RTN and antibiotic questions for Dr Craig Bingman

[UK_Pete]

Dr Craig Bingman recently popped up on our forum, and since I had quoted him and his use of antibiotics in the past to cure RTN, I asked him if he would answer a couple of questions on this topic, since we still have made no progress in halting or preventing RTN from way back when his antibiotic experiments were conducted.

Heres a link to an article by Craig on RTN and various treatments:

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/c_bingman_040697.html

Craig, in that article you mention that antibiotic therapy is the only sure fire way to cure RTN. Obviously quite a bit of time has passed so firstly, has anything changed or is that advise as valid as it was in 1997? Several papers have been published since then which seem to agree that bacterial infection is frequently the cause of RTN, although there have been a couple of studies which have failed to find differences in the bacteria associated with healthy vs unhealthy corals. But the impression I get is that the bulk of the evidence from various types of studies shows that bacteria are implicated more times than not. Also a couple of studies (at least) have tested antibiotics against controls with corals suffering RTN and they have found several antibiotics to reliably cure the RTN, as you found when you tried it.

Since a couple of people have raised concerns regarding hobby use of antibiotics for curing corals, could I also ask your opinion of that? Their concern is that use by people like 'ordinary hobbyists' will contribute to general antibiotic resistance. In your article that I linked to you are very clear that antibiotic must be destroyed prior to putting it down the drain with bleach, but is the danger of a few users omitting this step so high that non professionals should steer clear of using antibiotics?

Thanks, Pete

 

[craigbingman]

Dr Craig Bingman recently popped up on our forum, and since I had quoted him and his use of antibiotics in the past to cure RTN, I asked him if he would answer a couple of questions on this topic, since we still have made no progress in halting or preventing RTN from way back when his antibiotic experiments were conducted.

Heres a link to an article by Craig on RTN and various treatments:

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/c_bingman_040697.html

Craig, in that article you mention that antibiotic therapy is the only sure fire way to cure RTN. Obviously quite a bit of time has passed so firstly, has anything changed or is that advise as valid as it was in 1997? Several papers have been published since then which seem to agree that bacterial infection is frequently the cause of RTN, although there have been a couple of studies which have failed to find differences in the bacteria associated with healthy vs unhealthy corals. But the impression I get is that the bulk of the evidence from various types of studies shows that bacteria are implicated more times than not. Also a couple of studies (at least) have tested antibiotics against controls with corals suffering RTN and they have found several antibiotics to reliably cure the RTN, as you found when you tried it.

Since a couple of people have raised concerns regarding hobby use of antibiotics for curing corals, could I also ask your opinion of that? Their concern is that use by people like 'ordinary hobbyists' will contribute to general antibiotic resistance. In your article that I linked to you are very clear that antibiotic must be destroyed prior to putting it down the drain with bleach, but is the danger of a few users omitting this step so high that non professionals should steer clear of using antibiotics?

Thanks, Pete

HI Pete,

I think some things have definitely changed since 1997.

First, there is very solid evidence now in the scientific literature that there are in fact diseases of corals that can be caused by corals. So the work that I and others started in the 90s has been successfully concluded now.

There is also a good body of evidence that stress conditions in corals can arise from infestations of more complex organisms, like "red bugs." They can put a lot of pressure on a coral colony and heavy infestations can precipitate its rapid decline. Death might finally come from a bacterial infection, but it is clear these parasites are the primary stressors in some cases, and curing them can restore the coral colony to good health.

I think we are also much better now than we were in the mid 90s at providing suitable environments to keep corals healthy. There have been spectacular advances in coral feeds, chemistry, lighting and flow since then.

With respect to whole-tank antibiotic treatments... that was purely a last gasp sort of activity and is best avoided. If I were facing that kind of crisis again, I would probably pull the affected colonies, be mindful of what we know about larger coral parasites, and do absolutely everything that I could do manage the problem without systemic use of antibiotics in a display aquarium.

