Possible Pathogen Based Acro Necrosis
- Thread starter Kip
- Start date
Serioussnaps
New member
Kip,
I am glad you have had some resemblance of success here. I am thoroughly interested in who it was that was pm'ing you having the same problems. IMHO, and without knowing who they were, they likely arent in the same boat as you. Most people that have "problems like this" are failing to do something that an experienced acroporid keeper as yourself would never overlook. I also would like to say thanks for your forthrightness in sharing your situation...as you have said...most won't. This thread shouldnt die any time soon because it raises three important issues: 1)acroporid specific pathogens(i wonder if this is something that would remain in the water column if you ran your display acro fallow for a while), 2) the questionable practices of online vendors( i suspect like someone else stated that they get RTN'ers frag them to hell and sell them among many other practices), 3) treatment protocol for situations like this.
This thread can remain useful to those who have built up a collection of acroporids for a long time to come as long as everyone keeps their sanity.
One question Kip>>>Do you think you can pinpoint the source(a vendor?) of the pathogen assuming it was a pathogen? Did the necrosis begin after a large arrival of new specimens?
I am glad you have had some resemblance of success here. I am thoroughly interested in who it was that was pm'ing you having the same problems. IMHO, and without knowing who they were, they likely arent in the same boat as you. Most people that have "problems like this" are failing to do something that an experienced acroporid keeper as yourself would never overlook. I also would like to say thanks for your forthrightness in sharing your situation...as you have said...most won't. This thread shouldnt die any time soon because it raises three important issues: 1)acroporid specific pathogens(i wonder if this is something that would remain in the water column if you ran your display acro fallow for a while), 2) the questionable practices of online vendors( i suspect like someone else stated that they get RTN'ers frag them to hell and sell them among many other practices), 3) treatment protocol for situations like this.
This thread can remain useful to those who have built up a collection of acroporids for a long time to come as long as everyone keeps their sanity.
One question Kip>>>Do you think you can pinpoint the source(a vendor?) of the pathogen assuming it was a pathogen? Did the necrosis begin after a large arrival of new specimens?
Kip
New member
very first acro that showed necrosis was the only acro in a shipment. this necrosis could have been unrelated... or it could have been the beginning of the whole ordeal
the only problem with that coral being the root of all of this is that i developed this problem in my holding tank at work which was never exposed to this particular acro. there were new frags placed in that holding tank from two well known online vendors. These corals showed the recession problem as well. I have a friend that i referred to one of these online vendors. Only thing new in his tank was an order from one of these online vendors. 1 by 1, he has slowly lost most of his acros in his tank.
I dont think the "root" of this stops at the vendor... i think the root is in cargo at LAX. <<< all speculation
the only problem with that coral being the root of all of this is that i developed this problem in my holding tank at work which was never exposed to this particular acro. there were new frags placed in that holding tank from two well known online vendors. These corals showed the recession problem as well. I have a friend that i referred to one of these online vendors. Only thing new in his tank was an order from one of these online vendors. 1 by 1, he has slowly lost most of his acros in his tank.
I dont think the "root" of this stops at the vendor... i think the root is in cargo at LAX. <<< all speculation
wentreefgirl
New member
It makes sense. My tank is also doing better. No new outbreaks. The ones that already are are still but much slower. And thats 2 corals. I added 100 blue leg hermits to deal with the algae on the rocks. And in a holding pattern. Also using chemi clean every so oftern to help with cyano outbreak.
montrealreef
Member
Kip I'm happy to hear that things have finally settled down in your aquarium.
I'm sad to report that after many weeks of apparent remission in my tank, I've just had another "outbreak" of RTN in my tank. I was away for a few days, and when I returned, I found that the circuit interrupter which supplies my chiller and wave maker had tripped. This left my tank with minimal water flow ( only that form the return pump) and a temp of 86 degrees. I have no idea how long this lasted ( I was away for 5 days)
At first glance my corals seemed to be o.k. including good polyp extension, and other than a slightly lower pH of 7.8 (presumably due to CO2 accumulation), the water parameters seemed within normal limits. Upon restarting the wave maker, 3 different acropora colonies ( 2 millepora and 1 formosa) started to peel from their bases. To make things even worse, I currently have no QT tank, as I had disassembled it to disinfect it when I was having RTN issues a couple of months ago and never had a chance to set it up again. I decided to sacrifice the entire colonies. Today, another Acro has started to peel.
This has lead me to strengthen my belief that physical stressors eventually lead to RTN which may or may not be pathogen mediated. That fact that it seems to spread from one colony to the other may simply reflect the fact that all the colonies are subjected to the same stress but succumb at various times or that there is some sort of chemical signaling that takes place and results in programmed cell death as someone had mentioned earlier.
