EMERGENCY- NEED RTN cure ASAP

[alimac122]

Extremely frustrated.

I had some bad chems for a while when life stress got the best of me and I was slacking on tank maintenance. I have slowly been getting my parameters back to ((my)) normal and things were starting to level out again. ((I was experiencing crazy high ALK and have since been vinegar dosing)).

To reward myself on good behavior I purchased some SPS and a couple LPS. I purchased a decent sized frag of birdsnest, and around a 5" stylo. Well.... Everything was good for a week. Then all of a sudden the stylo started to bleach from the bottom to the top. There's only about 1/2" of polyps left on the tip of the frag. This all happened in a span of 4 days. As of yesterday the birdsnest also has begun to show signs of bleaching as well.
All LPS and softies are just fine. So my fear is an outbreak of RTN. Some of my hartier LPS are also showing signs of STN. I had suspicions of RTN a few months back but blew it off due to the parameters being unstable.

Anyone know of where I can purchase "Prime Coral Prevent RTN" ? I've been looking online and it appears that this product isnt available through the manufacturer or on amazon.

 

[mattdumitrescu]

try fraging whatever is still healthy if possible, that’s your best bet.
I never beat stn or rtn

 

[alimac122]

try fraging whatever is still healthy if possible, that’s your best bet.
I never beat stn or rtn

I would, except I dont have a frag tank to transfer everything into.

Just dipped the stylo in some iodine. Hoping that will help... but not looking promising.

 

[Smite]

It can be tough to figure out the cause with sps since it can be a delayed response to some swing. With these all being pretty new to the system and your LPS (sounds like you've had for a bit?) are showing signs of stress tells me something is still off in your tank currently. Try posting up your parameters for the big 3, temp and salinity and nutrients.

Ive found birdsnests and the like struggle in low nutrients, so do LPS.


If all checks out, do some research on witch hazel treatments to combat RTN.

 

[fishguy242]

@Eagle_Steve

 

[alimac122]

I have the opposite. I have high nutrients

My N-P ratio is always in good standing so that I do not have a massive algae outbreak. however with that being said my nitrates range between 40-60ppm and my phosphates fluctuate around 5-6ppm

Temp- 78.8
Salinity 1.024
Alk *was* high 12.8 but since vinegar dosign i have slowly brought it down to 11.2 and continue to dose vinegar. Goal is to have it around 10dkh.

I will look into witch hazel--- thank you!

 

[Tired]

You can still try fragging healthy portions off, even without a frag tank. The idea is just to set the healthy portion away from the sick portion, in case that helps.

 

[Smite]

Gotcha, I know some people run very high nutrients like that on nitrate. Is that ppm a typo, is it .5-.6?

 

[alimac122]

Gotcha, I know some people run very high nutrients like that on nitrate. Is that ppm a typo, is it .5-.6?

No, my phosphates are at 5-6 ppm. I have to dilute my Hanna ULR 10 fold in order to get a reading.

Being an environmental engineer, and studying N;P ratios for plant growth my 10:1 is N limiting, so my tank does not have outbreaks as long as my N stays in the 50-60 range. I know the link i posted if for terrestrial plants, that uptake freshwater nutrients. However, the same setup can be applied to marine systems especially when monitoring algal growth.

"Based on previous studies (Güeswell, 2005; Koerselman & Meuleman, 1996), the optimal N ratio for most plants is approximately 15:1 (i.e., N limitation occurs when N < 14; P limitation occurs when N > 16"

Nitrogen:phosphorous supply ratio and allometry in five alpine plant species

In terrestrial ecosystems, atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition has greatly increased N availability relative to other elements, particularly phosphorus (P). Alterations in the availability of N relative to P can affect plant growth rate and functional ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Dolphins18]

No, my phosphates are at 5-6 ppm. I have to dilute my Hanna ULR 10 fold in order to get a reading.

Being an environmental engineer, and studying N;P ratios for plant growth my 10:1 is N limiting, so my tank does not have outbreaks as long as my N stays in the 50-60 range. I know the link i posted if for terrestrial plants, that uptake freshwater nutrients. However, the same setup can be applied to marine systems especially when monitoring algal growth.

"Based on previous studies (Güeswell, 2005; Koerselman & Meuleman, 1996), the optimal N ratio for most plants is approximately 15:1 (i.e., N limitation occurs when N < 14; P limitation occurs when N > 16"

Nitrogen:phosphorous supply ratio and allometry in five alpine plant species

In terrestrial ecosystems, atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition has greatly increased N availability relative to other elements, particularly phosphorus (P). Alterations in the availability of N relative to P can affect plant growth rate and functional ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I'd have to say that is likely why they are not doing well. I am not against high nutrients and run them, but thats like .1-.3 po4 and 10-20 nitrate for me. 5-6 ppm po4 is way too high.
Typically when running high nutrient with sps you want your alk closer to 12
I can not speak to going above 12 as I am not sure on this, but it may be a possibility with nutrients that high.