Regarding antibiotic resistance, one of the attractions of chloramphenicol is that it is rarely used in humans anymore, because of an uncommon but fatal side effect in a small percentage of the population. If you are susceptible, it basically kills your mitochondria and you die a rather gruesome death. Many people substituted doxycycline, which is safer for humans but unfortunately is commonly used in humans. Antibiotic resistance was an issue of growing concern in 1997, but it is a much larger problem today, and we need to be even more careful to avoid unnecessary use of antibiotics. Yes, if one were to use an antibiotic, it would be nice to try to limit the amount that enters the environment (for example by bleaching skimmate before pouring it down the drain) but it is probably even better to simply avoid widespread use of antibiotics in aquariums.

It is much better to head off problems before they occur, so quarantine new specimens before adding them to the aquarium. They should be held for a couple of weeks before putting them into the main system, and they should be carefully inspected for any signs of large parasites or tissue regression. It is much better to treat these issues in an isolation tank than it is in a display system, where there may be tremendous collateral damage from either anti-parasitic meds or antibiotic use.

Although we have much better tools at our disposal than in the mid-1990s, their application and our success creates new challenges. As corals rapidly grow in our systems, we should be mindful of the effects that growth has on water flow and the light field in the aquarium. It might be fair to say that in a system with rapidly growing stony corals, we are confronted with the challenges of a "new" system on a monthly basis as corals grow, shade others, and stagnate flow in the system. As there are winners in our tanks, there are also losers, the poor corals that are shaded out and deprived of adequate flow. A lot of people have a program of benign neglect about these cases, but sometimes it may be better to move or remove the corals that are being outcompeted, or be more active in pruning the fast growers to keep the flow and light field more consistent over time.

If you have specific questions about anything I didn't cover or covered incompletely, please ask.

 

[UK_Pete]

Thanks for the reply Craig, very interesting.


I guess ideally we would never have the primary stressors you mention, but sometimes encounter them. But then also there are times that our parameters might deviate from the ideal, especially so in the smaller tanks that lots of aquarists have, and also the stress that new purchases go through in the process of getting to our tanks, and we do see RTN and STN from time to time. Sometimes we see people here who are in the process of loosing a whole tank of SPS to RTN / STN too.


Sometimes corals will be too large or attached to substrates to be removed from the DT, but frequently they can be removed and quarantined, or at least frags removed and potentially saved, and its been in this setting that I have been interested in using antibiotics myself. My LFS recently had a parameter problem which led to STN on many frags, and I took several of these home for free in the hope that I might cure them in my QT. I tried several things like dips, a high power UV unit, additives etc but had zero success. But having previously lost most of my frags a couple of years ago to STN it stoked my interest in seeing if any of the suggested cures worked, which for me at least they didn't. Thats when I came across your articles and became interested in antibiotics.


So moving the discussion from the whole tank treatment that you outlined in your article to a QT setting, would you think this would be an appropriate and balanced approach for those of us who do encounter an outbreak of RTN / STN type infection? Would your opinion be that if an aquarist who was suffering RTN on either a small frag, or a prized coral, should use the antibiotic if it was available to them, or basically let it go and chalk it up to experience, bearing in mind your comments about avoiding widespread use of antibiotics in aquaria? In a QT tank, it would be easy to ensure that no antibiotic was put down the drain without prior destruction, and there would seem to be far less potential routes for resistant bacteria to escape. The system would be sterilised post use as a whole by dumping bleach in after removal of cured corals and if the cure was unsuccessful, the whole QT with dead coral in could be bleached.


On a technical side, regarding the antibiotics that would be useful, ampicilin was recently mentioned in a paper I read as 100% effective in that study against RTN. The didn't test chloramphenicol, but they did test several others and only one whos name escapes me was as effective, with the rest either only halting progress temporarily or not having any effect. In terms of availability chloramphenicol seems completely unavailable unless its imported direct from China, but there are a few antibiotics which are more available, amoxicillin being the most easily available and cheapest where I am. Not being a biochemist despite reading about the different mechanism that ampicillin and amoxicillin use to target bacteria, I am none the wiser as to what is likely to work for the vibrio bacteria family, for instance, and I wondered if you might be able to say what alternatives are similar in action to ampicillin and chloramphenicol.