If my entire SPS collection dies, I think I'm going to switch to a softies tank for a little while. I've been spending way too much time and money on my tank lately, and I'm getting discouraged by the uncontrollable failures.
I don't know if this information will help anyone and I'm aware that most of it has already been mentioned in this thread, but I thought I'd share my experience with the group in case someone can put the peaces of the puzzle together and finally come to a sound conclusion.
Best of luck to all my fellow reefers.
Sam
I'm sad to report that after many weeks of apparent remission in my tank, I've just had another "outbreak" of RTN in my tank. I was away for a few days, and when I returned, I found that the circuit interrupter which supplies my chiller and wave maker had tripped. This left my tank with minimal water flow ( only that form the return pump) and a temp of 86 degrees. I have no idea how long this lasted ( I was away for 5 days)
At first glance my corals seemed to be o.k. including good polyp extension, and other than a slightly lower pH of 7.8 (presumably due to CO2 accumulation), the water parameters seemed within normal limits. Upon restarting the wave maker, 3 different acropora colonies ( 2 millepora and 1 formosa) started to peel from their bases. To make things even worse, I currently have no QT tank, as I had disassembled it to disinfect it when I was having RTN issues a couple of months ago and never had a chance to set it up again. I decided to sacrifice the entire colonies. Today, another Acro has started to peel.
This has lead me to strengthen my belief that physical stressors eventually lead to RTN which may or may not be pathogen mediated. That fact that it seems to spread from one colony to the other may simply reflect the fact that all the colonies are subjected to the same stress but succumb at various times or that there is some sort of chemical signaling that takes place and results in programmed cell death as someone had mentioned earlier.
If my entire SPS collection dies, I think I'm going to switch to a softies tank for a little while. I've been spending way too much time and money on my tank lately, and I'm getting discouraged by the uncontrollable failures.
I don't know if this information will help anyone and I'm aware that most of it has already been mentioned in this thread, but I thought I'd share my experience with the group in case someone can put the peaces of the puzzle together and finally come to a sound conclusion.
Best of luck to all my fellow reefers.
Sam
Serioussnaps
New member
My vote is for pathogen based only accelerated by the salt changes etc...(the other stuff we discussed from the start) Hmm, if you dont mind sharing which 2 of those vendors it was through a PM I would be greatly appreciative(i wont tell, i just dont want a part of it)
lgoins
New member
Abstract from the above mentioned paper:
Bacteria associated with the rapid tissue necrosis of stony corals.
Luna GM, Biavasco F, Danovaro R.
Department of Marine Sciences, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy.
The rapid tissue necrosis (RTN) is a common disease of both wild and captive stony corals, which causes a fast tissue degradation (peeling) and death of the colony. Here we report the results of an investigation carried out on the stony coral Pocillopora damicornis, affected by an RTN-like disease. Total abundance of prokaryotes in tissue samples, determined by epifluorescence microscopy, was significantly higher in diseased than in healthy corals, as well as bacterial counts on MB2216 agar plates. Further experiments performed by fluorescent in situ hybridization using a 16S rDNA Vibrio-specific probe showed that vibrios were significantly more abundant in diseased than in healthy corals. Accordingly, bacterial counts on TCBS agar plates were higher in diseased than in healthy tissues. 16S rDNA sequencing identified as Vibrio colonies from diseased tissues only. Cultivated vibrios were dominated by a single ribotype, which displayed 99% of similarity with Vibrio harveyi strain LB4. Bacterial ribotype richness, assessed by terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the 16S rDNA, was significantly higher in diseased than in healthy corals. Using an in silico software, we estimated that a single terminal restriction fragment, putatively assigned to a Vibrio sp., accounted for > 15% and < 5% of the total bacterial assemblage, in diseased and healthy corals respectively. These results let us hypothesize that the RTN in stony corals can be an infectious disease associated to the presence of Vibrio harveyi. However, further studies are needed to validate the microbial origin of this pathology.
PMID: 17564618 [PubMed - in process]
Bacteria associated with the rapid tissue necrosis of stony corals.
Luna GM, Biavasco F, Danovaro R.
Department of Marine Sciences, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy.