I can not offer a instant cure, but slowly ramping your alk back to 12 may help.

 

[alimac122]

I'd have to say that is likely why they are not doing well. I am not against high nutrients and run them, but thats like .1-.3 po4 and 10-20 nitrate for me. 5-6 ppm po4 is way too high.
Typically when running high nutrient with sps you want your alk closer to 12
I can not speak to going above 12 as I am not sure on this, but it may be a possibility with nutrients that high.

I can not offer a instant cure, but slowly ramping your alk back to 12 may help.

The downside to ramping my alk back up to 12 is that I was not seeing any growth. Nothing was dying, but at the same time nothing was growing either. I had frags for 6 months that never grew off the base. I feed my own "reef smoothie" with live phyto and AB+ once a day, so the aminos and nutrients are always present. Lighting is a viparspectra. I have two gyres that give me phenomenal flow. The frogspawns, duncans, and hammers love it.

I have been thinking about getting a phosban reactor (two little fishes) but just havent pulled the trigger.
I just dont know what to do because i may be moving across the country in december--- so this is a weird decision to make if i should keep at it with finding the source of the problem, or just let it be and start over once I move.

 

[Dolphins18]

The downside to ramping my alk back up to 12 is that I was not seeing any growth. Nothing was dying, but at the same time nothing was growing either. I had frags for 6 months that never grew off the base. I feed my own "reef smoothie" with live phyto and AB+ once a day, so the aminos and nutrients are always present. Lighting is a viparspectra. I have two gyres that give me phenomenal flow. The frogspawns, duncans, and hammers love it.

I have been thinking about getting a phosban reactor (two little fishes) but just havent pulled the trigger.
I just dont know what to do because i may be moving across the country in december--- so this is a weird decision to make if i should keep at it with finding the source of the problem, or just let it be and start over once I move.

I'd give this a read, in particular the section on phosphate.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.htm

While po4 is elevated above 1ppm, you should keep closer to 12 alk if at all possible.
I think it likely the slow growth can be attributed to the high levels of po4, more so than the alkalinity. With that being said, if you do choose to lower your po4 to sub .5 levels, it would be worth bringing down alkalinity at that time.

 

[Smite]

No, my phosphates are at 5-6 ppm. I have to dilute my Hanna ULR 10 fold in order to get a reading.

Being an environmental engineer, and studying N;P ratios for plant growth my 10:1 is N limiting, so my tank does not have outbreaks as long as my N stays in the 50-60 range. I know the link i posted if for terrestrial plants, that uptake freshwater nutrients. However, the same setup can be applied to marine systems especially when monitoring algal growth.

"Based on previous studies (Güeswell, 2005; Koerselman & Meuleman, 1996), the optimal N ratio for most plants is approximately 15:1 (i.e., N limitation occurs when N < 14; P limitation occurs when N > 16"

Nitrogen:phosphorous supply ratio and allometry in five alpine plant species

In terrestrial ecosystems, atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition has greatly increased N availability relative to other elements, particularly phosphorus (P). Alterations in the availability of N relative to P can affect plant growth rate and functional ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I see. It caught my attention because I don't recall seeing any tanks with those levels. Interesting though, I'll give the link a read!

 

[ocncheffy]

You sure your phosphates are that high? All my SPS were STN and some RTN due to phosphates actually bottoming out, while my hanna reported .25ppm. I sent in an ICP test and phosphates were actually .02ppm. Stopped GFO, increased feedings, and everything is healing nicely again.

I would get another phosphate test kit or let your LFS verify.

 

[homer1475]

Vinegar dosing is doing nothing but making your alk yo-yo. Probably another contributing factor.

You can not use an organic acid to lower ALK, once the organics are used up, the ALK goes back up(not a scientist so may have some terms mixed up). It has to be a mineral acid for it to work properly, but you cannot add a mineral acid to the tank.

Phosphates that high will kill SPS in a heartbeat regardless of what your ALK is.

