99.9% RTN

[Bluedore]

I'm not looking for a quick fix here, but an educated clue would be nice.

For many years I've been adding SPS test frags that look okay for a week, but a week later the tissue is gone besides from a few polyps that can linger for months before they die as well.
The key words here are two weeks and 0.1% polyp survival rate.

The whole story is a huge wall of text so lets keep this on topic.

Did you started with dry rocks or rocks from someone else’s system? This happened to me as well for about a year and half, frags only last a few weeks to a couple of months and die. I checked/changed everything that is possible but the rocks, the rocks I got from someone that broken down their system. And finally suspecting something was leaching out from the rocks. After each water change you could see the plys are better and more extended but after a week or so will be back to deteriorating stages again. Finally, ordered all new ocean rocks from Florida and swop all the rocks and 80% of water. And that was 8 month’s ago, now everything is growing and no die off so far. That was my case and hope it’s helpful for you.

 

[Reefing102]

Regarding micro-biome, @JCOLE had bad bacteria in his system that is believed to be the cause of his issues in one of his tanks. I’m sure it’s posted here but couldn’t find it but here are his Aquabiomics Test Results on RC -
Post in thread 'JCole's big ol box of Acro's'
https://forums.reefcentral.com/threads/jcoles-big-ol-box-of-acros.32370977/post-32383091

Although they say no coral pathogens were found and it appears normal, I do notice a high level of Oceanospirillaceae bacteria.

I did some searching on all of the different bacteria found and the only thing I found of some importance was the Oceanospirillaceae.

I did an extensive search today and found a link for a really good paper on Bacterial Communities Associated with Healthy and Diseased Acropora cervicornis. In the paper I noticed in the diseased corals they found high levels of Oceanospirillaceae within the Gammaproteobacteria family/category, I believe.

https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1453&context=occ_stuetd

I noticed these references on pages 47, 95, 96, and 102.

I am no expert in this and could be 100% wrong. Could be something to it or nothing at all but I do think it's worth noting though.
https://forums.reefcentral.com/threads/jcoles-big-ol-box-of-acros.32370977/post-32383091

 

[ninjamyst]

You are going to get a lot of people telling you the problem is low phosphate and low nitrate. I assume you had a typo with nitrate of 0.2? Either way, raise your phosphate and nitrate slowly and see how the corals respond.

 

[backbayreef]

As others have stated, you’re likely starving your corals and they withered away. I would try to raise your N up >10 and P > 0.1. Our hobby-grade test kit may not be accurate so those parameters may be lower than they are. Either you dose more N & P or do what I do — stop/reduce WC, clean skimmer less or turn it off, and make the tank dirtier.

Frags: I would try stag horns, or easy to keep frags, that are already encrusted on the plug.

Good luck

 

[Dburr1014]

Yes, your frustrated.
I would still like to see a full tank picture in white light. Picture is worth a thousand words. So the text can be shorter. :)

I also will tell you to raise the phosphate.
I'm my book, NO3 is fine. (mine has been 0 for 3 months now). As long as you are feeding your fish, the coral are getting fed with ammonia/ammonium. My PO4 hovers at about 0.1
Fish eat, fish poo phosphate to feed bacteria, fish secrete ammonia to feed coral. Bacteria eat phosphate, coral eat the bacteria. So higher phosphate will be a good thing in your biome.

Which brings me to how many fish are in your system? Can you share the list?

 

[DNA]

I'm not frustrated at all since reefing is fun, but it is sad to see these test frags go.

I have tried shutting off the skimmer, Calcium and Carbon reactors and played with Kalkwasser. The first Calcium reactor shut off seemed to have a positive effect, but it could not be repeated. The whole range from a dirty tank to very clean has been tried.

Attached is a picture of a 1 inch Turbinaria I got last Sunday. It did not look stellar, but since I knew sort of where it was heading I bought it anyway and did not bother to take a picture on day one. I can tell it looks worse already and I'll post another picture in 10 days.

 

[Pod_01]

I'm not frustrated at all since reefing is fun, but it is sad to see these test frags go.

I have tried shutting off the skimmer, Calcium and Carbon reactors and played with Kalkwasser. The first Calcium reactor shut off seemed to have a positive effect, but it could not be repeated. The whole range from a dirty tank to very clean has been tried.

Attached is a picture of a 1 inch Turbinaria I got last Sunday. It did not look stellar, but since I knew sort of where it was heading I bought it anyway and did not bother to take a picture on day one. I can tell it looks worse already and I'll post another picture in 10 days.

Increase the PO4…..

Before I did that I was looking at these:

After increasing PO4 I am looking at these:

Still not perfect, but lot better view.

Good luck,

 

[jda]

There is no chance that no3 and po4 at the levels that you posted will cause complete death that fast. Do not worry about these. If you have a good amount of fish and feed them well, then your corals are getting enough nitrogen and phophorous (not nitrate and phosphate) from other sources. If your your softies are growing and stuff, then you are not limited.

Get back to the basics. Calibrate your refractometer and get the salinity up to 35ppt. Check your heater against something with mercury in it (or the like) or with a high quality laser temp gun. Do some water changes with a high quality salt. Make sure that the co2 in your home is not so high that the pH is super-duper low - pH is not a huge concern even at 7.8, but it can get lower if people never let fresh air in.

Low salinity is really the only reason why I have seen frags die this fast, so just double and triple check that salinity reading.

I assume that you get your frags from different sources? If not, I would switch it up after you double check everything.

 

[DNA]

Which brings me to how many fish are in your system?

I's say about medium bio load and they are well fed. I'd estimate they all would displace less than half a gallon.

