A disease is wiping out Caribbean corals. Coming soon to a reef tank near you?

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Eli;
Is this the one I have in my aquarium?
Ken
Hi Ken,

I've recently updated my code to make it easier to compare data from different sequencing runs. I just double checked to confirm and the good news or bad news is that no, the Vibrio in your tank is not the one associated with SCTLD.

I'll expand briefly here in hopes this will provide a useful example of Vibrio diversity. Your first sample had 3 types of Vibrio (none of which are identified to the species level, all are Vibrio sp). We were interested in one of these (lets call it sv441, for "sequence variant 441") because it had shown up in very few tanks at that point, and one of them had a suffered a major coral dieoff.

Since that time, I've subsequently found this same Vibrio (sv441) in a few other tanks at comparable levels with yours. Including a couple of my display tanks which have healthy Acros currently and at the time of sampling.

So good news is that I see no evidence in your tank of the SCTLD-associated Vibrio (sv250)...

-Eli
 
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rhodium1

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Please keep us updated I lost 95% of all my Duncan’s, torches and hammers along with the few SPS I had. A few of my hammers have started to regrow tiny heads from microscopic tissue that must have survived.
I treated with Chemiclean per the instructions on the box a couple of days ago and haven't seen any positive changes yet. I also ordered some Furan-2 that I may try. I'll try to keep updating here. I'm afraid I'm going to end up losing the whole tank to this. It is starting to affect corals that earlier were looking just fine.
 
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Thought I'd update this with a quick summary of tissue necrosis in tanks containing these bacteria.

At least half of the tanks containing some of these SCTLD-associated bacteria reported coral tissue necrosis.
Type of Bacteria presentOccurrence of Coral Tissue Necrosis
Vibrio sp. (sv250)3 / 6 (50%)
Fusibacter sp. (sv2027)2 / 3 (67%)
Unclassified Chryomorphaceae1 / 2 (50%)
In contrast, across the whole database, only 1/4 of tanks (25%) reported coral tissue necrosis. This observation suggests that these bacteria are associated with coral tissue necrosis in our home aquariums, as in natural reefs and researchers' experimental tanks.

I caution the reader that because of the small sample size, these differences are not significant according to statistical tests. If we continue to see the same proportions, the differences should become significant once we find about 15-20 more tanks with these bacteria.

The fourth (Planktotalea sp. sv 438) shows no evidence of an association with coral tissue necrosis in our tanks (1/9, or 11% of tanks having this bug report coral tissue necrosis).

--

By itself this observation wouldnt convince me one way or the other. But taking all the evidence together...
  • These bacteria are strongly associated with coral disease in nature and in experiments
  • Most of these bacteria have been previously associated with coral disease
  • Aquariums having some of these bacteria appear to be about twice as likely to report coral tissue necrosis as tanks lacking these bacteria

I think it is a reasonable conclusion that these are undesirable bacteria for the home aquarium.
 

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A simple $150 microscope from Amazon will confirm that there is more to the picture than bacteria. The guy from Prime Coral is correct about philaster present and most likely the primary in the majority of STN/RTN cases. I have dozens of videos of the little SOBs hard at work. All it takes is a $150 microscope to see them.
 
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A simple $150 microscope from Amazon will confirm that there is more to the picture than bacteria. The guy from Prime Coral is correct about philaster present and most likely the primary in the majority of STN/RTN cases. I have dozens of videos of the little SOBs hard at work. All it takes is a $150 microscope to see them.
Respectfully, that microscope won't show you whether there is a change in the bacterial community any more than looking at it with the naked eye. So groups using a microscope will be predisposed to finding what they can see, which will be things larger than bacteria.

I certainly wouldnt rule out a role for ciliates in aquarium RTN/STN, but the many studies of White Syndrome, SCTLD, and related tissue necrosis in nature clearly point to a bacterial cause. In some cases formally fulfilling the requirements to identify it as a pathogen.

My gut feeling is that tissue necrosis syndromes in corals are not all the same, but are similar responses to a range of different bacterial pathogens and eukaryotic parasites. There is so much evidence of bacterial involvement its hard to ignore, but its also hard to argue with direct observations of ciliates in a particular case of RTN.
 

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Small world! I live nearby and JC leases are much lower than surrounding areas, it's a great place for a small business.

I'd be curious to know if your tank has any of these SCTLD bacteria ... I do not think we have any tests of chemiclean in the pipeline yet, but it sure would be interesting to see if this widely used additive affects these bacteria.
Sorry to bring up an old post, but did you ever get any samples of chemiclean treated tanks? Curios what a before/after bacteria population looks like.
 

