STN, Monti Nudis or stress????????

[Naperville Reef]

i have a bright green monti cap that is 4"x4". i have had it in the tank for over a year and it has grown from a 1" frag. about 5 weeks ago i noticed the color starting to fad to a dull pale color. not sure why this is happening.

i have 10 different SPS in the tank including a couple digis and danaes and they are all fine. i have not added any new corals in a few months so i don't think it is monti nudis.

i used to get impatient with my water changes and i would end up pouring the ramaning gallon or so of water from the bucket into the tank where the cap is located so i think i severly stressed it.

never seen STN or RTN so i do not know what it looks like. would STN take this long? there is no tissue receding from the cap.

water parameteres:
(Salifert test kits)
NH4 = 0
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 0.2
PO4 = 0
Ca = 380
Alk = 9dKH
Mag = 1170
ph = 8.1

Salinity = 1.025
temp is consistently around 80

any help is appreciated

rob

 

[ostrow]

STN is very fast, you can literally see the tissue falling off the coral.

RTN is slowe r, death over days.

Monti nudi's are visible animals, depending on how close the specimen is to the glass. Closer the better. Look on the underside of the cap for tiny white wormlike things with spindly legs. If you have ever seen a plant with scale it is remarkably similar, though the monti nudis are normally less conspicuous in terms of area coverage/numbers.

 

[Naperville Reef]

hmmmmm..... sounds like i stressed it out.

RTN and STN does not take 5 weeks.

i have not seen any monti nudis nor have i introduced anything new to the tank for at least 4 weeks prior to this change in color.

hopefully it will recover to it's former glory:beer:

thanks joel

 

[Naperville Reef]

hmmmmm..... sounds like i stressed it out.

RTN and STN does not take 5 weeks.

i have not seen any monti nudis nor have i introduced anything new to the tank for at least 4 weeks prior to this change in color.

hopefully it will recover to it's former glory:beer:

thanks joel

 

[mimosa]

Do you have any picture that you can post? May be your Calcium is on the low side? I will be glad to test your water for Ca, Mg, Alk using a different test kit.

Any change in lights/photoperiod?

 

[~ChrisB~]

STN is a very slow process. Can happen over weeks.

RTN is very fast and can happen over a few hours or less.

Neither of these describes what you are exp. This is the sloughing off of tissue.

You are reffering to a bleaching of some sort. This can be due to many different factors. Water quality being the first suspect, light being another.

It sounds as though you have hit the nail on the head about the water changes stressing it out though. I would allow it to recover, dump your water more slowly, or in another location.

Chris

 

[ostrow]

STN weeks? Hmmm. When I had that once (you reading jgleach?) the corals died over 3-4 days.

 

[~ChrisB~]

I did say can happen over weeks. Doe not always take so long. However RTN is very fast, not slow. Takes hours.

 

[~ChrisB~]

One other point for Ostrow. STN is not always the end of the coral. that is why it can last so long. It spreads very slowly, and a lot of times will actually stop before killing the entire piece. In my 10 years with SPS I would say that maybe 70% of corals that showed signs of STN actually recovered. RTN is another story.

This, however, is not what Rob is experiencing. If you can use the search function Rob I would recommend doing a search on bleaching, and I would also implement my previous advise.

 

[examiner]

My experience w/ STN (hate to say those words) is also over a period of weeks...a branch this week, another branch the following week, etc.

Maybe Joel has discovered a new type - ITN (intermediate tissue necrosis). Just what we need, huh?

 

[ostrow]

I had only one coral survive STN, and just the tips at that. It is still struggling to grow.

Funny, when it was happening, I read about RTN only. Saw it would happen over a few hours. So I figured it was STN, but I never read too much about it. There's no way it lasted weeks though. 5 days max from start to finish, but the affected corals were mostly small (under 5"). Except for one... the one that had the tips survive.

 

[Naperville Reef]

thought i would post a follow-up.... i had decided to leave the cap alone and not frag it b/c i believed the issue was stress from my water changes. about 60% of the bright green coloring turned a dull pale brown. over the last few days the color has started to come back and at this rate it should be back to it's normal color in a week or so.

thanks again for all the advice

 

[Ramble On Rose]

Thats great. I just found Nudi's on mine this past weekend... Thew out 2 frags and heavilly fragged another 3 corals that will probably not make it...