Andre’s Full blown 300Gallon SPS Reeftank up within a week ;-)

[PSXerholic]

RTN and STN and how the hobby is changing as we know it !!!


The last few weeks were extremely interesting!!!
I was doing more and more microscopic exams on corals from local buddies on SPS corals that were experiencing RTN and STN :-(

Anyways at the same time I came across the Prime Corals RTN Stop dip as well as the Prevent RTN tank treatment and started to look deeper into it.
I teamed up with Ara, the inventor of the products and had a lot of discussions with him about his theory about the root cause of TN being a microscopic parasite which he got under a lot of fire in the industry with his theory.
But whenever I had the corals been given, I found those parasites in all cases on the corals as well and started to dig deeper into this subject and started testing his RTN Stop dip on these affected corals since I started pretty fast to believe in his theory to be quite honest.

So the treatments and dips did help to rescue the corals since the owners of these corals started to immediately using that dip repeatedly and the survival rate was impressive.

So....... then the shocking event occurred last week !!!
After readjusting my Nutrient system and fixing my reactor as in the previous posts mentioned, I saw a Coral in my tank STNing almost RTNing
Well, it did put a smile on my face somewhat since this gave me the opportunity to experiment live on my own tank with my corals.
I did have STN/RTN happening in the beginning of the this tank setup as some of my followers remember hence I think I had this parasite hiding in my tank for a long time.

Long story short, I will publish in more detail the Treatment protocol, all relevant microscopic videos I did before, during, and after the treatment confirming the success of the dip.
One step further, I also performed already 2 tank treatments over the weekend on my own risk with all fish remaining in the tank! I will explain then the preventive measures I took and mistakes I did or things that I could have done better.

So far, I did loose only 1 fish due to my mistake.
All RTN/STN stopped instantly after treatment and I could confirm via microscopic exams the effect of the treatment on the corals and as well the tank.

For a complete eradication of this parasite, that many have in their tanks, I plan to do 2 more treatments with in the next days/weeks.


So stay tuned for that ;-)
I will post the protocol performed as time allows to do so.

-Andre

 

[najer]

Very interested to see what you came up with.

 

[PSXerholic]

Very interested to see what you came up with.

Extremely interesting! You will love it.
Great Videos of corals under the microscope from top down where you can see the tissue necrosis, the Zooxanthellea itself, cavities, polyps and the parasites live and dead ;-)
Fantastic but also scary .............

 

[najer]

Extremely interesting! You will love it.
Great Videos of corals under the microscope from top down where you can see the tissue necrosis, the Zooxanthellea itself, cavities, polyps and the parasites live and dead ;-)
Fantastic but also scary .............

Have you identified the parasite?

 

[PSXerholic]

Have you identified the parasite?

Yes, with some education and help from Dr.Ara Deukmedjian, the parasites that were expected to be found have been identified on my Corals as well. Actually I found multiple species present.

There is a variety of parasites, and there is a relationship between STN or RTN to specific species.

See this link which is basically listing most common Ciliates (Protozoas) linked to TN.
https://coralrtn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/SweetandSr2015.pdf

Bear in mind, none of these parasites you can see with your bare eye unfortunately!

 

[BkReefBaby]

Amazing work

 

[Bugsy_Barboza]

I just lost 3 corals from stn.... was confused but tried to frag it when I noticed it on the 2nd one. Ended up taking a 3rd that has never really took off. But my Po4 dropped to 0 for almost a week and a half. And I didn’t realize it, took gfo offline immediately. Things seem to be ok after a week of no gfo. Guess the nutrients got way too low.

 

[Reefahholic]

This has to be parasitic. Why are some corals affected while others aren’t? Obviously it starts with a stress event and once the parasites jump on the coral- it’s a party till they kill it. This might explain why corals can recover after the affected tissue is fragged off or sealed with super glue gel. I don’t think the parasites will eat healthy “unstressed” tissue. Maybe they can, but it appears they are only attracted to the tissue if it’s in distress or dying. I wonder if the coral perhaps let’s off a distinctive smell or chemical which signals/ attracts the parasites to attack.?

