Rtn/stn question

[fishguy597]

Does rtn/stn spread to other corals? I have lost a superman monti and had to frag a staghorn and my Hawkins ench. I have been staring into my tank in the morning, day, night. I do not see any pests and my fish don't mess with them. I went on vac for a week and my calcium reactor went nuts. It turned the whole tank a milk color. Luckly my brother was there the first day I was gone and turned it off. I have kept up on my water changes. My parameters are fine except I droped to 6 dkh. I have since raised it to 9 over a weeks period and changed the mediain the reactor. What else can I do I do not want to loose any more corals?

 

[Reefer577]

No it does not spread to other corals. But if your corals got really stressed from the accident, sometimes they die slowly instead of right after the event. Hopefully your other corals will pull through alright.

That's why we manually dose now. We used to have a kalk stirrer, but for awhile our tanks were evaporating more water than we realized and our ph got really high. I lost a lot of nice sps so I know what it feels like.

 

[Atomikk]

No it does not spread to other corals. But if your corals got really stressed from the accident, sometimes they die slowly instead of right after the event. Hopefully your other corals will pull through alright.

That's why we manually dose now. We used to have a kalk stirrer, but for awhile our tanks were evaporating more water than we realized and our ph got really high. I lost a lot of nice sps so I know what it feels like.

Yes it can if it is a bacterial problem. You have to isolate the root of the RTN before you can determine if it can spread.

 

[fishguy597]

I'm sure this is a loaded question but how do you determine the root of the problem? Now my sunset monti is starting to go down hill. I did a 20% water change wednesday and yest my skimmer was going nuts. I had to empty the cup every few min. I'm going to do another water change today. I think I disturbed some gunk in my sump when I cleaned my filters. It's the only thing that makes sense. Btw I use ro/di water w/ tropic Marin salt.

 

[Aj Flip]

I heard treating with red slime remover helps a bit because it serves as an antibiotis against the bacteria that cause the RTN

also, do some large water changes and run carbon

 

[Atomikk]

Run lots of carbon. It will help with the quality of your water. Then water change in a day.

 

[fishguy597]

I was putting in a couple of sea swirls last night and when I was done I checked my paramiters. The ones that concerned me was ph of 8.4 not terrible and a dkh of 14. I have since shut off my calcium reactor. How can I bring down the dkh safely. My calcium is at 400. Should I wait for it to absorb? Water change? IT has doubled in a week and some of my corals are suffering. Btw I gun gfo and carbon 24/7

 

[Reefer577]

Well I wasn't taking into account brown gel. But usually that tends to affect montis not acros.

 

[fishguy597]

What? Lol

 

[saltygeek]

What? Lol

ha! Yeah, just let it drop by itself. Its always good to find and easy fix to your corals issues

 

[Reefer577]

I was responding to Atomicks original comment. In my personal experience rtn has not been catching. When my corals have been stressed out, one or two of them might rtn, but the others are fine. Only with brown gel bacteria have I had issues with tissue damage on several corals at once. I have found that it rarely affects acroporas.

I was not suggesting there was an easy answer, nothing in reefing comes with an easy answer.

Yes it can if it is a bacterial problem. You have to isolate the root of the RTN before you can determine if it can spread.

 

[Oldude]

I was responding to Atomicks original comment. In my personal experience rtn has not been catching. When my corals have been stressed out, one or two of them might rtn, but the others are fine.
I was not suggesting there was an easy answer, nothing in reefing comes with an easy answer.

For the most part I agree. Here is another observation I have made over the years.
STN can actually be your friend. I have had many corals that suffered some STN on the bottom which caused the individual branches to no longer be joined together by live skeleton. This in turn saved them later when a single branch RTN'd and for lack of a better term, the other branches never got the "death signal" because they were no longer attached by live skeletal tissue. In my opinion STN is one of the "building blocks" of the natural reefs.

 

[fishguy597]

For the most part I agree. Here is another observation I have made over the years.
STN can actually be your friend. I have had many corals that suffered some STN on the bottom which caused the individual branches to no longer be joined together by live skeleton. This in turn saved them later when a single branch RTN'd and for lack of a better term, the other branches never got the "death signal" because they were no longer attached by live skeletal tissue. In my opinion STN is one of the "building blocks" of the natural reefs.

So you are saying leave it alone and see what happens? I know that if I didnt frag my hawkins I wouldnt have had one any more lol. I'm just getting frustrated everything has been going great for 2 years. Btw congrats on TOTM I was looking at your thread earlyer today and it looks fantastic!

 

[fishguy597]

Well I wasn't taking into account brown gel. But usually that tends to affect montis not acros.

I'm sorry I'm not following. Where does the brown gel come in? Fyi I do appreaciate any and all help.

 

[fishguy597]

Well I wasn't taking into account brown gel. But usually that tends to affect montis not acros.

Ok now I see the brown gel on my didgi.What does that tell you? Its like the zoo is coming right off the skeleton.

 

[Reefer577]

Its a type of bacterium that can affect sps and soft corals when they are stressed out. It has even bothered my healthy softies in one of my tanks that has very low flow.

Best to break off the effected part otherwise it will probably spread to the rest of the coral. It is a real pita thing because it can stay in your water for awhile. If you can dip, I would also try using some Coral Revive. It helps to clean off the dieing tissue and can stop rtning/bacterial problems.

You might post your full tank parameters so we can be of better help to you. Include your photoperiod, temps, ph, chemical data, etc. Its very difficult to assess someone's problems when you only have part of the info.

 

[fishguy597]

I see. When I checked my param's sat it was the following: ph 8.4,dkh 14(i know very high shut off cal reactor),cal400, amm 0, nitrite0,nitrate 0,.photo period actinics on at noon off at 10 pm, stage mh starting at 2pm off at 9 pm.The 2 stage chiller is set to maintain 78 degrees with a 2 degree spread. I run a GFO reactor and run carbon passively. I clean my filters weekly and do weekly water changes. I do not add any chemicals. I cannot use Revive because my corals are encrusted to rock. After I do a water change tonight, I will check my parameters again and post results. Thank you very much for your help.

 

[fishguy597]

By the way, my magnesium is at about 1220. All my test kits are API except for my mag kit which is Salifert. I am trying to upgrade my testing kits.

 

[Reefer577]

Are you having ph swings? What are your average lowest and highest readings?


I think your problem is just from the alkalinity and probably ph swings. Montis really don't like ph swings. Acros will recede from the base, but if you get your chemicals under control you should be able to stop the bleaching. Just try to keep things stabile and you should probably keep your calc reactor offline until your corals start looking better.

We used to have a kalkwasser stirrer, but the tank was evaporating more water than we thought so more kalkwasser was going into our water and raising the ph. Of course we didn't have a good ph meter at the time, so it took us awhile to figure out what the problem was. I lost at least 50% of my montis and a few acros from the stress. Since then we dose manually.

 

[fishguy597]

Hi there reefer. I just checked my alk and using the dkh scale it's sitting at 9. 9? how is it possibale? Saturday it was at 14 and 48 hrs later its at 9. My ph is at 8.4 suprisingly and thats what I usually read it at. Btw I double checked my dkh on sat and today so I know its right. I turned the calcium reactor back on but with the co2 set low.I'm going to check the dkh in the morning and see where it's at. One of the weird things I did notice is on sat my calcium was low sitting at 380. I had some bionic and added just the calcium to get it at 400. But yet it raised my alk 5 points? When I changed the media I went from the fine arrag to the coarse. They are both by carribe sea.This is frusterating to say the least. I just dont understand how the alk could go so high and the calcium not come up with it.