Thanks, Pete

 

[-Logzor]

What are your thoughts relative to RTN/STN being caused by chemical reactions resulting from rusting/corroding neodymium magnets commonly found in reef aquarium pump impellers? Rusting magnets are a common problem in reef aquariums, sometimes this issue goes misdiagnosed for weeks or months. In some cases the result is STN on SPS corals. I battled this problem for months on end, trying many different remedies to stop the STN. I was able to solve the STN issue only after discovering and removing the rusting magnet. Interestingly, the coral can appear in excellent health and experience STN.

To solve STN or sometimes even RTN I will superglue over the base of the coral to stop the spread, this technique is often successful. This can happen with corals that appear perfectly healthy, with no pests. Are there more advanced treatments? Our current solution is the medieval equivalent of sawing off limbs.

 

[craigbingman]

Thanks for the reply Craig, very interesting.


I guess ideally we would never have the primary stressors you mention, but sometimes encounter them. But then also there are times that our parameters might deviate from the ideal, especially so in the smaller tanks that lots of aquarists have, and also the stress that new purchases go through in the process of getting to our tanks, and we do see RTN and STN from time to time. Sometimes we see people here who are in the process of loosing a whole tank of SPS to RTN / STN too.


Sometimes corals will be too large or attached to substrates to be removed from the DT, but frequently they can be removed and quarantined, or at least frags removed and potentially saved, and its been in this setting that I have been interested in using antibiotics myself. My LFS recently had a parameter problem which led to STN on many frags, and I took several of these home for free in the hope that I might cure them in my QT. I tried several things like dips, a high power UV unit, additives etc but had zero success. But having previously lost most of my frags a couple of years ago to STN it stoked my interest in seeing if any of the suggested cures worked, which for me at least they didn't. Thats when I came across your articles and became interested in antibiotics.


So moving the discussion from the whole tank treatment that you outlined in your article to a QT setting, would you think this would be an appropriate and balanced approach for those of us who do encounter an outbreak of RTN / STN type infection? Would your opinion be that if an aquarist who was suffering RTN on either a small frag, or a prized coral, should use the antibiotic if it was available to them, or basically let it go and chalk it up to experience, bearing in mind your comments about avoiding widespread use of antibiotics in aquaria? In a QT tank, it would be easy to ensure that no antibiotic was put down the drain without prior destruction, and there would seem to be far less potential routes for resistant bacteria to escape. The system would be sterilised post use as a whole by dumping bleach in after removal of cured corals and if the cure was unsuccessful, the whole QT with dead coral in could be bleached.


On a technical side, regarding the antibiotics that would be useful, ampicilin was recently mentioned in a paper I read as 100% effective in that study against RTN. The didn't test chloramphenicol, but they did test several others and only one whos name escapes me was as effective, with the rest either only halting progress temporarily or not having any effect. In terms of availability chloramphenicol seems completely unavailable unless its imported direct from China, but there are a few antibiotics which are more available, amoxicillin being the most easily available and cheapest where I am. Not being a biochemist despite reading about the different mechanism that ampicillin and amoxicillin use to target bacteria, I am none the wiser as to what is likely to work for the vibrio bacteria family, for instance, and I wondered if you might be able to say what alternatives are similar in action to ampicillin and chloramphenicol.


Thanks, Pete

Pete,

Vibrio are gram-negative bacteria and they should be susceptible to ampicillin as long as they don't harbor a resistance gene. Regarding resistance, there is still frequent use of beta-lactam antibiotics in humans, and we should all be worried about resistance. On the positive side, it is fairly readily available, and it is freely water soluble. Amoxicillin is in the same class of compounds (both beta-lactam, aminopenicillins, both blocking cell wall biosynthesis in gram-negative bacteria.)