 

[Reefahholic]

#ReefSquad

 

[saltyhog]

This has to be parasitic. Why are some corals affected while others aren’t? Obviously it starts with a stress event and once the parasites jump on the coral- it’s a party till they kill it. This might explain why corals can recover after the affected tissue is fragged off or sealed with super glue gel. I don’t think the parasites will eat healthy “unstressed” tissue. Maybe they can, but it appears they are only attracted to the tissue if it’s in distress or dying. I wonder if the coral perhaps let’s off a distinctive smell or chemical which signals/ attracts the parasites to attack.?

Very interesting. I agree this may explain why fragging above the STN line can save the piece. Look forward to seeing this and even more what it might mean for the hobby.

 

[Reefahholic]

Very interesting. I agree this may explain why fragging above the STN line can save the piece. Look forward to seeing this and even more what it might mean for the hobby.

I think this is huge! I’m gonna start looking for STN to scope. Can’t wait to get to the bottom of this long-standing issue in our hobby!

 

[Reefahholic]

What do you guys think? What could be a logical trigger?

A particular smell from the distressed coral? Chemical release?

What could lead hundreds of parasites to feed on 1 or 2 coral frags or colonies? Why would the Parasites/ Protozoa stop if the coral is fragged or the affected tissue is sealed with glue? This seems to suggest that they prey on weak or dying tissue. Are they responsible for the first signs of white tissue necrosis or can a coral itself start to show these signs before the Parasites actually arrive and are present on the base. Why the base? Could it be because the Parasites are already present on the rocks and not freely swimming in the water column? Maybe this is why it’s always from the base up.

Why would burnt tips be avoided? Shouldn’t this be an area to start STN??? That’s considered a stress event in my book. It doesn’t make sense that a coral won’t STN/RTN from burnt tips down to the base unless the Parasites are indeed hanging out on the rocks near the base. Then it makes sense they would begin to work their way up.

I’m gonna have to dig into this one full force. This is just too interesting and we’ve gotta get to the bottom of this.

 

[PSXerholic]

PART I - ID and Dip

This is the first part of the Treatment protocol, prior the tank treatment, covering the identification and first dips on the Coral that started to STN/RTN in my tank.

A lot of your guys questions I can answer for a bit more clarity, but the evidence to support these assumptions and facts will come in the soon upcoming posts with more video material from the tank treatment phase ;-)

Back to the protocol, here is a picture of the SPS colony that I started to notice the TN, it seems STN but very rapidly progressing, and majority of the ciliates I found are linked to RTN rather than STN from feedback of the Doctor and my observations so far.





The size of the colony did not allow me to place the colony itself under the microscope which allows top down microscopic examination which I did later on another SPS which I will post later. So I scraped tissue and material off the coral in the area where the TN Twilight zone is (healthy and dead mix zone).
That tissue I used to perform a microscopic exam on and ID'ed the ciliates that we working on my coral. Mostly these worm like looking forms which a Philaster species. Few others are found in this sample as well, but the majority is Philaster linked to RTN. That explains the pretty quick progress on the coral.



So what I did was, since the tank treatment did not arrive yet that day, I took the PC RTN Stop dip and dipped the colony in plastic bags, and performed after the dip another scrape and examined the tissue of the Twilight zone again after actually 2 dips.
I will upload the after dip video as well shortly which was done prior the second dip!
The coral was dipped for 7 minutes, and then rinsed in another bag with tank water.
Then I kept the coral for 2 hours in a bag of tank water and dipped it again for 7 minutes.
Prior the second dip, so about 2 hours after the first dip I took the mentioned tissue sample which I will post the video of as well, with the results that I did see the parasites dying, twisting and spitting their guts ;-)

The dip seemed to be gentle to the corals, however the dip must be mixed first with tank water, and then the coral must be inserted, not the other way around. There is a fine line between effective dip and lethal dose that can make the tissue expel.

In future videos during the day of the first tank treatment I made also video that show that most parasites are washed off the coral frags I dipped, and did a video of a frag that got infected from free floating parasites and started to RTN. This frag I did videos prior and after the dip, in a top down examination, nicely showing the parasites before and after on the surface of the coral frag itself since the frag did fit under the microscope ;-)
This frag was right next to the SPS colony and it supports the preventive measure to isolate infected corals while undergoing a treatment to avoid spreading of the parasites.

Interesting was to see that no parasites are seen on the healthy tissue, only on the are where the RTN/STN line occurs and on the dead skeletion and the corals outer cavities.