The rapid tissue necrosis (RTN) is a common disease of both wild and captive stony corals, which causes a fast tissue degradation (peeling) and death of the colony. Here we report the results of an investigation carried out on the stony coral Pocillopora damicornis, affected by an RTN-like disease. Total abundance of prokaryotes in tissue samples, determined by epifluorescence microscopy, was significantly higher in diseased than in healthy corals, as well as bacterial counts on MB2216 agar plates. Further experiments performed by fluorescent in situ hybridization using a 16S rDNA Vibrio-specific probe showed that vibrios were significantly more abundant in diseased than in healthy corals. Accordingly, bacterial counts on TCBS agar plates were higher in diseased than in healthy tissues. 16S rDNA sequencing identified as Vibrio colonies from diseased tissues only. Cultivated vibrios were dominated by a single ribotype, which displayed 99% of similarity with Vibrio harveyi strain LB4. Bacterial ribotype richness, assessed by terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the 16S rDNA, was significantly higher in diseased than in healthy corals. Using an in silico software, we estimated that a single terminal restriction fragment, putatively assigned to a Vibrio sp., accounted for > 15% and < 5% of the total bacterial assemblage, in diseased and healthy corals respectively. These results let us hypothesize that the RTN in stony corals can be an infectious disease associated to the presence of Vibrio harveyi. However, further studies are needed to validate the microbial origin of this pathology.
PMID: 17564618 [PubMed - in process]
Serioussnaps
New member
So all the crap aside....the person that wrote this is stating RTN is essentially a form of vibrio? In which case it should be able to be treated with antibiotics correct?
kirstenk
23.5 Degrees
When I heard Eric Borneman talk once he said that our usage of RTN and STN was hobby related lingo and that necrosis was due to vibrio.
This has lead me to strengthen my belief that physical stressors eventually lead to RTN which may or may not be pathogen mediated. That fact that it seems to spread from one colony to the other may simply reflect the fact that all the colonies are subjected to the same stress but succumb at various times or that there is some sort of chemical signaling that takes place and results in programmed cell death as someone had mentioned earlier.
You got my vote. I has a very similar problem that started a year ago. I felt at the time it was due to several factors, induced by me, that all stressed corals. It wasn't until I read this post that I also remembered a wild colony purchase that STN'd rapidly and may have helped things along.
This has lead me to strengthen my belief that physical stressors eventually lead to RTN which may or may not be pathogen mediated. That fact that it seems to spread from one colony to the other may simply reflect the fact that all the colonies are subjected to the same stress but succumb at various times or that there is some sort of chemical signaling that takes place and results in programmed cell death as someone had mentioned earlier.
You got my vote. I has a very similar problem that started a year ago. I felt at the time it was due to several factors, induced by me, that all stressed corals. It wasn't until I read this post that I also remembered a wild colony purchase that STN'd rapidly and may have helped things along.
montrealreef
Member
Kip, Only my acropora colonies have been affected. I have a few montis and some LPS. All seem to be unaffected by any of this....
Kip
New member
a little update of the acros from the 75g acro rescue tank that went thru the community treatment
at first, it would seem that i lost most acros during that treatment. last nite, looking thru that tank it seems around 30% were a loss and the rest are coming back (can really see it with actinics on... there is some tissue still there that i thought had completely sloughed away... now just seems was severe bleaching)
there were a few corals that had started tissue recession before the treatment that are showing no further signs of recession after the treatment
as harsh as the treatment was, it seems to have worked. there is still a lot of recovery needed, but there is hope.
That's especially nice since one of the treated frags in there now doing well was my only piece of the $500 efflo.
at first, it would seem that i lost most acros during that treatment. last nite, looking thru that tank it seems around 30% were a loss and the rest are coming back (can really see it with actinics on... there is some tissue still there that i thought had completely sloughed away... now just seems was severe bleaching)
there were a few corals that had started tissue recession before the treatment that are showing no further signs of recession after the treatment
as harsh as the treatment was, it seems to have worked. there is still a lot of recovery needed, but there is hope.
That's especially nice since one of the treated frags in there now doing well was my only piece of the $500 efflo.
wentreefgirl
New member
Jeeez, And here I thought things will be fine for you. Any changes in the way youve kept it in the past couple of weeks. Temp up? etc.
The Saltman
New member
If he hasn't added any new sps, this is really strange
Kip
New member
no new corals...everything has been in a holding pattern. Temps have been running "back to normal" for about two weeks.
Only thing I can figure is that there was still some dormant problem in the tank that has decided to manifest itself again.
I was finally at the point where the corals that had made it were starting to look good again. I was getting motivated to build the damaged areas back up.
Now... I could be looking forward to a reef-free lifestyle.
On the bright side... I have a super nice tyree undata that is picture perfect. The monster is looking great too. But with this random problem, the monster could take a crap tomorrow.
Only thing in display receding is the sarmentosa. I guess I'd better go ahead and pull it.
Only thing I can figure is that there was still some dormant problem in the tank that has decided to manifest itself again.
I was finally at the point where the corals that had made it were starting to look good again. I was getting motivated to build the damaged areas back up.
Now... I could be looking forward to a reef-free lifestyle.
On the bright side... I have a super nice tyree undata that is picture perfect. The monster is looking great too. But with this random problem, the monster could take a crap tomorrow.
Only thing in display receding is the sarmentosa. I guess I'd better go ahead and pull it.