At this point I'm going to say that I am absolutely not a DVM and the comments that I am making are of a purely theoretical nature.

I would stay away from Chinese chloramphenicol. The problem with it, and the related compounds is that they may be quite toxic to a small subset of the population, and you have no way of knowing if you are in that subset prior to exposure. The only way I could suggest that you obtain some would be through a vet. Some analogs of chloramphenicol are used in animals. They are bacteriostatic agents and inhibit protein biosynthesis by binding to the ribosome.

Using antibiotics in smaller volumes of water, outside the display tank would theoretically be a much better way to use them that in a display aquarium. You could be careful to dispose of all waste in a safe manner.

 

[craigbingman]

What are your thoughts relative to RTN/STN being caused by chemical reactions resulting from rusting/corroding neodymium magnets commonly found in reef aquarium pump impellers? Rusting magnets are a common problem in reef aquariums, sometimes this issue goes misdiagnosed for weeks or months. In some cases the result is STN on SPS corals. I battled this problem for months on end, trying many different remedies to stop the STN. I was able to solve the STN issue only after discovering and removing the rusting magnet. Interestingly, the coral can appear in excellent health and experience STN.

To solve STN or sometimes even RTN I will superglue over the base of the coral to stop the spread, this technique is often successful. This can happen with corals that appear perfectly healthy, with no pests. Are there more advanced treatments? Our current solution is the medieval equivalent of sawing off limbs.

When people say neodymium magnets, they are often referring to "rare earth" magnets. There are several kinds. In particular there are samarium magnets that contain Sm(Co,Fe,Cu,Zr)7. I think you can see some potential for problems right there beyond the rare earth content. Neodymium magnets don't have any other scary elements alloyed, but most of the rare earth elements are known to have at least limited toxicity. It seems like not a very big stretch to imagine that they might be toxic to calcifying organisms. I would think that their concentrations should be easily limited by free phosphate in the system. I found a reference that indicates that the solubility products of all of the trivalent rare earth phosphates are between pK 24.8 to 26. That means they are rock insoluble, and free inorganic phosphate should sharply limit their solubility. I am curious if anyone read measurable free phosphate in the systems where corroding rare earth magnets were implicated in coral toxicity?

Craig

 

[-Logzor]

When people say neodymium magnets, they are often referring to "rare earth" magnets. There are several kinds. In particular there are samarium magnets that contain Sm(Co,Fe,Cu,Zr)7. I think you can see some potential for problems right there beyond the rare earth content. Neodymium magnets don't have any other scary elements alloyed, but most of the rare earth elements are known to have at least limited toxicity. It seems like not a very big stretch to imagine that they might be toxic to calcifying organisms. I would think that their concentrations should be easily limited by free phosphate in the system. I found a reference that indicates that the solubility products of all of the trivalent rare earth phosphates are between pK 24.8 to 26. That means they are rock insoluble, and free inorganic phosphate should sharply limit their solubility. I am curious if anyone read measurable free phosphate in the systems where corroding rare earth magnets were implicated in coral toxicity?

Craig

I think this is a topic that needs to be further explored. I have a cracked skimmer pump impeller magnet. Maybe we could drop in it some saltwater and see what gets released? While I can't prove this is a cause for STN, I highly suspect it. I'm not sure what the typical composition is of the magnets used in impellers.

Does it change anything when a cracked/rusting magnet is exposed to a magnetic field? For example, if my cracked/rusting impeller is still running in my skimmer pump? Would this impact water quality any different than the rusting magnet sitting alone in the water?

 

[craigbingman]

I think this is a topic that needs to be further explored. I have a cracked skimmer pump impeller magnet. Maybe we could drop in it some saltwater and see what gets released? While I can't prove this is a cause for STN, I highly suspect it. I'm not sure what the typical composition is of the magnets used in impellers.

Does it change anything when a cracked/rusting magnet is exposed to a magnetic field? For example, if my cracked/rusting impeller is still running in my skimmer pump? Would this impact water quality any different than the rusting magnet sitting alone in the water?