So what are the first conclusions?!
STN/RTN is a parasitic disease in almost all cases I have seen now by myself and from corals that were brought over in the last weeks.
The characteristics is that you see a white spot spreading out, many times a developing line or spreading area in all directions.
Can also be a thin layer of jelly or brownish material on the coral.
These cases did not show any visible signs of parasites with the bare eye!
No bite marks or eggs or whatever been found.
The parasites do not all completely die! Estimated kill rate at 98%, so tank treatments and follow up dip is likely required if the parasite breaks out!
Any coral can be infected, soft or hard, shroom or hammers.........
Zoa's I'm not sure, but keep in mind Zoa have a great toxic defense mechanism

It is not clear what is triggering the sudden outbreak and why certain corals are more resistant than others. The theory is that the parasites food web may be limited or something triggers it population increase. My personal educated guess is, that certain corals seem to become weak in it's immune system due to environmental issues, such as chemistry, low oxygen from too many bacteria count, or maybe excessive Amino acids, large nutrient swings or Redfield ratio out of whack.
In those cases the weakened coral may not have it's natural defense mechanism as effective as it should be and can't resist the parasites attack. That is the next step to find out in my opinion.
Anyways the assumption is that spot on healthy corals may not experience the attack, however the parasite is in the tank!

Scary fact, everyone experiences occasional STN or RTN, hence the likelihood of a silent infection of the tank is definitely there.
I personally have not seen any hobbyist who did not make this experience.

Is it always the parasitic STN/RTN???
Well, there is a similar effect that people in my opinion call RTN which is not really a case of RTN under the microscope! I'm testing this right now.
When you see frags or corals and the tissue is flattering off, with no real progressing patch or line, than this is a tissue expel! I have seen this when strong ALK swings are happening from 8 up to 10/11 within 24 hours, the microscopic exam shows the tissue becoming loose and no signs of parasites at work!
Also the microscopic exam in these case show a crystalline build up on the surface of the tissue with subsequent expel after a while. I contribute this as Tissue expel rather than TN since the zooxanthellea is loosing from the skeleton and individual plates of zooxanthellea can be observed that are falling literally of the skeleton. I can share a video of this later too.
So in a nutshell, if you see tissue flattering off the coral, that is linked to a chemistry issue and not necessarily to traditional RTN.

Lookout for Part II
I will post the videos of the post dip showing the ciliates dying on the coral colony above.
More info on the tank treatments with fish and preventive measures been taken.
Prior and after top down videos of a RTN WD frag, that got infected as well.
Overall info on this subject ;-)
Side experiments I ran.......
Lot of interesting stuff to look at................

-Andre

 

[tsav87]

So...all of are tanks are most likely harboring these parasites. So if a whole tank treatment would eradicate most of them, this would give us a buffer for major goofs in water chemistry? I wonder how this information could help with the bleaching of the reefs do to climate change (goofed water chemistry)?

 

[Reefahholic]

Andre, strong work brother! I’ll be following your exam with my own assessment under my scope. I’ll get some pics and video. Hopefully they’re not too far gone by tomorrow.

PART I - ID and Dip

This is the first part of the Treatment protocol, prior the tank treatment, covering the identification and first dips on the Coral that started to STN/RTN in my tank.

A lot of your guys questions I can answer for a bit more clarity, but the evidence to support these assumptions and facts will come in the soon upcoming posts with more video material from the tank treatment phase ;-)

Back to the protocol, here is a picture of the SPS colony that I started to notice the TN, it seems STN but very rapidly progressing, and majority of the ciliates I found are linked to RTN rather than STN from feedback of the Doctor and my observations so far.





The size of the colony did not allow me to place the colony itself under the microscope which allows top down microscopic examination which I did later on another SPS which I will post later. So I scraped tissue and material off the coral in the area where the TN Twilight zone is (healthy and dead mix zone).
That tissue I used to perform a microscopic exam on and ID'ed the ciliates that we working on my coral. Mostly these worm like looking forms which a Philaster species. Few others are found in this sample as well, but the majority is Philaster linked to RTN. That explains the pretty quick progress on the coral.



