need some expert advise

[adambirk]

hello fellow reefers. well it has been a rough couple of days. i have had a real bad case of rtn rip through my tank and what corals that have survived so far are not looking good.

first off this started about 2 weeks ago. some of my sps (pinks birdnest, sunset mille, pink mille, and ora red planet) started to pale out but also have a brown tint to them. these sps i have had for nearly 2 years and have had excellent growth to them along with color.

i do dose zeoback and vodka. but have been doing this for the last 2 years so i am very comfortable with the method and monitoring my tank for changes.

first thing i did was check all peramiters which were

salinity 1.025 (refractometer)
alk 8.6dkh (salifert)
calcium 450 (salifert)
mag 1450ppm (salifert)
po4 0.00 (hanna checker)
no3 0 (salifert)
temp 80.0 (on a reefkeeper and does not fluctuate more than .2 of a degree all day and night)
lighting (aquatinics constilation with 4 ati blue+, 1 aquablue special, 2 kz super blues. all bulbs 3 months old. lighting cycle is 2 on for 9 hours and 5 on for 6 hours)


after i noticed the paling (with a slight browning) i had bumped feeding a little and started to soak food once a day in brightwells aminoomega(5 drops for 2 cubes). did this for 3 days.

then all hell broke loose. i went to work and when i came home i had 2 sps mini colonys that were almost totally rtn and there was nothing left to save. so did another water change with I/O of 20 gallons. tested water and alk went up to 9.3 and calcium to 480. so not much of a swing. went to bed when i got up lost another mini colony to rtn.

and today after getting home from work found my birdsnest starting to suffer and fragged almost half of my colony off to try and save it. also lost my red planet colony to rtn while i was at work.

but my birds of paridise colony is holding its color but pe has reduced. also my red caps seem fine along with my tri color acro. and a blue slimer colony along with an oregon tort seem to be doing ok and holding there color.

but i am also seeing limited extension in lps too. acans,lobo, frog spawn.

i have absolutly no clue what has gone wrong. the only thing i did in the last two weeks was add fresh carbon. and add the aminoomega(brightwells). i did add more carbon than usual. about 1/3 more than what i usually do.

also i have had an outbreak of dino in the last 4 days too.

any advise would help so much sorry for being so long and thanks.

 

[adambirk]

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[adambirk]

my wife left my camera at her sisters house so i cant get any pics up to show what i am talking about when i say that the corals are paling out. example is my red planet first off lost the green. it faded out to a real light faded brown. but the red stayed for a couple days after this. then the rd faded out too. the whole coral was exactly the same color it was a real pale color with just a tint of brown. it just kept getting lighter over two days then it rtned and in 5 hours it was completely lost. and this was a 4inch mini colony that i have had for 2 years.

the birds nest did the exact same thing. used to be a very bright pink then in a little over a week it went from starting to pale out a bit to a very pale almost bleached look with just a hint of brown. and today started to rtn. this colony was the size of a grapefruit i grew out from a 3 inch frag 7 months ago.

i am so sick to my stomach seeing my tank fall apart and the worst part is i dont know what to do becasue i dont know what started this in the first place. all i can do is just watch and see what happens.

and now that the dino has kicked up i dont want to keep doing water changes because that is just going to fuel the fire.

also i had lost my flame angel today too? every other fish is great and no sign of stress. they are all acting normal. i dont know if this is just a coincidence or realated?

 

[stepnic2]

I know how you feel. I had an acro bleach on me for no reason. Good luck!

 

[adambirk]

i would be happy if it was only 1 coral. i have lost 5 colonys so fast i cant believe it. i actually would have been ok if i lost these and at least known why!!! it is almost like my tank has been poisend. i know that is not the case but i dont know what else to think. well time to grab another beer and try not to think of all my hard work over the last couple years.

cheers

 

[Alex T.]

Unfortunately sometimes this crap just happens. I think that sometimes a coral decides to abandon ship for no reason (or at least one we can't understand yet) and then decides to tell others to do the same. I know it sounds crazy, but the same thing happened to me last year. Everything tested fine...no pests and then one after the other half my SPS STN'd from the base up and died away. I restocked a few months later with no new changes in water chemistry, feeding or light changes and it's all still good.

Many SPS vets don't even question why when it happens....they just know that it can, and that sometimes it's for no known reason.

It sucks when it does happen, but we still play the game. Hope all turns out for the best.

 

[returnofsid]

When it happens to several corals, in a short amount of time, it isn't "crap just happens." There's a reason for it.

If at all possible, take your water to someone else, to test all the parameters, to double check your test kits. Also, calibrate your thermometer probe, to make sure your temperature is accurate. Also, test your hydrometer against a known accurate refractometer.

 

[moo0o]

Perhaps its the increased carbon. I hear carbon is good at stripping the water of its nutrients. Not only did you replace the old carbon you added more aswell which increased its efficiency by x amount which led to your corals stn.

You also said that your corals started to pale out although you didn't change the bulbs or photoperiod or anything. Carbon, through adsorption, has the ability to make your water a lot cleaner allowing for the same amount of light to penetrate deeper into your tank. Sharp increases in par leads to paled out/ bleached corals which is what you experienced.

I cant explain the dead fish nor am I fully convinced carbon can cause RTN but its the only thing you've changed so its the only variable I can comment on.

Just an observation.

 

[adambirk]

well got home today and it seems like the rtn has come to a head. it doesnt seem that any of the other corals have been affected. so i will just wait a few days and see what happens. i lost well over half of my sps. no lps as of yet buy some still have yet to fully extend and my sps that did survive have not show any pe yet. but color on those colonys seem to be ok.

i dont think it was the carbon. i have a huge skimmer and bacteria dose so i have very clear water. actually i dont notice a difference in water clarity in the next day or two after adding carbon like i use too before i started dosing. not that it doesnt clear up more but i dont think it was enough to increase par enough.

i did add 2 new sps about 4 weeks ago. 2 weeks prior to this. both did not make it through and they were the first to go. is there anything that sps can carry like bacteria infections that can spread throughout the tank?

i though i have read that there is a theory on this. well hopefully the rampage has stop because there is nothing i can do if i cant find anything wrong. so i guess i will just let it take its corse. and see how things go over the next couple days

 

[Lps157]

Man I'm really sorry to hear about your loses.

SPS can be so frustrating! I got home today to find two of my small colonies have almost completely RTN'd. Everything tests completely fine as they do weekly. I have no clue what has happened. I can't imagine losing as many as you just have.

Hope things turn around for you fast.

 

[adambirk]

yeah thanks and sorry to hear about yours too. now i am gun shy at the thought of even adding anything more. because it was so random and created so much damadge. i am thinking of setting up another tank and starting over on that one will all new rock sand and nothing will come from my current tank to that one.

i dont know but just the way it ripped through it was like it was contageous. and whos to say after everything returns to normall it wont just happen again because i dont know what caused it in the first place. even tonigh nothing has changed as far as test results.

i have always heard about these rare rtn events that happen and read the threads were they were saying that nothing was out of wack and i couldnt help but think that no something had to happen. and something had to be the trigger. now i know the feeling.

like i said before it would suck if i lost half my sps to an alk swing or somthing of that nature. but at least i would know what the problem was and just deal with it and try to figure out a way so i minimize it from happening again. but i dont even have a clue were to start pointing fingers and if it is something contageaous i dont want to dump another 1000 bucks in corals just to have this happen again.

so i think tomarrow i start to look for an new tank. and this time around i think i will go with dry rock from brs. this way i know there are no pest algea, sps pest, or anything else. at least till i start adding corals again.

thanks again for all the kind words and help.

-adam