Sure you could test that particular magnet to see what it releases into the water. Copper would be easy to find, but some of the other elements are not and would require more sophisticated detection, like ICP. People should think about the phosphate angle. If either Samarium or Neodymium are toxic, their phosphate salts are super insoluble. Just letting your phosphate drift up a bit might be all that is required to mitigate any toxicity. Let me know if you make any additional determinations on the magnets in your system. I don't think that the magnetic fields would affect solubility, beyond things should become more soluble more quickly if there is water flow around the magnet. More flow should speed up corrosion and dissolution.

 

[-Logzor]

Sure you could test that particular magnet to see what it releases into the water. Copper would be easy to find, but some of the other elements are not and would require more sophisticated detection, like ICP. People should think about the phosphate angle. If either Samarium or Neodymium are toxic, their phosphate salts are super insoluble. Just letting your phosphate drift up a bit might be all that is required to mitigate any toxicity. Let me know if you make any additional determinations on the magnets in your system. I don't think that the magnetic fields would affect solubility, beyond things should become more soluble more quickly if there is water flow around the magnet. More flow should speed up corrosion and dissolution.

Good point, a spinning rusting magnet would release more / decay more quickly than one sitting idle. I wonder if the Triton test would include those other elements?

Is the phosphate you're referring to different than the phosphate that gets released if I feed too much?

 

[UK_Pete]

Thanks Craig,

At this point I'm going to say that I am absolutely not a DVM and the comments that I am making are of a purely theoretical nature.

Totally understand.

I'm far less enthusiastic about trying antibiotics since you have made your position clear there but while you are here, its worth getting any remaining technical details about the experiences you had. If in the future an antibiotic is available specifically for fish use (that is, in the UK where I am - I think in the US there are already antibiotics available for non licensed use), I will kick myself for not asking while we had your help.

So regarding dosage, in the linked article you suggest a dose of 2.5 to 5 mg / litre of water. Would you still use this dosage and for ampicillin and amoxicillin, would you try the same dosage?

Also, what length of treatment would you do yourself in a QT from your experience?

And lastly regarding the bacterial bloom which follows dosing chloramphenicol, I assume this would also happen with the above two alternatives, and probably most antibiotics? Is the mechanism the breakdown of the antibiotic itself by bacteria which are not susceptible to its antibiotic action, which are just consuming it as a carbon source? So once the bloom has appeared, little to no active compound will remain in the water if so I imagine. Since in a QT the volume of water would be less, I would assume doing 100% water changes a day before the bloom is expected would be the best way to go?

Thanks, Pete

 

[craigbingman]

Thanks Craig,



Totally understand.

I'm far less enthusiastic about trying antibiotics since you have made your position clear there but while you are here, its worth getting any remaining technical details about the experiences you had. If in the future an antibiotic is available specifically for fish use (that is, in the UK where I am - I think in the US there are already antibiotics available for non licensed use), I will kick myself for not asking while we had your help.

So regarding dosage, in the linked article you suggest a dose of 2.5 to 5 mg / litre of water. Would you still use this dosage and for ampicillin and amoxicillin, would you try the same dosage?

Also, what length of treatment would you do yourself in a QT from your experience?

And lastly regarding the bacterial bloom which follows dosing chloramphenicol, I assume this would also happen with the above two alternatives, and probably most antibiotics? Is the mechanism the breakdown of the antibiotic itself by bacteria which are not susceptible to its antibiotic action, which are just consuming it as a carbon source? So once the bloom has appeared, little to no active compound will remain in the water if so I imagine. Since in a QT the volume of water would be less, I would assume doing 100% water changes a day before the bloom is expected would be the best way to go?