 

[dvgyfresh]

High phosphate can prevent/slow down the calcification of corals, this could be causing an issue, have you measured yr calcium/mg levels? This could be causing alk sways as well. I’m currently battling high phosphate of .4ppm with zero nitrates..not sure how this happened lol

 

[Nick Steele]

Are you positive you don’t have any pest? I had tiny white bugs that cause most of my sps to decline. They stn over a month or more all from the bottom up exactly like you are experiencing

 

[Gtinnel]

Are you sure what you are dealing with is even tissue necrosis? I noticed you kept using the term bleaching for the way the corals look, and with RTN and STN the flesh of the coral actually falls off the skeleton. I've lost a few acros from RTN and with me the coral was nothing but skeleton within a day (probably within a few hours honestly). I don't know what effect your really high nitrate and phosphate levels would have on sps corals, but the description doesn't sound like tissue necrosis to me. Maybe some pics of what the coral looks like.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

The “prime coral rtn stn prevent and cure” is a joke. So is the Dr snake oil that invented it. I really don’t think it would matter much for you even if it did work, bc the Corals would be recovering in your tank, which is way outside the acceptable ranges. Your best bet is do some massive water changes with a high quality salt and source water. I mean as close to 100% as you can

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Extremely frustrated.

I had some bad chems for a while when life stress got the best of me and I was slacking on tank maintenance. I have slowly been getting my parameters back to ((my)) normal and things were starting to level out again. ((I was experiencing crazy high ALK and have since been vinegar dosing)).

To reward myself on good behavior I purchased some SPS and a couple LPS. I purchased a decent sized frag of birdsnest, and around a 5" stylo. Well.... Everything was good for a week. Then all of a sudden the stylo started to bleach from the bottom to the top. There's only about 1/2" of polyps left on the tip of the frag. This all happened in a span of 4 days. As of yesterday the birdsnest also has begun to show signs of bleaching as well.
All LPS and softies are just fine. So my fear is an outbreak of RTN. Some of my hartier LPS are also showing signs of STN. I had suspicions of RTN a few months back but blew it off due to the parameters being unstable.

Anyone know of where I can purchase "Prime Coral Prevent RTN" ? I've been looking online and it appears that this product isnt available through the manufacturer or on amazon.

Hmm....

RTN = Rapid Tissue Necrosis. Although I cannot argue that it might be caused by bacteria RTN can be caused by a multitude of other things. It seems to me that you think RTN is in itself as disease, I actually see a lot of people see RTN as the cause of their issues. Instead, you should look at it as an outcome, RTN is how corals die. You can cause RTN, by dipping coral for too long, or keeping it in fresh water, causing your temperature to spike up or down, causing your alk to spike, too low oxygen, too high co2, no light, high light, salinity too low, too high, swing, bacteria, lack of food, etc etp. For example if you have a particular animals dying you would be looking for a cause of death, and not a medicine to prevent death itself. You will have to look for a cause of death of your corals. As an environmentalist you probably know that plants use no3 to grow however, if you blast them with too much no3 your plant will get a fertilizer shock and die. I presume you got the corals form a tank with around .02-.1 PO4 so they might have RTNd from parameter shock. In hydroponics, if you go above certain PPM the plants cannot absorb nutrients from water (1500 I believe). If you run it that high the plants get nutrient lock. Similar to that, SPS need specific parameters in this case (PO4) to properly function. That being said, yes you can keep LPS and softies in a very high nutrient, and but that's not an indication as to whether your SPS will thrive.

There are a few things to consider when you are losing SPS corals 1. Flow 2. nutrient availability 3. water quality. 4. temperature 5. pests, 6. alk ca mag po4 and no3 and 7. light intensity(not in that order). If you have a serious outlier in one of those areas, there is no need to look for a solution to a problem that can possible cause RTN. This only prevents you from looking at what is in front of you the whole time. For example. 1. If your test kits are correct the PO4 is wayy too high, since even with 12 alk you weren't able to get any growth. I am not sure of your experience level but with a super high po4 and no3 you want to be pushing obscene amounts of PAR. In my case I ran a tank at .1 ppm and 50ppm of NO3 at about 1500 PAR and 7 alk. However, you do not have a large margin for error in cases like that, if your nutrients swing, you will see a ton of death, SPS are temperamental.

I think these need to be solved.
1. PO4 - Retest. then do a few water changes, reduced feeding or whatever you are doing that keeps it so high. Only then, you should use some GFO to bring it down to around 1 ppm to avoid lps bleaching. ( I have seen birds nest and pocci do great at those PO4 levels with good amount of light.)
2. Alk - If you are dosing it, just reduce the dosage. If you are not dosing it, then it will come down on its own. Do not use vinegar to fix that issue. At those PO4 levels, alk is probably helping you keep things alive.
3. Despite what I wrote above, you can use vinegar to reduce ph4 and no3, provided you have a good skimmer. Then stop using vinegar. That is if you want to reduce both at the same time. However, if you don't pay attention to this your parameters could tank quickly and it will cause you to have issues with your LPS that are used to higher po4 and no3.