I have a 125 gallon reef tank where everything was going very well, until about a month ago...
I have some experience with freshwater (20 tanks at the moment) and decided to get into salt about 14 months ago. I bought this system used, and have pretty much been learning as I go. Until recently, I've had surprisingly few casualties with this strategy. Here's the tank when I got it:
And here it is today (nothing compared to the tanks on here, but considering this is my first saltwater tank, I'm reasonably happy with it):
Timeline:
October 2015 - tank purchased, set up. No cycle detected, no livestock lost during transfer.
April, 2016 - added 10 or so "hardy" SPS corals, all 1" frags.
May, 2016 - DIY calc reactor online, all corals alive despite crazy alk swings (6.5 - 12)
September, 2016 - corals have been growing well, no issues or SPS losses. Alk stable at 11 (probably too high, but again, no problems to speak of and it was stable there). I decided to add another round of SPS corals (first additions of any livestock since April 2016).
September 18 - refilled calc reactor chamber.
September 19 - kalk pasted several aiptasia to make room for new coral frags.
September 20 - added new corals. Immediately, 4 of the 10 colonies RTN, dead within 4 hours of addition. Probably due to alk difference + stress from shipping (?)
September 22 - I notice a couple white branches on one of my original SPS colonies (unknown species).
September 23 - I realize there's a problem and frag several branches off the colony.
September 24 - colony looks like this:
Purple pocillopora is now showing similar symptoms, and 2 more new colonies die.
Birdsnest (pink and rainbow) colonies are showing white branches.
Tank temp is 84! - I had been relying on my frog spawn as a temp indicator, figuring if it were happy, everything was good. I install my high tech chiller system (visible in the today photo above) and the temp drops to 78.
September 25 - frags of the unknown RTN colony I made are dead, except one. Purple pocillopora colony dead. 7 of the 10 new SPS frags are dead.
Early November - RTN stopped (literally overnight as soon as I dropped the temp) I am left with the last frag of unknown colony, birdsnests re-covered the dead tissue, things seem OK.
Here's my hypothesis for what happened:
The new colonies brought a Vibrio sp. parasitic bacteria with them.
The new colonies were stressed from shipping, alk change, which made them susceptible to bacterial infection and caused the RTN.
My original colonies that were near the areas I nuked with kalk paste (the purple poci and the unknown large colony) got hit with flecks of kalkwasser, normally not enough to harm them, but it did stress them enough to allow the bacteria to get a foothold.
Dropping the temperature took care of the bacterial issue, per this article, and allowed the corals to recover.
So I thought that was the end of it, but a few days ago, I noticed white branches on my green pocillopora colony. They are definitely spreading. Temp remains 78, so the RTN seems to be much slower this time, albeit definitely present. Alk slowly dropping down to 9.5 or 10 over the last month (I'm bringing it down to 8 to add more colonies some day.) No livestock additions. No changes to the tank that I recall. Weekly 10% water changes.
When I first got this, it was a 2" frag, and I cut it into 4 pieces and spread them out so it would have room to grow. All of the individual colonies have grown together, and all are showing white branches. This makes it easy to split this guy into treatment groups. I believe the bacteria is still present in my system, and I'm hoping to eradicate it completely. I have removed one colony to dip in MetroPlex, 1/5 scoop in a gallon of 1.026 tank water for 5 minutes, every other day, for 10 days.
Another colony I will dip in KanaPlex, 1/5 scoop in a gallon of water, same treatment.
Two colonies remain untreated.
I have also dropped the temp a couple more degrees. I know I am changing more than one variable at once, but my primary goal is to save several thousand dollars in corals, not to do good science...
I suspect that either all colonies will survive (due to temperature drop), or only the KanaPlex treated colony will (per this article) that finds metro does not arrest progression in acropora.
We'll see what happens. I'll try to update this post with how things go.
I am open to suggestions about alternative treatments.
I have some experience with freshwater (20 tanks at the moment) and decided to get into salt about 14 months ago. I bought this system used, and have pretty much been learning as I go. Until recently, I've had surprisingly few casualties with this strategy. Here's the tank when I got it:
And here it is today (nothing compared to the tanks on here, but considering this is my first saltwater tank, I'm reasonably happy with it):
Timeline:
October 2015 - tank purchased, set up. No cycle detected, no livestock lost during transfer.
April, 2016 - added 10 or so "hardy" SPS corals, all 1" frags.
May, 2016 - DIY calc reactor online, all corals alive despite crazy alk swings (6.5 - 12)
September, 2016 - corals have been growing well, no issues or SPS losses. Alk stable at 11 (probably too high, but again, no problems to speak of and it was stable there). I decided to add another round of SPS corals (first additions of any livestock since April 2016).
September 18 - refilled calc reactor chamber.
September 19 - kalk pasted several aiptasia to make room for new coral frags.
September 20 - added new corals. Immediately, 4 of the 10 colonies RTN, dead within 4 hours of addition. Probably due to alk difference + stress from shipping (?)
September 22 - I notice a couple white branches on one of my original SPS colonies (unknown species).
September 23 - I realize there's a problem and frag several branches off the colony.
September 24 - colony looks like this:
Purple pocillopora is now showing similar symptoms, and 2 more new colonies die.
Birdsnest (pink and rainbow) colonies are showing white branches.
Tank temp is 84! - I had been relying on my frog spawn as a temp indicator, figuring if it were happy, everything was good. I install my high tech chiller system (visible in the today photo above) and the temp drops to 78.
September 25 - frags of the unknown RTN colony I made are dead, except one. Purple pocillopora colony dead. 7 of the 10 new SPS frags are dead.
Early November - RTN stopped (literally overnight as soon as I dropped the temp) I am left with the last frag of unknown colony, birdsnests re-covered the dead tissue, things seem OK.
Here's my hypothesis for what happened:
The new colonies brought a Vibrio sp. parasitic bacteria with them.
The new colonies were stressed from shipping, alk change, which made them susceptible to bacterial infection and caused the RTN.
My original colonies that were near the areas I nuked with kalk paste (the purple poci and the unknown large colony) got hit with flecks of kalkwasser, normally not enough to harm them, but it did stress them enough to allow the bacteria to get a foothold.
Dropping the temperature took care of the bacterial issue, per this article, and allowed the corals to recover.
So I thought that was the end of it, but a few days ago, I noticed white branches on my green pocillopora colony. They are definitely spreading. Temp remains 78, so the RTN seems to be much slower this time, albeit definitely present. Alk slowly dropping down to 9.5 or 10 over the last month (I'm bringing it down to 8 to add more colonies some day.) No livestock additions. No changes to the tank that I recall. Weekly 10% water changes.
When I first got this, it was a 2" frag, and I cut it into 4 pieces and spread them out so it would have room to grow. All of the individual colonies have grown together, and all are showing white branches. This makes it easy to split this guy into treatment groups. I believe the bacteria is still present in my system, and I'm hoping to eradicate it completely. I have removed one colony to dip in MetroPlex, 1/5 scoop in a gallon of 1.026 tank water for 5 minutes, every other day, for 10 days.
Another colony I will dip in KanaPlex, 1/5 scoop in a gallon of water, same treatment.
Two colonies remain untreated.
I have also dropped the temp a couple more degrees. I know I am changing more than one variable at once, but my primary goal is to save several thousand dollars in corals, not to do good science...
I suspect that either all colonies will survive (due to temperature drop), or only the KanaPlex treated colony will (per this article) that finds metro does not arrest progression in acropora.
We'll see what happens. I'll try to update this post with how things go.
I am open to suggestions about alternative treatments.
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