ocean. Perhaps this is like using a topical antibiotic ointment for a superficial skin infection.

Since it seems we actually know so little about SCTLD, our interventions seem haphazard.

 

[rmorgan]

Here’s an abstract and article addressing the (high) local efficacy of the antibiotic putty, and an article from 10 days ago reporting that 42,000 coral colonies have been treated around Grand Cayman and some are showing resilience. Given the relentless nature of a disease borne in the water column, keeping a relatively small number of colonies healthy so maybe they can support regeneration may be the most we can hope for…the article about the Cayman situation is grim but a bit hopeful.

 

[rmorgan]

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