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Im bringing this thread back up after receiving a new AquaBiomics test result.

My test showed that I have SCTLD in my tank. I have been battling a mysterious RTN/STN event in my tank for months now. All parameters have been great, Ive sent out at least 5 ICP test results and fixed any minor problem I had so I figured it had to be something else, and aquabiomcs provided the answer.

Now, how to fix the problem? Its recently been proven that a new gel Amoxycillen has been proven to work against the disease: https://reefbuilders.com/2021/11/10...reatment-for-stony-coral-tissue-loss-disease/

As this gel is not publicly available yet I am attempting multiple treatments to try and rid the disease. AquaBiomics did post a fantastic article of using Ciprio to cure Brown jelly disease:

So my treatment to try and rid the tank of SCTLD is trying the Ciprio treatment along with Tritons STN-X and RTN-X treatment all at once. All of this is a lot for the tank but I'm at the point of desperation as I'm loosing corals and its only a matter of time until all of them are effected.

If this does fail I am thinking of dosing Amoxycillen to the whole tank as it would wipe out all the bacteria including SCTLD hopefully. But I'm sure I would loose a lot of livestock doing that.

Please anyone let me know your thoughts on this.

-Also wanted to point out that I added 10 pounds of Caribbean live rock to the tank about 6 months ago, this could definitely be the contributor but no way to prove it at this point, but something to keep in mind.
 

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A very practical question. Should we worry about adding material from this region? I can imagine arguments in either direction and I'm not aware of evidence that supports general statements at this point.
So in other words 'I dont know'. No offense. There is no evidence that these bacteria are the 'cause'. It would be extremely uncommon for 5 bacteria to be responsible for the same disease. It could very well be that these 5 bacteria tend to eat on dying coral (for whatever reason). Nice to see the article - I do not think it has much to do with our tanks. Now - there is lots of data that vibrio - can cause 'RTN' see below
I haven't found the info on specific antibiotics yet, only the general statement I quoted above that antibiotics appear to be helping. I will continue to dig.
There are a bunch of new articles - about antibiotics for coral disease. including vibrio. I'm not sure about the other 4.
 

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Im bringing this thread back up after receiving a new AquaBiomics test result.

My test showed that I have SCTLD in my tank. I have been battling a mysterious RTN/STN event in my tank for months now. All parameters have been great, Ive sent out at least 5 ICP test results and fixed any minor problem I had so I figured it had to be something else, and aquabiomcs provided the answer.

Now, how to fix the problem? Its recently been proven that a new gel Amoxycillen has been proven to work against the disease: https://reefbuilders.com/2021/11/10...reatment-for-stony-coral-tissue-loss-disease/

As this gel is not publicly available yet I am attempting multiple treatments to try and rid the disease. AquaBiomics did post a fantastic article of using Ciprio to cure Brown jelly disease:

So my treatment to try and rid the tank of SCTLD is trying the Ciprio treatment along with Tritons STN-X and RTN-X treatment all at once. All of this is a lot for the tank but I'm at the point of desperation as I'm loosing corals and its only a matter of time until all of them are effected.

If this does fail I am thinking of dosing Amoxycillen to the whole tank as it would wipe out all the bacteria including SCTLD hopefully. But I'm sure I would loose a lot of livestock doing that.

Please anyone let me know your thoughts on this.

-Also wanted to point out that I added 10 pounds of Caribbean live rock to the tank about 6 months ago, this could definitely be the contributor but no way to prove it at this point, but something to keep in mind.
SCLTD is not a diagnosis that you can test for. Its is a diagnosis that you see. You may have bacteria in your tank - that have been found on coral - but just because they are there does not mean they are causing the problem. BUT - good luck with the Cipro treatment.

Actually - I'm being facetious - use of cipro like this - in many countries is illegal - and probably detrimental to human health. But - just FWIW - if you were going to start with an antibiotic - amoxicillin would be the one to start with - as resistance to it is not as big a problem as would be resistance to cipro/relatives thereof. You wanted thoughts. Stop treating. Stop adding a bunch of 'stuff'. Just wait it out.
 

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Im bringing this thread back up after receiving a new AquaBiomics test result.

My test showed that I have SCTLD in my tank. I have been battling a mysterious RTN/STN event in my tank for months now. All parameters have been great, Ive sent out at least 5 ICP test results and fixed any minor problem I had so I figured it had to be something else, and aquabiomcs provided the answer.

