RTN help

[Volcano1]

Well ya know when all goes good for too long, things are bound to take a crap.
Wife had minor surgery yesterday, so I did my usual weekly stuff ,the day before, clean skimmer, change carbon, water change, etc.

Any who, tested water and my alk had gone up from 181 to 192, on hanna checker.Ok shut off calcium reactor and I had already dialed back kalk in top off water earlier in the week, due to a similar rise. Saw some minor, maybe RTN on bottom of one colony.Left reactor off all day, tested water last night, back down to 183.Put reactor back online, checked early this moring, 203. Turned off reactor again. Checked corals with flaslight, well now RTN. Have it on the bottom of 4 colonies.
I haven't touched the bubble or drip rate on the reactor for over 6 months. Eveything was very stable.Did increase top off water slightly, due to the addition of more colonies over the last month.Noticed slight rise in alk, dialed it back.So in short, I've added more coral, and seem to have a rise in alk, with the same alk input levels. More coral, less demand appears to be the case.
All others parameters have remained unchanged over the 6 month period. All corals were doing fine during that time.Only noticed changes in the last few weeks.So any answers? Should I try and frag out colonies? Take off the rtn portion of the ones I can? Never ran into this quick a problem, so looking for answers to problem and what I can do to save the corals.

Thanks,

Todd

 

[epicurus84]

If its RTN (as in rapid) you are already too late.

Asking any questions about a coral undergoing real RTN is deadly.

Anyhow if it's slow you should be able to stabelize it all however usually the base doesn't grow back.

I usually make smaller frags of colonies that might undergo problems. SO at least one of those frags will survive.

 

[biggles]

Damn sorry to hear this Todd

High alk - turn off the lights or just run the twilights, it will lessen the stress on the acros as they expel zoa they then suffer a sudden increase in light as the brown zoa are suddenly no longer 'shading' the acro tissue.
Don't use the reactor at all for now and don't dose as your demand will be bottoming out, 10-20% water changes, carbon, wet skimming all will help remove the large amount of dead tissue being released into the water - watch for an algae spike in the coming week as coral tissue is no better than any other rotting animal matter in large quantities.
Frag everything clear of tissue loss areas. I'd urge you to manually dose two part until everything is sorted and the water is back under your control. Water changes with a lower alk salt mix will also help lower high alk, the low tank consumption now will keep it too high for too long.

I hope you find some useful info there mate, just what i have picked up along the way through many reef goofs over the years. Good luck.

 

[johnike]

Hope the Mrs. is recovering OK, Todd and you get to the root of your trouble.

 

[tdb320reef]

.

.

Do you have pictures of what is happening. I found my tank does best where the alk is 130 - 140 on the hanna meter.

 

[Volcano1]

Thanks all.
It doesn't look as bad as I thought, once the lights came on. Had on colony that had the bottom 1/4 bad, fragged it. Another that had the bottom, on one side, about 1/2 inch up.
I fragged that side, about 1/3 of the colony.I had one mini colony that was the worst, Ice Fire. It got the bottom and part of one side. Fragged it as well. Everything else looks good.
My alk was steady at 181 to 183 on the meter for 6 months. I tried lowering it a liitle to 160. I shut the reactor down and let it fall over a week plus. This was several weeks ago. Colors started looking a little off, so I let it go back up to 180's again.So the lowest it ever got was 160 and the highest, this morning, 203. It rose from 180's to 190's then 180's up to 203.I figured if it would stay that steady, 181-183, It would be good, even though a little high. I'm not all sps, run a mixed reef , so I'm not UNLS.Phosphate below
.06, and nitrate around 20-30, maybe a little less. Put a sulpher denitrater on line a few months ago, hasn't dropped to 0 yet.
I've got about 50 colonies and 25 frags in there.If it doesn't get any worse I'll be happy.
I though my alk use would go up, not down, after added more corals the last month.Just a little confused on the whole alk issue.

If it keeps up, I'll post some pic's.

Biggles,
I just did a water and carbon change 2 days ago.Went to wetter skimming already. I'll keep on eye on things.


John, wife's ok, just a little sore, we did some walking today, as you know.

 

[johnike]

Glad things seem better than earlier.
Nice seeing you and the Mrs. today as always.

 

[Volcano1]

Well I did loose the 3 colonies that had some RTN. Rest look ok.So debating where I want alk to be. It had ben around 10, for most of this year and things seemed fine.I know it's a little lower now. I don't want to stress the corals any more than I have to.
Like I said, it's not ULNS, so I don't want to drop down to 7.

 

[ramseynb]

I really wonder about running alk on the higher side even if you're not ULN. It sure seems to be a theme overall that higher alk makes them more prone to RTN and STN. What advantages does running a higher alk level give you?

I personally keep alk low (ESV salt mix) and don't have the need to dose yet but I've been carbon dosing and switched to zeovit which is why I decided to keep alk low.