Causes of montipora bleaching or RTN?

[CleveYank]

I found it harder to keep the Alk at 7 than it was to keep it in the 9 to 10 range. It was unreal. Change drip, change bubble rate and boom it would try to rise. Lower things and boom it would try to go to 6. I settled on drip rate, set the bubbles where it would just trigger change within 30 minutes and it settled to 9.5 to 10. I also drip a bit of Kalkwasser to keep pH up so maybe that's part of my thing since it brings Ca and Alk (don't ask me the levels of each in most Kalkwasser solute but I recall they're balanced ). But I could not keep it at the holy grail nat seawater 7. In at the 9 to 10 for many months and things have been great so I've decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

 

[sreefs]

I am not sure if anyone told you but a low ALK salt is Tropic Marine Pro. IO is not a low Alk salt!

 

[isseym328]

forgot to add that I use nsw. I think I will try to keep alk a bit lower now....

 

[redfishsc]

Cleve, mine is at 10 right now and has been for the past several weeks, no change (stn continues), hopefully as it's drawn down, things will change and turn for the better.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15553072#post15553072 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sreefs
I am not sure if anyone told you but a low ALK salt is Tropic Marine Pro. IO is not a low Alk salt!

Ah, I did not know that about Tropic Marine, although I did know about the IO being high in alk. Thanks!

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15553086#post15553086 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by isseym328
forgot to add that I use nsw. I think I will try to keep alk a bit lower now....

I've used nsw before when I lived on the coast with no apparent problems, but I'd always treat the water first with pool chlorine via Martin Moe's instructions in his book. Then hit with dechlorinator and test for chlorine until the chlorine is totally gone. Never a problem but I only used it on native fish/inverts, not a tropical reef.

 

[sreefs]

redfishsc,
Its only the Tropic Marine Pro that has a lower ALK, in the 7.5 range.
HTH

 

[Tony Romano]

Really? Document I have says 8.5. Sreefs have you tested personally? I wonder what Ca is? 7.5 rocks! Perfect for what I am trying to do.

I bought a bucket of Red Sea for low Ca number (400), first batch tested at 500!

 

[sreefs]

I have used it since it came out, right now I have two unopened buckets. The calcium is usually 440 range, try one of there smaller bags or boxes to see if the numbers will work for you. The regular tropic marine has a much higher alk and lower cal. & mag.
HTH

 

[Tony Romano]

When did pro come out? I used it for a few months, other than cost it was great.

What does mg come in at?

I am planning to go to smaller water changes, so cost is not as important. During the NO3 wars it was!

 

[sreefs]

IF I remember correctly my local store started to carry it about4 1/2 years ago. The mag. levels are 1350 range.
HTH
Pat

 

[Genetics]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15543944#post15543944 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CleveYank
I stumbled on a revisit of the VSV within another thread and read a link I hadn't read before. The writer puts it that the combo brings about (he's guessing and states this) the idea that the Vodka, Sugar, Vinegar mix allows 3 possibly different strains of bacteria or that the 3 carbon sources offset one another within the bacteria in the system. Thereby better substitution bacterias in place of any extra carbon source that cyano may uptake.

After just 3 weeks I got to a state of hair algae removal from my main 90 sps growout, and my sps frag tank and the colors are approaching better than I've ever had. I'm at a 5ml VSV dosage on 330 gallons and things are just getting better.....

The punchline? You may want to adjust the dosing. You may want to look at a MicroBactor 7 or probidio dosing with the vodka or try the VSV with the MB7 or probidio ( As SunnyX has pointed out in more than one thread/posting the probidio dosages are set and probably not smaller system friendly so the MB7 might be a better choice). No matter what you do I'd really take your total actual system volume into account and start at the bottom numbers on everything. Small systems are not forgiving when it comes to double dosing or too much feeding and changes happen really fast so move slow.

Good advice. It's odd but some people have great success with solely vodka and others they need the VSV. It should become a suggestion to swap out more often when one is causing problems.

The author though is incorrect in stating 3 carbon sources results in 3 different strains of bacterial growth. A single source alone should cause a multitude of bacteria strain growth.

 

[redfishsc]

Hey guys -n- gals,

I found something today that might be the problem, or at least a part of the problem.


