Step-by-step account of my first reef (with lots of pics)

[fishypets]

The bad news keeps coming. Today I walked into my house and the smell of dead acro was so strong it almost made me gag. When I saw the QT tank I had to step back for a minute. The tank was so cloudy I couldn't see what had died and what was still alive. I snapped a few shots to show the devastation.

I changed 30 gallons of water with fresh salt H2O and another 30 from the main tank that is still up and running. John seems to think that a lack of bacteria in the tank is what triggered the RTN. We will have to wait this one out but it don't look good.

 

[melev]

This is horrible. What are you treating the corals with?

 

[jnarowe]

wow...total meltdown. I would be devastated. About the bacteria; I keep corals in a QT all the time that I also clean out after I use it. I doubt it has much bacteria at all and I don't have, melt-downs like that. I do try to get corals into the main display quickly though because I feel the smaller water volume is just asking for trouble in my case.

Very sad indeed.

 

[KingfishJohn]

Jnarowe,

I'd agree that 99 times out of a 100 you don't need much bacteria in a QT. In this case, the tables did not respond well to the fluke tab treatment and starting dying. That decaying flesh and deteriorating water quality is what I beleive triggered RTN in the other colonies. When we did a water change today, we used some filter pad from one of my established tanks and also 30 gallons from the 150 (still running with water and sand).

Everyone knock loudly on wood that the rest of the colonies make it.

Melev,

So far they've treated with fluke tabs (3 times now?). After talking with Clint, he agreed that we saw by far the most flatworms knocked off the coral with the initial TMPCC dip.

 

[Bax]

That sucks! .... It's just painful to read and see pics!

 

[Dudester]

Indeed, it is quite painful to look at the photos and see some of my favorite corals at the bottom of that trashcan. My losses, though, are only a fraction of what Clint has lost, and I truly feel for him.

As a minor update, and potentially some positive news, I spoke with Clint this morning and after removing the carnage and doing the water change last night (thanks Clint and John!!) there have been no more losses as of this morning.

 

[jnarowe]

I wonder if the tables excrete toxin as they perish?

 

[fishypets]

The bad news keeps coming. Today I lost my Oregon Blue tort colony along with 13 others. I will post pics later if I can. This is truly one of the saddest days in this hobby.

 

[fishypets]

Before shot of my Oregon Blue tort colony.

And what I found today when I came home.

It was sad going through my photobucket account looking at all the healthy corals I once had. Now I have a ton of white bone and a very unstable QT tank. If the RTN continues to run it's course, Mike and I will be wiped clean of any acro we once had.

 

[jnarowe]

wow! what a horrible site. Did you forget to put salt in the QT??? j/k of course. I think if I experienced that, some heavy drinking would soon follow.

 

[fishypets]

Just hope this never happens too you Jonathan. I've lost corals I can never replace and would wish this on no one. I'll post more pics tomorrow if I can.

 

[melev]

I'm devastated for you. Just seeing what all you guys did and still to suffer such huge losses - it is unbearable, and almost unbelievable.

Obviously you planned for everything, but I hope you don't mind asking if there was any chance this was a heat issue? I remember you had a chiller hooked up, but perhaps due the small water volume, the heat would spike quite a bit and chill it down too much? This incident looks like a heat swing to me.

Stoney Mahony was using Fluke tabs for his corals, but he was dipping them in separate buckets. Were you treating in-tank? I believe you are first people to treat montipora capricornis in Fluke meds, as everyone tends to believe AEFW are on acropora only.

 

[Dudester]

Even though I'm pretty certain that I will end up losing most, if not all of the 21 corals I removed from my tank to treat for AEFW, I can't even feel an ounce of grief for myself considering what you must be feeling, Clint.

If anything good comes out of this it is this: Clint has been EXTREMELY generous literally giving expensive corals away to people. There must be a dozen or more tanks out there with frags from his tank. This is not only a kind thing to do for people, but it also insures that, in the event of a total loss, one would be able to recover his/her stock and re-build. I have no doubt that when people learn of this, Clint's tank will be re-stocked with acros. Unfortunately mine were all frags and I wasn't able to initiate this practice, so I'll have to start from ground zero, but I'll definitely follow the example that Clint has laid out and once I'm fortunate enough to have colonies, I will distribute frags widely.

