Help! Pink Lemonade RTN? *Pics*

shlap

shlap

New member
Hi Guys, I went on a little mini vacation from Thur-Mon and came home to discovery my pink lemonade bleaching starting from the base. :(

What hasn't changed:
* ALK -- I'm still within my normal range of 9.2.
* My 20+ other acros. All look good, good polyp extension. Even the coralites on my Pink Lemonade seem to have grown a tiny bit.

What changed:
* Water temp -- it was 81.5F when I got home because I didn't realize that the wife bumped the air to 80 when we left. It's usually at 79.5 anyway though. Would a 2 degree warm up cause this?

*New carbon and GFO. I hadn't been running GFO for awhile but always ran carbon. I was noticing the brown slime in high flow areas of the tank and my phosphates were .25 so I started running GFO before I left. The brown slime is now gone so the phosphate looks to be the cause, but now the PL issue...

*I've been dosing Vodka for a little over a month and I'm at 2.7ml/day. I asked my dad to keep dosing while I was gone but I'm not sure if he did or not. Could a sudden stop of this little amount of Vodka cause this?

Is this RTN? Should I break it off it's base right above the bleached part?

Here are some photos.

In this one, you can see that half the base is still looking good and bleach free:
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From another angle you can really see the bleached part:
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And here's the sexy top-down photo where you can see that a good portion of the base still has skin.

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Thanks Prochef, that's probably what I'll end up doing. Anyone have any ideas what would cause this on a single acro? There are no pests on it that I can see and I have pretty good eyes for that. Does it look like RTN? One more thing, I don't know if it's getting a lot of flow on that side. Could low flow cause this?
 
That is not bleaching. Thats tissue necrosis. I can clearly see the holes in the skeleton where the flesh is missing.

It may be a cause of the GFO or even the carbon dosing. With Vodka dosing you really ought to keep alk somewhere near 7.5dKH. Run it anywhere near 9 with carbon dosing and you risk RTN/STN.

If the tissue loss has stopped you might be ok leaving it alone, else cut and replant onto the rock.
 
I would also check all the other acros with a strong flashlight after the main lights are off. Its much easier to notice RTN/STN this way. Its also a good way to see bite marks from AEFW's.

If you notice missing tissue on other acros I would stop GFO and Carbon dosing IMMEDIATELY and start to carry out 5% water changes every day.
 
The GFO might has caused a big drop in PO4 levels and as a result stressed your coral. The temp was borderline high as well, but not deadly though. Do you know what your PO4 levels are at right now?
 
If its freshly mounted i could be that the superglue that was used burned the base. If it goes any higher i would cut it and remount it with as little glue as possible to just get it to stick on the rock or plug.
 
Thanks guys. I had a good look at all the other SPS and they look good. Does that mean GFO probably isn't the issue in this case? I always rinse it pretty good before use.

I didn't realize that I should keep the Alk down between 7-8 when dosing Vodka. Why is this? I was trying to keep it at around 10 dKH just to have a buffer from it getting too low.
 
I have lost an SPS when starting GFO for the first time. I went from .22 or so to about .04...big drop caused me to lose one coral to RTN.
 
kylathwe said:
I have lost an SPS when starting GFO for the first time. I went from .22 or so to about .04...big drop caused me to lose one coral to RTN.
Click to expand...

Interesting, did any of your other SPS show signs of stress?

My Pink Lemonade looks about the same today as it did yesterday. Still good polyp extension and half the base still has skin. I was under the impression that RTN happens pretty fast, is that true or can it take a few days? Just trying to figure out if I should snap it off the base immediately and re-mount it or if I should wait it out and see if it starts to recover.
 
Yes one other rtned about 1/3 of the way up then stopped. It has been slowly recovering since then. I didn't do anything to it, it stopped on its own
 
shlap said:
Interesting, did any of your other SPS show signs of stress?

My Pink Lemonade looks about the same today as it did yesterday. Still good polyp extension and half the base still has skin. I was under the impression that RTN happens pretty fast, is that true or can it take a few days? Just trying to figure out if I should snap it off the base immediately and re-mount it or if I should wait it out and see if it starts to recover.
Click to expand...

If the GFO dropped the PO4 fast, that can cause RTN/STN.

Tissue necrosis can be very fast; matter of hours or very slow and take days.

Not all acros are affected the same way. Some of my acros are pretty hardy, others drop dead if I look at them wrong...

As for whether to cut it or not, if its recovering, I would leave it for the moment.
 
Typically it is best to cut the coral 1/2 above the receded area because RTN can sometimes be very rapid if left alone. You lucked out by it stopping on its own.

Check your chemistry might be the GFO

The biggest cause is a ALK swing to fast.
I have lost a lot of coral over the years to RTN I always start alk then check all the other levels CA temp swing, salinity you might not be out of the woods yet as sometimes another coral with do the same thin a few days or a week later

My biggest problem was calcium reactor line clogging
 
I had several instances where I put in a lot of new gac in the reactor and the base of a specific colony would lose tissue.
 
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