Now, how to fix the problem? Its recently been proven that a new gel Amoxycillen has been proven to work against the disease: https://reefbuilders.com/2021/11/10...reatment-for-stony-coral-tissue-loss-disease/

As this gel is not publicly available yet I am attempting multiple treatments to try and rid the disease. AquaBiomics did post a fantastic article of using Ciprio to cure Brown jelly disease:

So my treatment to try and rid the tank of SCTLD is trying the Ciprio treatment along with Tritons STN-X and RTN-X treatment all at once. All of this is a lot for the tank but I'm at the point of desperation as I'm loosing corals and its only a matter of time until all of them are effected.

If this does fail I am thinking of dosing Amoxycillen to the whole tank as it would wipe out all the bacteria including SCTLD hopefully. But I'm sure I would loose a lot of livestock doing that.

Please anyone let me know your thoughts on this.

-Also wanted to point out that I added 10 pounds of Caribbean live rock to the tank about 6 months ago, this could definitely be the contributor but no way to prove it at this point, but something to keep in mind.
Years back the guy from Aquabiomics found a bad bacteria in my tanks. I used rock that came from a vendor in Florida. He had me use chemiclean and then we retested. The bacteria was gone after the chemiclean. This was before there was a name for the bacteria. Was mine the same, I don't know. My coral issues cleared up after the chemiclean. FWIW that was my experience. I don't know what is in chemiclean that made it work.
 

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SCLTD is not a diagnosis that you can test for. Its is a diagnosis that you see. You may have bacteria in your tank - that have been found on coral - but just because they are there does not mean they are causing the problem. BUT - good luck with the Cipro treatment.

Actually - I'm being facetious - use of cipro like this - in many countries is illegal - and probably detrimental to human health. But - just FWIW - if you were going to start with an antibiotic - amoxicillin would be the one to start with - as resistance to it is not as big a problem as would be resistance to cipro/relatives thereof. You wanted thoughts. Stop treating. Stop adding a bunch of 'stuff'. Just wait it ou
 

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MnFish1

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Years back the guy from Aquabiomics found a bad bacteria in my tanks. I used rock that came from a vendor in Florida. He had me use chemiclean and then we retested. The bacteria was gone after the chemiclean. This was before there was a name for the bacteria. Was mine the same, I don't know. My coral issues cleared up after the chemiclean. FWIW that was my experience. I don't know what is in chemiclean that made it work.
Some vibrio is susceptible to erythromycin - some say Chemiclean is 'erythromycin' in some form - so possible
 

MnFish1

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My test showed that I have SCTLD in my tank. I have been battling a mysterious RTN/STN event in my tank for months now. All parameters have been great, Ive sent out at least 5 ICP test results and fixed any minor problem I had so I figured it had to be something else, and aquabiomcs provided the answer
All good - If you look at the data that @AquaBiomics provided there were multiple bacteria 'asscociated' with SCLTD. Again the question is - does the bacteria 'cause' it - or does the bacteria clean up the dead tissue. I think that was the question I was asking. With no offense to you - or @AquaBiomics
 
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Im bringing this thread back up after receiving a new AquaBiomics test result.

My test showed that I have SCTLD in my tank. I have been battling a mysterious RTN/STN event in my tank for months now. All parameters have been great, Ive sent out at least 5 ICP test results and fixed any minor problem I had so I figured it had to be something else, and aquabiomcs provided the answer.

Now, how to fix the problem? Its recently been proven that a new gel Amoxycillen has been proven to work against the disease: https://reefbuilders.com/2021/11/10...reatment-for-stony-coral-tissue-loss-disease/

As this gel is not publicly available yet I am attempting multiple treatments to try and rid the disease. AquaBiomics did post a fantastic article of using Ciprio to cure Brown jelly disease:

So my treatment to try and rid the tank of SCTLD is trying the Ciprio treatment along with Tritons STN-X and RTN-X treatment all at once. All of this is a lot for the tank but I'm at the point of desperation as I'm loosing corals and its only a matter of time until all of them are effected.

If this does fail I am thinking of dosing Amoxycillen to the whole tank as it would wipe out all the bacteria including SCTLD hopefully. But I'm sure I would loose a lot of livestock doing that.

Please anyone let me know your thoughts on this.