Pete, Thank you, I think we understand each other clearly. Continuing on in a hypothetical manner, and definitely not as a DVM, I would say that 5-10 mg/L is a good amount of either ampicillin or amoxicillin to use. You will get some wild bacterial dynamics in the QT, so I would suggest doing a 100% water exchange every day if you can afford it, along with replacement of the antibiotic. If not, then as large a partial water exchange as you can make. Even if bacteria are not using the antibiotic as a carbon source, the resistance substances to ampicillin and amoxicillin are beta-lactamases and are generally secreted, so they give confer protection to all of the bacteria, even ones without the resistance marker, and will be building up in the water. A week always seems to be a pretty good baseline for antibiotic treatment, but this treatment situation is pretty demanding, especially since you would be bleaching the exchanged water before discarding it. Several days might be enough.

 

[craigbingman]

Good point, a spinning rusting magnet would release more / decay more quickly than one sitting idle. I wonder if the Triton test would include those other elements?

Is the phosphate you're referring to different than the phosphate that gets released if I feed too much?

ICP-OES is a great way to quantitate rare earth elements, but the default Triton test doesn't include them. That would be a service that one would need to specially negotiate. If one was doing that, they might want to measure Zirconium and a few others too.

Yes, the phosphate I am taking about is the very one that gets released when you feed too much. ;-) I know that it is a little alien to think of phosphate as perhaps being protective against something toxic, but the phosphate salts of rare earth elements are very insoluble. Everyone who is familiar with Joe Y and his beautiful reef exhibit knows that he doses lanthanum chloride to maintain fairly low concentrations of inorganic phosphate. Joe and I have talked about this a lot over the years, and his current practice is to carefully dose the lanthanum chloride so that at least a trace of phosphate remains in the water. As long as there is free phosphate, the lanthanum ion concentration is limited and must be very small. A chemical quantity called the solubility product places an upper bound on the concentration of free lanthanum ions at any given phosphate concentration. I'm applying the same sort of logic to decaying rare earth magnets. If you can measure free phosphate in the system, the concentration of soluble rare earth elements in the water must be pretty low, and you can be sure it is low even if you don't have a specific test for that element. If I also had to guess, I would say that the concentration of rare earth elements would be more limited at higher pH values, since they have rock insoluble hydroxides, and the higher pH will also increase the concentration of tri-ionized phosphate, which is the species of phosphate that makes LaPO4 or SmPO4 or NdPO4.

 

[UK_Pete]

Hi Craig,

Its good to have the info down in a thread for future reference. I do wonder if in the US this is already 'condoned' by vets if antibiotics are already available for aquarium use - whether that approval only extends to use on fish, or would corals be included if the approval is for aquarium use. Not asking the question but it would be something to investigate if anyone did want to try it in the US. As for the UK, I don't think there are any antibiotics sold for aquarium use so there is nothing over the counter, but that said we are allowed to import antibiotics for personal use. I believe we are also allowed to import antibiotics for pet use, whether that covers aquarium use I would need to look into.

Anyway back to the hypothetical side of it, its interesting that the substances that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics are secreted and so can confer resistance to other bacteria without the resistance genes. So as these substances build up, the efficacy of the antibiotic to control the (say) vibrio bacteria would diminish too?

Would the ammonia oxidising bacteria be killed by the antibiotic? If so I guess ammonia would build up, so another method of ammonia removal would be required? I believe there are some polymers sold which claim to remove ammonia from saltwater, do you think these would be suitable?

Thanks, Pete

 

[craigbingman]

Hi Craig,

Its good to have the info down in a thread for future reference. I do wonder if in the US this is already 'condoned' by vets if antibiotics are already available for aquarium use - whether that approval only extends to use on fish, or would corals be included if the approval is for aquarium use. Not asking the question but it would be something to investigate if anyone did want to try it in the US. As for the UK, I don't think there are any antibiotics sold for aquarium use so there is nothing over the counter, but that said we are allowed to import antibiotics for personal use. I believe we are also allowed to import antibiotics for pet use, whether that covers aquarium use I would need to look into.

Anyway back to the hypothetical side of it, its interesting that the substances that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics are secreted and so can confer resistance to other bacteria without the resistance genes. So as these substances build up, the efficacy of the antibiotic to control the (say) vibrio bacteria would diminish too?