Increase the PO4

That seems to have worked well for sad corals that do not die in a flash.

Calibrate your refractometer

I've thought of and done everything you mention and compared my refractometer with two other and a swing arm. I have also nudged salinity up and down a little.

Did you started with dry rocks

My restart with dry rocks was one of the first thing I did way to many years ago. I had access to a very succesful Colossal tank for sand and rocks with their biome so that felt like I had eliminated the possibility of a natural pest..

---

I really appreciate the efforts from all of you !

 

[DNA]

One more thing I have to mention is being generous with reefers. Surely some of you have heard about the 2000g CCP tank. I gave them lots of frags, when they started 2008, from all my corals. They all did extremely well and it is a joy to see them growing into huge colonies. I got lots of free frags back after my troubles started.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

One more thing I have to mention is being generous with reefers. Surely some of you have heard about the 2000g CCP tank. I gave them lots of frags, when they started 2008, from all my corals. They all did extremely well and it is a joy to see them growing into huge colonies. I got lots of free frags back after my troubles started.

How long has this specific tank been setup? Was it new when you got it or was it a used tank?

 

[JCOLE]

Regarding micro-biome, @JCOLE had bad bacteria in his system that is believed to be the cause of his issues in one of his tanks. I’m sure it’s posted here but couldn’t find it but here are his Aquabiomics Test Results on RC -
Post in thread 'JCole's big ol box of Acro's'
https://forums.reefcentral.com/threads/jcoles-big-ol-box-of-acros.32370977/post-32383091

Yes, I had a bad bacteria/pathogen that took out almost all of my corals. This all started happening after I took my UV offline. After dosing antibiotics, everything turned around.

@DNA PM me if you think it might be a bacterial issue and want some help with dosages, etc.

 

[DNA]

Various kinds of scavengers seem to be chewing at it, but I think that is to be expected from a dying coral and most likely not the primary cause. Those are not verified organisms since the whole coral is only about 1 inch and I need a lot more magnification.

 

[Dburr1014]

Various kinds of scavengers seem to be chewing at it, but I think that is to be expected from a dying coral and most likely not the primary cause. Those are not verified organisms since the whole coral is only about 1 inch and I need a lot more magnification.

Black bugs?

 

[OscarHaglund]

Given the time span of this problem a two year old ICP test is quite recent and these specific RTN symptoms were the same then as they are now. Still I have another ICP test planned soon. I've tried so many things over so many years there is hardly anything left to try out.

I really wanted to spare you the huge wall of text that people would not bother to read anyway, but nobody today at least has encountered RTN in this way so here are some quick answers.

For maintenance I've left it alone for 6 months to extreme care and everything between.
I use test kits for 7 parameters and measure for stray voltage and check for corrosion.

For water changes I've tried from none to 15% a week for months.

I've tried acros mostly in the past, but now I aim mostly for the easier corals like turbinaria or montipora.

Yesterdays parameters: Ca 420, Alk, 8.5, Mg 1450, Phosphate 0.02 Nitrate 0.20.

For flow right now I'm using 2 Tunze Streams and the return pump of course.
I've tried lots of different flow setups using 3-6 pumps.

For lighting I have 3 Coral Care and two Red sea reefer led lights.
I know of tanks of similar size that can keep the most light demanding coral alive with 3 Coral Cares.
Of course I've tried lots of various lenghts and intensities and even placed same species high and low for comparison.

Hammers have done well and I had lots of Monti caps since they grew very well, but I lost them all over a few months time about two years ago.

The fish are doing grea tand I have no problem keeping fish like mandarin, anthias and copperband alive for years.

You totally forgot to ask me about biome and bacteria since in the modern reefkeeping world of boat rock and limited bio diversity that is where I'm looking right now for answers. I had success with SPS for the first 10 years in the hobby, when I knew a lot less than I do now.

I have 20+ years of experience, abundance of patience, heaps of knowledge and the will to carry on.

Enough of text already.

Consider an aquabiomics test if your in the us. Will tell you if you have any known pathogens

 

[DNA]

Here are more pictures of that Turbinaria. It went really fast from ok to bad, but it's still lingering. This is the forth Turbinaria test frag over a year or so. First one died in two weeks. Second looked stressed for around 3 months and then died 99%, but left 3 polyps for six months that died with the next one. Third died in two weeks. This is the forth and it looks miserable after 2 weeks.

 

[DNA]

Here is the other test frag I bought with the Turbinaria, it looked healthy on day one, but the tissue necrosis is more obvious and dramatic here on these photos from days 4 and 14 in my tank.
These are easy corals, the clues are there and the tank is very stable at how it kills them.

 

[Pod_01]

So out of curiosity what have you tried to change over the last 2 years to improve the tank? I see maintenance, flow maybe lights…
Adding new corals for 2 years and hoping for different result, well there is name for that.

If you tried all of the provided educated clues and all failed, perhaps it is time to start new, new rocks, new substrate etc… keep the fish.

On my system I can make changes and generally within 2-3 weeks I can tell if it was a good idea or bad idea. At 1 year mark of failure I be changing things up drastically and looking to hire some experts for consultation if I plan to stay in the hobby.

Good luck, I am out of educated clues.

 

[DNA]

So out of curiosity

I've tried and done all you mentioned except for hiring experts.

This has 1000 views and I take it as an educated clue that none have seen RTN behave this way.
I think this is the end of it and I'd like to thank those that gave it a shot.

 

[Acros]

I think your tank is not mature yet. It is hard to say without a full tank shot.

Starting with dry rock is a gamble. We have seen people have success with dry rock however there is a significant portion that never achieved tank maturity after 2-5 years.