-Also wanted to point out that I added 10 pounds of Caribbean live rock to the tank about 6 months ago, this could definitely be the contributor but no way to prove it at this point, but something to keep in mind.
Thanks for bringing this up, I've been meaning to write up the new data on SCTLD-associated bacteria.

A recent study found a group of bacteria associated with SCTLD. This new list includes several identified in previous studies - including the one that motivated the original post in this thread.

We find 5 of these in reef tanks. Some of these are common, occurring in up to 20% of tanks we've tested. Others are rare (<4% of tanks).

Research on this subject has consistently not pinpointed a single pathogen, but rather a group of bacteria associated with the disease. Some researchers suggest the disease is caused by a community of multiple pathogens acting together. Alternatively, it might be the picture is just unclear because research into this disease is still in the early stages, and at some point a single pathogen will be identified.

For now, I wouldnt be too concerned over a single SCTLD associated type unless there are ongoing symptoms. Although some of these are fairly common, we rarely see more than one of them in a single tank.

If you do have ongoing symptoms, since we know you have one of them in your tank I'd love to test the tissue and can send a swab or two.

There is a lot to learn about the effects of these bacteria in aquarium settings, and I'll be interested to read more about your experience with antibiotic treatments.
 

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Thanks for bringing this up, I've been meaning to write up the new data on SCTLD-associated bacteria.

A recent study found a group of bacteria associated with SCTLD. This new list includes several identified in previous studies - including the one that motivated the original post in this thread.

We find 5 of these in reef tanks. Some of these are common, occurring in up to 20% of tanks we've tested. Others are rare (<4% of tanks).

Research on this subject has consistently not pinpointed a single pathogen, but rather a group of bacteria associated with the disease. Some researchers suggest the disease is caused by a community of multiple pathogens acting together. Alternatively, it might be the picture is just unclear because research into this disease is still in the early stages, and at some point a single pathogen will be identified.

For now, I wouldnt be too concerned over a single SCTLD associated type unless there are ongoing symptoms. Although some of these are fairly common, we rarely see more than one of them in a single tank.

If you do have ongoing symptoms, since we know you have one of them in your tank I'd love to test the tissue and can send a swab or two.

There is a lot to learn about the effects of these bacteria in aquarium settings, and I'll be interested to read more about your experience with antibiotic treatments.
Thanks Eli for responding. What do you think of my current treatment? Would you recommend dosing Amoxycillen or chemi-clean after my current treatment if it doesn't work?

So far I'm about to dose my last treatment of Cipro tonight and am on day 7 of 21 of the Triton RTN/STN-X. It seems like the SPS have all stopped dying but not seeing a turn around trend yet.

Id be more than happy to send you a sample from a coral showing signs of SCTLD, I will DM you now. @AquaBiomics

If things do look good by mid month I will be sending another test to AquaBiomics as I have another kit with me already so we can fully test the biome again.
 

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I have this question / need refresher: regarding Amazon microscopes and seeing aquarium bacteria: I was under the impression without oil immersion microscopy we won’t be seeing aquarium bacteria, is it true that 400x will show common tank bacteria on a slide? I know there are some giant cell bacteria / am talking common ones from tanks, is it true we don’t need expensive Leica oil immersion setups any longer, in the 90s we were told oil immersion was required has that been updated
 

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I have this question / need refresher: regarding Amazon microscopes and seeing aquarium bacteria: I was under the impression without oil immersion microscopy we won’t be seeing aquarium bacteria, is it true that 400x will show common tank bacteria on a slide? I know there are some giant cell bacteria / am talking common ones from tanks, is it true we don’t need expensive Leica oil immersion setups any longer, in the 90s we were told oil immersion was required has that been updated
You can see 'bacteria'. You cannot tell - even with an oil immersion lens - what kind of bacteria they are (with rare exceptions)
 

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Ok gotcha. What made me ask again was Eli above said we wouldn’t be seeing them but more likely ciliates?
 

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I posted on this thread after a trip to St. Croix back in Feb 2020 and they had not had problems at that time. I went back this summer and they have had a significant problem with SCTLD. Fortunately when I was there in July of this year the problem had peaked and was getting better. The nature conservancy there had resumed farming stags and were having good success. I spoke with the biologist in charge of the stag farming and she indicated that current thought was that they really don't know what causes it....it's assumed to be infectious because putting obviously involved coral with healthy coral can cause the healthy coral to have the same issue. What the infective agent is seems to still be unknown according to what I was told.

We did see a lot of dead stags on the reef that had been healthy the year before. However, we saw some of the new frags that were growing and healthy.


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