Would the ammonia oxidising bacteria be killed by the antibiotic? If so I guess ammonia would build up, so another method of ammonia removal would be required? I believe there are some polymers sold which claim to remove ammonia from saltwater, do you think these would be suitable?

Thanks, Pete

Hi Pete.

There are a lot of different kinds of resistance factors. Taking chloramphenicol as an example, there are ribosomal mutations that confer resistance, and that operates purely intracellularly and has no direct effect on the neighbors. The kanamycin resistance factor is intraceullular (not secreted) but it does indirectly decrease the amount of antibiotic in the culture by destroying the kanamycin within the cells. Other resistance factors are secreted, like beta-lactamase, and benefits the entire herd, including bad guys who might not have a copy of the gene.

There absolutely are gram-negative ammonia oxidizing bacteria, and those would be killed by amp or amoxicillin. Ammonia oxidizers are a functional description rather than a phylogenic group, though, so there may be others that perform that function that are not affected. I think that for an illuminated coral QT tank, there would be relatively little ammonia buildup, but it would be best controlled through largish partial water exchanges that bring in fresh antibiotic. One of these days I will build my ultimate QT tank that includes an advanced oxidizing rig and a pump to replace the drug as rapidly as it is destroyed by the oxidizer. That probably won't happen this evening, though. ;-)

 

[UK_Pete]

Hi Craig,

I guess the upshot is that as you say, replacing the water frequently is ideal, to prevent any chance of these resistance substances building up. Trying to understand how those processes interplay is too hard for me at least. If daily replacement has worked for others, that sounds like a good proven way to go.

When you mention advanced oxidation, do you mean AOP as in UV/peroxide or similar? The idea being I guess to destroy ammonia, biological secretions and antibiotic, and redose, rather than replace water daily? I was recently reading about a UV/peroxide process that some researchers had applied to aquaculture to reduce organics that was interesting. Is that the kind of thing you are envisioning?

I guess another way to control ammonia if it was expected to build up due to part of the coral already being severely damaged might be algae, like an ATS, do you think this might survive the action of the antibiotic? That way perhaps the risk of having no ammonia oxidizing bacteria that are compatible with the antibiotic might be avoided.

I have been wondering about the 'ultimate coral healing rig' being some kind of flow through cell of minimal volume, with a dosing pump dosing whatever chemical additions one chooses to a stream of water flowing from a new salt water holding tank to the small coral holding cell. Complicated but maybe useful to reduce treatment chemicals required if they are expensive. Effluent could flow into a waste tank, ready to be bleached in one go at the end of treatment.

 

[Ehsan@triton]

Good point, a spinning rusting magnet would release more / decay more quickly than one sitting idle. I wonder if the Triton test would include those other elements?

Is the phosphate you're referring to different than the phosphate that gets released if I feed too much?

ICP-OES is a great way to quantitate rare earth elements, but the default Triton test doesn't include them. That would be a service that one would need to specially negotiate. If one was doing that, they might want to measure Zirconium and a few others too.

Hey guys , we could do that with our ICP and we would not charge more, but you would need to contact me afterwards.
Our ICP scans and saves the whole spectrum of measurment for all Elements that can be detected, so if you want I can have a look on the things you want to find afterwards. It would be a qualitativ detection but still would help you I guess.

All the best Ehsan

 

[79chopperdr]

great thread, thank you

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

great thread, thank you

How did I miss this? Thanks for bumping it up!

 

[eLReef]

This thread deserves a bump. Great information!

Hi Craig,

I had a real bad case of RTN a few years back and was given a few tablets of Chloramphenicol 500mg. I didn’t try using them because I wasn’t sure on what dosage to use since the strength of the tablet was 500mg. Instead I decided to break down my tank and start of new. Curious If I were to ever experience RTN again how much water and what method would you recommend for a tablet of this strength?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, Craig hasn't been on since June, but maybe he will see it.