I have a beer bottle/wine bottle in my tank that came from a tropical reef near a resort (forget which, it was a trade in at the LFS) that has about 1/4" thick encrustation, mostly encrusting algae and worms.


Today I was deforesting the patch of algae that's near it, and plugging a vermitid worm with CA glue, and caught a HORRID whiff of hydrogen sulfide.


I mean HORRID.


I had not thought of the inside of this bottle creating H2S, but it's the perfect environment. There was a dead hermit crab in it, who apparently fell over into it. Poor little fellow. I'm not normally sympathetic to a crab, but that's gotta be on the top 10 worst ways to die!


Anyhow, I pulled the bottled, emptied it out (and nearly gagged to death it was so powerful), filled it with fresh tank water and plugged the hole with epoxy and CA glue. The bottle is a very neat addition to the tank and has a ton of electric-green palys, orange eye zoas, and pavona.


Anyhow, I suspect this may have something to do with the issue.



We will see over the next month or so.



Meanwhile I have done the following:

1) Reduced all feedings by about half.

2) Stopped dosing carbon and will use about 1/3 or 1/4 of the aminos. I have a red goniopora in this tank that I mix the aminos with the cyclop-eeze I feed it, and I think this coral benefits from it, so I'll continue a smaller dosage.


3) Removed a couple fish from one of the tanks. Damsels anyway. Anyone need some sally lightfood food? (OK, j/k!).

 

[jbird69]

Very interesting. I would think the overall health of your tank should improve even if thats not the RTN culprit. Id be curious to have seen an ammonia test from your tank with that nastyness in there.

 

[redfishsc]

jbird, I haven't tested for ammonia... but I think you may be right. I think I've read where ammonia can be produced in anoxic conditions. The only animal that died in the bottle (that left a carcass at least) was the small hermit, so I doubt he'd add much ammonia to it.

I'll go do an ammo test just to see. I suspect it will be 0, since the fish are fine and everything else seems to be fine... (except the vermitid snails and a few aiptasia I just kalk-pasted )

 

[redfishsc]

Ammonia is 0

 

[torhav]

I got the same problem from dosing vodka and probidio (only on montiporas). I stopped dosing vodka and added a small amount of nitrate. The STN stopped in a couple of days, and tissue grew back into the white spots.

Due to uncontrollable macroalgae growth in the tank my nutrient levels are always very very low.
I am actually using my monti caps as a guidance on the nitrate level. If the colours is fading it is time to increase the nitrate dosage a bit. If I do not, they will be affected by STN.
As this has happened three or four times in my case, I am convinced that it is nitrate deficciency in my case, but of course there can be an another reason for what you are experiencing.

 

[redfishsc]

I could be facing something similar in my tank--- even though I was feeding a ridiculous amount of food, the carbon dosing may have been wiping out the nutrients.


At one time I was dosing nitrate, but right now I won't try it since I only have an API nitrate kit (high range), not the Salifert that can read down to like 0.2ppm.

 

[redfishsc]

I figured I'd post an update. I stopped dosing all carbon forms a few weeks ago, drastically reduced feedings.....and of course got an immediate cyano and bryopsis outbreak.


The purple Tyree Idaho grape continues a fairly slow STN. Polyps are not extended at all.


However, all digitatas are "holding steady" and maybe even recovering a bit.

My "staghorn/elkhorn" monti is actually growing again, and my orange/red monti cap seems to be recovering a bit. There is some growth tip showing.



I suspect, now, that regardless of how much food I was feeding, that i was starving the monti (why them.... and nothing else in the tank... I have no idea).


I tested my tank today with a brand new Salifert nitrate kit and it read DEAD 0 on nitrate---- and that's without any carbon dosing whatsoever. I may have been overdosing the tank and in the process starving the monti of a nitrogen source.


I have a solution of calcium nitrate, such that I could dose as little as 0.15 ppm per day. Anyone think this would be worth trying? The skimmer wouldn't pull it out like it would amino acids.

 

[kjord97]

Any other word on this, I am experiencing the same issues in a 5+ year old tank. Random montis are showing bleach spots...

 

[redfishsc]

Tell us about your tank and if you have looked in your tank at night, CLOSELY, for monti nudis?

 

[kjord97]

Yeah it was Monti Nudis, I found them all over the base of the corals.

I am slowly eradicating them....