So what I did was, since the tank treatment did not arrive yet that day, I took the PC RTN Stop dip and dipped the colony in plastic bags, and performed after the dip another scrape and examined the tissue of the Twilight zone again after actually 2 dips.
I will upload the after dip video as well shortly which was done prior the second dip!
The coral was dipped for 7 minutes, and then rinsed in another bag with tank water.
Then I kept the coral for 2 hours in a bag of tank water and dipped it again for 7 minutes.
Prior the second dip, so about 2 hours after the first dip I took the mentioned tissue sample which I will post the video of as well, with the results that I did see the parasites dying, twisting and spitting their guts ;-)

The dip seemed to be gentle to the corals, however the dip must be mixed first with tank water, and then the coral must be inserted, not the other way around. There is a fine line between effective dip and lethal dose that can make the tissue expel.

In future videos during the day of the first tank treatment I made also video that show that most parasites are washed off the coral frags I dipped, and did a video of a frag that got infected from free floating parasites and started to RTN. This frag I did videos prior and after the dip, in a top down examination, nicely showing the parasites before and after on the surface of the coral frag itself since the frag did fit under the microscope ;-)
This frag was right next to the SPS colony and it supports the preventive measure to isolate infected corals while undergoing a treatment to avoid spreading of the parasites.

Interesting was to see that no parasites are seen on the healthy tissue, only on the are where the RTN/STN line occurs and on the dead skeletion and the corals outer cavities.


So what are the first conclusions?!
STN/RTN is a parasitic disease in almost all cases I have seen now by myself and from corals that were brought over in the last weeks.
The characteristics is that you see a white spot spreading out, many times a developing line or spreading area in all directions.
Can also be a thin layer of jelly or brownish material on the coral.
These cases did not show any visible signs of parasites with the bare eye!
No bite marks or eggs or whatever been found.
The parasites do not all completely die! Estimated kill rate at 98%, so tank treatments and follow up dip is likely required if the parasite breaks out!
Any coral can be infected, soft or hard, shroom or hammers.........
Zoa's I'm not sure, but keep in mind Zoa have a great toxic defense mechanism

It is not clear what is triggering the sudden outbreak and why certain corals are more resistant than others. The theory is that the parasites food web may be limited or something triggers it population increase. My personal educated guess is, that certain corals seem to become weak in it's immune system due to environmental issues, such as chemistry, low oxygen from too many bacteria count, or maybe excessive Amino acids, large nutrient swings or Redfield ratio out of whack.
In those cases the weakened coral may not have it's natural defense mechanism as effective as it should be and can't resist the parasites attack. That is the next step to find out in my opinion.
Anyways the assumption is that spot on healthy corals may not experience the attack, however the parasite is in the tank!

Scary fact, everyone experiences occasional STN or RTN, hence the likelihood of a silent infection of the tank is definitely there.
I personally have not seen any hobbyist who did not make this experience.

Is it always the parasitic STN/RTN???
Well, there is a similar effect that people in my opinion call RTN which is not really a case of RTN under the microscope! I'm testing this right now.
When you see frags or corals and the tissue is flattering off, with no real progressing patch or line, than this is a tissue expel! I have seen this when strong ALK swings are happening from 8 up to 10/11 within 24 hours, the microscopic exam shows the tissue becoming loose and no signs of parasites at work!
Also the microscopic exam in these case show a crystalline build up on the surface of the tissue with subsequent expel after a while. I contribute this as Tissue expel rather than TN since the zooxanthellea is loosing from the skeleton and individual plates of zooxanthellea can be observed that are falling literally of the skeleton. I can share a video of this later too.
So in a nutshell, if you see tissue flattering off the coral, that is linked to a chemistry issue and not necessarily to traditional RTN.

Lookout for Part II
I will post the videos of the post dip showing the ciliates dying on the coral colony above.
More info on the tank treatments with fish and preventive measures been taken.
Prior and after top down videos of a RTN WD frag, that got infected as well.
Overall info on this subject ;-)
Side experiments I ran.......
Lot of interesting stuff to look at................

-Andre

 

[PSXerholic]

So...all of are tanks are most likely harboring these parasites. So if a whole tank treatment would eradicate most of them, this would give us a buffer for major goofs in water chemistry? I wonder how this information could help with the bleaching of the reefs do to climate change (goofed water chemistry)?

Well, the assumption is yes, we likely harboring these parasites in our tank, LFS in their stores, and farms in their grow out batteries.
I assume we can do occasional tank treatments to keep the population from outbreak to some extend so a goofing event such a failing calcium reactor or accidental overdose of alk won't be a huge issue.