If anyone can think of a solution as to why these colonies look good one minute and they seem to perish within a few hours, please let us know so this downward spiral can be halted.

Did you forget to put salt in the QT???

That's actually kinda funny

 

[melev]

It can be pure guesswork, but sometimes it is purely a lack of stability. As all the corals came in with bacteria upon them, I doubt there was a lack of it in the system. However, dying flatworms would release toxins just like red planaria do. That is why dip and rinse seems to be a good plan, to me anyway.

 

[Dudester]

Just saw your post, Marc. I'll have to let Clint answer the heat swing question. Actually the QT is 85 gallons, so I personally wouldn't consider it a "small water volume" tank (but then again I don't own a 280 ). The treatment that seemed to spark all of this death was indeed an in-tank treatment; the previous 2 treatments that were well-tolerated were dips in separate tanks. The reason we went with an in-tank treatment was due to a fear that, upon return of treated corals to the QT, some AEFW might migrate to them from as of yet untreated corals, so we felt like a couple of in-tank treatments would be a method to prevent this. Since the corals were all in a QT, we thought that an in-tank treatment would essentially be just like a dip treatment, since the QT contained absolutely nothing else. The only difference was that after the treatment was completed, a very large water change was performed with newly-made saltwater as opposed to tank water. Could this have been enough to spark the fuse, I don't know?

Regarding the monti caps, I've never seen them infected, but we definitely saw lots of AEFW and their eggs on montipora digitata. I think Clint included the cap for 2 reasons. First, after removing all of his acros, he decided to cook all of his live rock, so he needed a place to put the monti cap. And second, just for security, he figured that if digis could be infected, then so might caps.

Marc, you may have hit the nail on the head with the notion that the dead AEFW may have released toxins, although I will say that Clint found very few worms during the second treatment, so I don't think the population would have been high enough to cause this devastation. This is so sad.

 

[melev]

Clint, I know this won't help a bit, but I can't keep a blue tort alive if my life depended on it. It is my kryptonite.

With the corals being in quarantine, even if some AEFW did migrate during treatment, they would be killed at next week's dip. That's the whole basis for weekly treatments, to kill stragglers or newly born flatworms.

 

[fishypets]

When I did the in tank treatment I removed 50 gallons of QT tank water and placed in a seperate holding tub. I lowered the Stream and mixed up enough fluke tab for 35 gallons of water. I set the timer for 40 minutes and added the fluke tabs to the QT tank. After the timer went off I removed all the corals and rinsed before adding to the tub with the other 50 gallons. I then vacuumed the bottom of the QT tank removing 100% of the water that was left. I then added water from the holding bin back to the QT tank and placed the corals in and toped off with fresh salt water I had made two nights before. I left the house around 3:05 p.m. and returned 4 hours later to find most of my tables had RTN'D. I figured no big deal and removed them, checked P.H., KH and CA. I went to bed only to wake up to more dead acros. Since then it has been a downward spiral and I'm afraid it won't stop until they are all gone.

 

[fishypets]

Marc,

The answer to your question about temp swing is 77 at in the morning when I wake up and 79 when I go to bed so I don't feel temp is the issue. I am starting to wonder if a few of the corals that were in the streams direct path as I was adding the fluke tabs stressed out and RTN'N causing the rest of this mess?

 

[melev]

I really don't have an answer for you, Clint. According to Stoney, all you need are 20 minute dips even though I've had stuff in the medication for almost 60 minutes total, at least once.

I've seen quite a few people tear down their tanks in an attempt to save their livestock along this method, and it just seems too invasive or reactive. I gave it some thought myself when I had the same infestation, but I decided to only treat the corals that were obviously affected. While it is still possible that my words could come back to haunt me later, it seems like I was able to kill them on a few corals instead of following a similar procedure that you utilized. A couple of small frags died during the past few months, but overall the SPS seem to be fine or healing.

I was really impressed with your hospital tank system, and hoped for the best. It really is disappointing when such efforts are rewarded with serious losses.

 

[fishypets]

Many thanks for your support and knowledge Marc. Maybe one day I'll have a nice reef again.

Mike-

Chin up buddy there are a few corals that are still somewhat healthy. I'll keep my hands out of the tank tonight and see what happens tomorrow.