Tank Crashing. Help me stop it.

[Guillaume]

Preef, good luck. Hopping this is stabilizing.
Just to mention that I bought an Apex last May and I love it. Little hard to set but there is a very good unofficial guide on their forum in here. Dosing easy. I'm (Apex) dosing kalk every 30 minutes depending on Ph and sump level.
G

 

[chefzif]

Sorry to see the issues in your tank I was taging along and I think also the medication and combination of a alk swing took the tank for a dive! You did the right thing by getting a doser! Consistant dosing will keep everything in cosistant peramiters.Good luck and I hope all turns around for you! I have been there and it is not a good feeling! Chef!

 

[Jabberwock]

I've got exact same problem that you went through - even down to the death of a cleaner shrimp! I've added dosers, a mp40 to help with water movement, and kept parameters stable. The only thing I can think of doing are water changes. Did you frag any of your corals as they were receding? If not did the entire colony eventually recover?

Right now I'm suspecting that a small hydrophora colony in the tank might be causing problems. It was added about 45 days before I noticed symptoms. I might be removing it from my DT tomorrow. I'd been running carbon/GFO for months prior to my RTN event, so I don't think it was that. According to most of the reading that I've done, most people who experience this have pretty good standard tank parameters - there is just some other unknown/chemical combination in the water that causes the tissue loss. My plan of attack is dilution via frequent small water chages and a GFO/Carbon change with extra carbon.

 

[preef]

Sorry to hear about your problem. First thing I would do is get a new alk kit to make sure your current kit isn't way off. I'm not sure about the hydnophora. Have you made any other changes?

Dilution through water changes didn't help me. I was doing daily water changes and I kept losing pieces. I eventually stopped the daily water changes and cut back to weekly.

Fragging didn't help. I wasn't able to save anything once it started. I had no polyp extension on the pieces that were affected pieces. The entire coral was impacted not just the tips or base. I still had random losses for months after i thought thing had stabilized. Lost a huge green slimer and a nice size bird of paradise.

I hope you figure it out. I know how frustrating this is for you.

 

[Jabberwock]

Just wondering, but did you happen to notice Coraline algae bleaching/die-off prior to or during the RTN event, despite having acceptable-to-good standard (Alk/Cal/Mg/PO4/Ph/Nitrate/SG) water parameters?

 

[preef]

I don't remember coraline dying off.

My montis were the first to be impacted. My cap and my digitatas bleached. I then lost all polyp extension on my acros with recession from the tips. Millis were the worst affected. Strange thing was that not all corals were affected. My sunset monti never showed any signs of stress. My birdnests were also fine at first but eventually RTNed out of the blue when it looked like everything else was stabilizing.

All LPS and softies were fine as were my fish during the ordeal.

 

[Jabberwock]

In my case it was the stylo that first showed signed. I thought it might have been caused by alk swings at the time... then it spread to my seriatopora then to my "Alabama" Blue Tort and then to another blue tort, and then to Superman Montipora, and now even Purple Digitata are browning out. A second Pink Stylo frag, two green Slimer frags, Orange Monti Cap, and Sunset Monti seem unaffected... so far. I changed GFO (3/4 cup - noraml amount) and carbon (1.5 cups - double amount) today - both are run in a reactor. I'm planning on doing a 25% water change as well. Frustrating is right! I guess the only thing that I can do is just let whatever it is run its course... :-/

 

[preef]

Bill my purple digitata was the first to go and my green slimer was the last 5 months later.

Tried fragging it to no avail. Luckily it had fragged itself months earlier. A tip grew onto a rock and it eventually broke leaving me a piece of encrusting slimer on a different rock. That piece survived and is doing well (knock on wood).

One other thought. Did you rearrange any rocks in your tank before the crash? I did so I could get my Blue Throat out. Although I don't think I touched the sand bed it's possible that I released some evil lurking down there.