I also noticed better colors the day after the tank treatments compared to the day before!
Likely I had a ticking bomb in my tank and all this work I did for the fellow reefer and fact that I had the dip at home and was prepared avoided a disaster!

There must be a natural enemy of these parasites somewhere and Ara is working on that as well.

Unfortunately, these parasites, and check out the link I posted earlier with all the ciliates shown, come in via Liverock, Corals, Refugium Algae and bagged water from ocean.
Nature of Protozoa is to survive and live in digestive systems, so high potential of introduction of parasitic ciliates through fishes as well :-(

Coral RTN STOP seems to be the only effective dip for corals to combat that problem.
I tried other dips and Bayer as well, with limited effect on the TN parasites.
However I'm not sure if other dips do a similar effective prevention as the Prime Corals product!

 

[Reefahholic]

I recently dosed some Lanthanum. This was a calculated dose I’ve commonly used for years now. I’ve never had an issue until just recently. I typically don’t like to drop my PO4 more than 0.2 in 24-48 hours. However, this dose had a slightly more dramatic effect for some reason. Maybe because the tank is still very young. PO4 went from 0.4 to 0.1 and was enough to start STN on two Acro’s and another SPS (Red Setosa). I have since cut the bases off the two Acropora, but let the red Setosa go since it’s a very small frag that I have two pieces of. The other piece was not affected.

So tonight I will pull the dying piece and stick it under the scope. Hopefully it still has some good tissue left. I’ll report back with pictures and video either tonight or tomorrow.

 

[Reefahholic]

Well, the assumption is yes, we likely harboring these parasites in our tank, LFS in their stores, and farms in their grow out batteries.
I assume we can do occasional tank treatments to keep the population from outbreak to some extend so a goofing event such a failing calcium reactor or accidental overdose of alk won't be a huge issue.

I also noticed better colors the day after the tank treatments compared to the day before!
Likely I had a ticking bomb in my tank and all this work I did for the fellow reefer and fact that I had the dip at home and was prepared avoided a disaster!

There must be a natural enemy of these parasites somewhere and Ara is working on that as well.

Unfortunately, these parasites, and check out the link I posted earlier with all the ciliates shown, come in via Liverock, Corals, Refugium Algae and bagged water from ocean.
Nature of Protozoa is to survive and live in digestive systems, so high potential of introduction of parasitic ciliates through fishes as well :-(

Coral RTN STOP seems to be the only effective dip for corals to combat that problem.
I tried other dips and Bayer as well, with limited effect on the TN parasites.
However I'm not sure if other dips do a similar effective prevention as the Prime Corals product!

You would think that Bayer or similar coral dips would eliminate them too. Seems unlikely that they wouldn’t. Maybe multiple treatments are needed.

Do we know exactly what’s in the Prime Coral Stop? Do this formula differ from all the others?

We need to test test test.

 

[PSXerholic]

You would think that Bayer or similar coral dips would eliminate them too. Seems unlikely that they wouldn’t. Maybe multiple treatments are needed.

Do we know exactly what’s in the Prime Coral Stop? Do this formula differ from all the others?

We need to test test test.

I used a couple of well known dips and none was effective enough, some did not do anything. Also PC is offering the Tank treatment as well, but requires fish to be removed, however I did already 2 tank treatments with guidance and kept all fish in.
That will be described in part 2 ;-)

Reason why cutting off healthy coral to save the coral somewhat is working in certain cases, is that the parasite works it's way toward the coral until finished. So a cut far away enough can help unless the frag gets re infected by the free floating parasites from handling the infected corals :-(

 

[Reefahholic]

I used a couple of well known dips and none was effective enough, some did not do anything. Also PC is offering the Tank treatment as well, but requires fish to be removed, however I did already 2 tank treatments with guidance and kept all fish in.
That will be described in part 2 ;-)

Reason why cutting off healthy coral to save the coral somewhat is working in certain cases, is that the parasite works it's way toward the coral until finished. So a cut far away enough can help unless the frag gets re infected by the free floating parasites from handling the infected corals :-(

It seems like they are all hanging out on the rocks. With flow going constantly they should be in the water column too though. This really baffles my mind.