Extreme slow STN in all corals

duke62

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I have been having real slow STN on my acros and montis along with birdsnest. I have come to the conclusion that i have a bacterial infection in my tank and dont know how to stop it. It has been this way for 2 months now and the corals that started are now almost gone. I have checked everything in the tank including parameters,rust on equipment,pests,poisoning and temps. The only conclusion is bacterial. I held on to some friends corals in my frag tank which is plumbed to my DT after Sandy because he lost power and this is when my problems began. His corals were the first to die off but i thought it was from stress and now my corals are going. I am getting a lime green algae growing on sand and rocks along with green algae on the skeleton of dying sps which i have never had before. Is there any in tank treatment in a sps tank for a bacterial infection? I was going to try eurythimycin since it helps with bacterial infections in fish and gets rid of cyano but im not sure if it will help with this type of bacteria infection. Any help please. Dont have to much time with the corals i have now. I have done ALOT of water changes in the past 6 weeks with no luck
 

bct15

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This sounds like phosphates/nitrates and high alk. High alk will stn the tips of the corals, then the high phosphates and high light will cause algae to grow on the exposed skeleton causing further stn and eventual death. What salt are you using and what is your specific gravity, ph, and alk. To help with algae growth move to a lower light and blast with high flow.
 
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duke62

duke62

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no i dont have high nitrates or po4. i have checked both like crazy the past 4 weeks and i dont have anything like that. my salinity is 1.026. temps around 79 to 80 constant and i run a calcium reactor and have been checking my alk also like crazy at all times of the day to see if im getting any swing and it runs from 8.0 to 7.7
 

Steviereefs

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Also how many of your friends Corals did you add. Maybe the alkalinity and calcium demand were stronger than what you were dosing, and eventually it caused a initial rtn then at that point if you increased dosing , the demand was actually much lower because the coral rtn weakened growth leading to a spike in alkalinity and calcium. We need to know were the rtn started. If it started at the base then all the sudden started from the tips down, this was probably the case.
 

bct15

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Have you been watching your ph consistently? Calcium reactors can cause ph drops, some sort of nutrients have to be there to cause that algae to grow. What salt are you using with the 1.026 specific gravity? If it is an "enhanced" salt like reef crystals or coral pro the higher specific gravity will cause a high alk and burn the tips and base of sticks. Typically acros, montis, and birds nest are not all effected by the same parasite, bacteria, etc the same but usually one will get effected and not the others.
 
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duke62

duke62

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i have been using reef crystals for 1 1/2 years. mostly all the corals i added from my friends tank were frags. nothing bigger then 2in.i have a 92 corner with a 20 gallon fuge a 20 gallon sump and a 10 gallon frag tank. i calculated i have 100 gallons of TWV. my ph is a little low. its at 7.9 i use a air stone by the effluent cup and use soda lime in a reactor attached to the skimmer to keep the PH from dropping
 
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duke62

duke62

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all the STNing is from the base up. It is so slow like i said. my red planet colony has been STNing now for over 2 months
 

Steviereefs

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Yeah I think your trying to keep you alk too low. Keep it at 10 or 11 even your Corals will do better because your alk won't dip into the sevens that's when bad things happen. Do yoy know your alk right now
 

Logzor

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Search my STN thread I have an identical problem. STN that very slowly occurs over months. I've tried everything from testing water samples from high end coral vendors (to ensure my kits are accurate) to running Cuprisorb thinking I had copper entering the system. All LPS, softies, and Montipora grow and look just fine.

I have determined asternia starfish are nibbling at the base causing a bacterial infection. I'm working removing them from the aquarium.
 

Murfman

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You say you use a Hanna phophate meter, whta is your PO4? I am having the same issue and my phosphates are off the chart. Alk, pH, Ca are all normal.
 
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duke62

duke62

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i have many asterina starfish but everyone i taliked to said its not them even though i see them at the base where they are stning. i was tod they are just eating the dead tissue
 

bct15

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I don't think asterina are sps predators, I have tons of them in my tank and they don't bother anything...except for maybe a dieing Zoa frag. I had a similar problem a while ago, I brought my specific gravity down to 1.024 - 1.025 and it stopped (I use two different hydrometers, one reads 1.024 and the other reads 1.025). I use to keep my specific gravity at 1.026 but measured the specific gravity of the shipping water of a large acro colony I received and it was 1.024 and the guy I got it from seemed to know what he is doing. I am currently using red sea coral pro and used to use reef crystals. I would see a little stn at the base an occasionally at the tips, the base would be slowly spreading then after a few weeks the stn would suddenly speed up (typically once it reached the stem) looking like my angel took a couple bites out of the stem base. I have found reducing light and increasing flow and spot feeding once a week seems to help, at least it diminishes algae growth on the coral giving it a chance.
 
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bct15

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Another thing that I found caused coral to die, my protein skimmer was randomly flooding while my auto top off and calcium reactor kept chugging along as usual causing swings in my parameters. This problem actually took me a couple months to trace down, I couldn't figure out why my Evap rate seemed so high. The dang thing only seemed to flood when I was out of town which was a lot, at least three times a month. This had similar symptoms as well, slow death to sensitive coral.
 

FaviaFreak

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I believe this all coincides and the timeline starts with the addition of his friends frags to his system after Sandy so I highly doubt this is a PH or a KH issue, the only time I see STN, RTN, burnt tips is with a high KH not a low one and his is near NSW levels so highly unlikely, in my experience a super low KH will cause color loss unless it was a sudden drop than RTN and STN could occur

there are sps eating asternia stars from the research I did a while back for another friend

http://www.garf.org/Star/starfish.html

h
ere is Logans thread
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/ge...-long-term-slow-tissue-necrosis-asterina.html
 
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duke62

duke62

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I'm going to a lfs tomorrow to pick up a Harley but it mostly is not that because the first corals to die off were in my frag tank and I have no stars in there. I'm still leaning towards bacterial. Can't find anything that helps fight the bacteria in tank. Any ideas?
 

LPS Hunter

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I had asterina's once that i attributed to STN issues I was having in my tank...got a harlequin, reduced the asterina population, haven't had STN issues since. Haven't changed anything in my routine before, during or since. I know that isn't very scientific but it was my experience. I couldn't figure out what was happening until late at night with flashlight, noticed A LOT of asterinas in the tank and some on my SPS...those corals started having issues almost immediately...I eliminate them on site now...(have since relocated the Harlequin)
 
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