 

[Jabberwock]

Not that I recall... I was in the habit of stirring up the top 1/4" to 1/2" or so of the sand bed and blowing out the detritus in the live rock every once in a while though - just to get everything blown back up into the water column for the skimmer to remove. I'm pretty sure that it's a common practice and was (at least at one time) recommended so long as the disturbance wasn't *too* deep. (I have a shallow sand bed)

Unfortunately about the same time that the hydrophora went in (Mid December), several other frags were introduced ( I won a fair share of frags at a raffle - none of which seemed to have any signs of tissue damage/loss). The corals I received that day were Hyrophora, Acanthastrea, a non-discript green Acro, Euphillia (hammer), Slimer x2, Blue Tort x2, pink stylo, A few weeks later I introduced several Acanthastrea frags, Sunset Montipora frag, war coral frag, and a small cycloseris (short tentacle plate) (not all at the same time, except for the acan frags). I then added dosing pumps in preparation for a trip overseas for 5 days. When I returned around Febuary 10th I noticed that my Green Stylo colony was losing tissue around the tips. I suspected pH swings as the cause and spent a week or so investigating how to combat those (I do run a reverse sump lighting scheme, but with GFO in use macro algae doesn't want to grow). My seriatopora colony began to develop white patches and the my Blue Tort began showing classic RTN signs ... that's when I started doing research and discovered the concept of RTN and what brought me here today. Maybe RTN isn't the right way to describe it, since the tissue loss isn't overnight... but it is a steady loss of tissue (usually) from the tips down that I'm experiencing. Based on what I'm seeing, by blue tort mini-colony will probably be devoid of tissue within 10 days.... The picture of your Digitata is painfully familiar - sorry for your loss of such a beautiful colony.

 

[Jabberwock]

Here are some pictures of what I am seeing

https://picasaweb.google.com/jabbertagger/CoralProblems#

 

[preef]

Just looked at your pics. Pretty consistent with what went through. What you have is STN (slow tissue narcosis). RTN will wipe out a colony in a day. STN is a more drawn out process.

It looks like that green stylo is a green birds nest. Not that it makes a whole lot of difference.

Since your colonies are small you might try dipping in Revive.

You can also try fragging the dead tips on the tort and the other acro.

 

[Jabberwock]

Yeah - I'm going to be pulling water out of the tank tonight for the water change. I'll use the old tank water for a revive bath...

This is NOT how I wanted to get into the world of fragging corals, but it doesn't look like I have much of a choice, huh?

 

[reeferdale]

check with microscope

check with microscope

Check some of the frags with a microscope - see if you have small worms crawling around, or masses of egg sacs. I have ben fighting this all winter in my 180 and I have lost bout 40% of my corals. I have a QT setup now and I have been dipping all my corals in a mix I madeup, then putting them into QT tank. Nothing is going into the new 270 till I see them healthy and pest free in the fall.

I have used Interceptorr, Coral Rx, Revive, Levasol, Lugols, etc. I have never had pests in 17 years and this is killing me. If I had not already bought the 270 I would not even be setting up another tank for now - I would take a break for a while.

 

[Deadcalm]

I thought I would add my metro (metronidazole) story. Maybe it will help others.

The last month I've been going through a slow tank crash. None of my corals had grown for a month. Before this everything was coloring up and growing very fast. I was dosing 35ml of two part to keep my alk stable at 7.7. One day things didn't look right and when I measured my alk was at 9 and that was the start of the tank crash. I removed all possibilities and went back to basics. Still I had issues...and nothing was helping.

I hadn't bought any new fish in awhile (a month) but last week picked up some Anthias. On the way home from the pet store it hit me. A month ago I bought a new tang and after a few days it showed signs of ich. That's when I started adding small amounts of Metro to the food. I've been adding it to the food for the whole month....everyday.

Since I stopped using Metro everything is slowly improving. I'm 100% confident it was the Metro. Keep in mind I was only adding a small amount of Metro to the food. That might explain why I didn't completely kill all the sps.

Here were the signs of the issue:

Chaeto stopped growing and completely died off.

All sps we're affected and either grew slow or stopped completely. Two died of slow tissue loss. Almost all lost color and became a beige color with almost no pe.

Some sps besides slow growth weren't affected at all. Still had great pe and color.

Lps seemed less affected by it. My Duncan stopped opening off and on and others didn't grow but they didn't look all that bad.



It's almost like this medication has a growth inhibitor in it.
It's a great medication but I would only use it in small dosages and for only a few days.

 

[ssdawood]

I just bought a second API calcium test. The test I've been using measures 420 ppm. The new test I bought measures 520 ppm. No telling which one is right. I've had my calcium, as measured with my old kit, as high as 480. Turns out this could have been 580. Can this cause STN/RTN?

API reads higher for calcium by 40 points ime. I have checked with salifert and red sea.