Need help - Big RTN episode on my SPS tank.

[drawman]

Sorry to hear it's continuing. It almost makes me wonder if the combination of chemicals kicked off something microbially but that's a frustrating answer (and who knows if at all accurate). I would keep checking things off the list like you're doing starting with RODI water quality.

I agree with Perry keep nutrients in the water column and go back to basics while checking potential hazards off the list. I would be wary of adding much of anything (although I don't see an issue with minimal additions of iodine).

 

[JCOLE]

Sorry to hear it's continuing. It almost makes me wonder if the combination of chemicals kicked off something microbially but that's a frustrating answer (and who knows if at all accurate). I would keep checking things off the list like you're doing starting with RODI water quality.

I agree with Perry keep nutrients in the water column and go back to basics while checking potential hazards off the list. I would be wary of adding much of anything (although I don't see an issue with minimal additions of iodine).

Anything is possible at this point now. I agree as well on the basics. My tank was doing very well with Reef Crystals, Kalkwasser, Chinese Black Boxes, hand dosing aminos, refugium, and not caring about algae.

Thought I would change it all up and go with more automation, and scorched earth on the algae. Going back to basics now. Keeping the T5's and 2-Part though because I really do like those.

I changed the RODI filters last night and will work on filling up with new water tonight, I am going to finish the Tropic Marin and go back to Reef Crystals or IO, stop auto dosing Acropower and go back to hand dosing aminos and vitamins, and stop caring about a little algae here and there and let my fuge take care of the rest.

I am trying to stay positive through all of this by telling myself that it will give me a chance to replace pieces with new ones.....my Wife doesn't like it when I say that though.

 

[JCOLE]

I just picked up some Polyfilters from my lfs. After reading it looks like it removes phosphate as well. Do you think I'll have an issue with it pulling nutrients too fast for my tank like Phosguard does I ask because I used Phosguard about a year and a half ago and my tank did not like the sudden drop of PO4.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I just picked up some Polyfilters from my lfs. After reading it looks like it removes phosphate as well. Do you think I'll have an issue with it pulling nutrients too fast for my tank like Phosguard does I ask because I used Phosguard about a year and a half ago and my tank did not like the sudden drop of PO4.

I’ve never had any issues with polyfilter

 

[JCOLE]

Don't know if this is an issue or not but worth mentioning. I posted a thread in June about this black substance accumulating in the salt mixing brute can after switching to TMPR. The thread link to that is below.

I cleaned it then in June and never really noticed it since. Well while cleaning the bucket tonight I noticed some more black spots. Really weird. I don't know what it is and if it is a problem or not.

Is this mold/rust in my salt mixing barrel?

I use a brute 44 gallon trash can for my salt mixing barrel. I use Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt and I try to keep water always on hand for occasional water changes and unforeseen future emergency changes.I have a Jebao DCT 15000 pump on my Apex that circulates the water every hour. I opened my...

www.reef2reef.com

I wiped the spots and you can see they are a black rust color.

The top of the lid was also this color also.

 

[BCSreef]

Hi Josh,

I would guess a biofilm (bacteria, organics, possibly algae if your tank gets much light). part of the salt mix that precipitates out. As you know, I am using IO and my mixing tank gets pretty ugly with the same brownish red stuff. I never really worried about it. I just clean it well every year or two. I and other reefers H2O2 (I add 1/2 cup to 45 gallons) when mixing fresh salt to bleach (oxidize) it away.

Bob

 

[Dr. Jim]

Don't know if this is an issue or not but worth mentioning. I posted a thread in June about this black substance accumulating in the salt mixing brute can after switching to TMPR. The thread link to that is below.

I cleaned it then in June and never really noticed it since. Well while cleaning the bucket tonight I noticed some more black spots. Really weird. I don't know what it is and if it is a problem or not.

Is this mold/rust in my salt mixing barrel?

I use a brute 44 gallon trash can for my salt mixing barrel. I use Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt and I try to keep water always on hand for occasional water changes and unforeseen future emergency changes.I have a Jebao DCT 15000 pump on my Apex that circulates the water every hour. I opened my...

www.reef2reef.com

I wiped the spots and you can see they are a black rust color.

The top of the lid was also this color also.

I had the same thing from a bucket of R.S.Pro. I sent a photo to T.M. and got this reply. (My mixing tank is in a dark room so I doubt it is algae or cyano):

"We are not seeing any of this residue when mixing samples of our batch controls in Germany. After much discussion, this is what we came up with…

First, one question is… How quickly after mixing the salt solution, do you see this residue show up? We ask this because this definitely does not look like any kind of precipitate. It absolutely has the look of something biological. It could be cyano bacterial growth, if the holding tank is exposed to light during a period of holding. Or it could, more likely, be some kind of algae growth. It could also be manganese precipitates induced by bacterial oxidation. This means a biofilm of bacteria covers the insides of the tank. After adding our salts, which contain slightly elevated concentrations of iron and manganese, these trace metals get precipitated and form this dark film together with the bacterial biofilm. Finally this is exactly the mechanism by which both trace metals are removed from the saltwater after adding it to the display tank, so the elevated concentrations from the salt cannot be found in the display tanks.

If we are correct about any of this, it should not show up directly at the time of mixing, but some hours or maybe even days later. A good cleaning of the mixing tank and using of new batches of salt water solution soon after they are mixed, should make it that this issue does not show up again so soon."

 

[Dr. Jim]

Not sure if you have run a N-DOC, but I will mention that I had STN daily for about 4 weeks. I was alternating Acropower with KZ Aminos long-term (using 1/4 the recommended daily dosage of each). The N-DOC showed an extremely high level of Nitrogen and Triton recommended stopping amino's. My nitrates had also been elevated recently (20-25ppm).
Of course I'm not sure if the elevated N had anything to do with the tissue necrosis, but it might be something for you to consider since I noticed you have been using Acropower. I don't know how likely elevated N by itself would be a cause of RTN/STN but I suppose it could be a contributing factor or at least, something to consider.

 

[JCOLE]

Hi Josh,

I would guess a biofilm (bacteria, organics, possibly algae if your tank gets much light). part of the salt mix that precipitates out. As you know, I am using IO and my mixing tank gets pretty ugly with the same brownish red stuff. I never really worried about it. I just clean it well every year or two. I and other reefers H2O2 (I add 1/2 cup to 45 gallons) when mixing fresh salt to bleach (oxidize) it away.

Bob

Good tip! I will have to try that.

The mixing barrel is in the garage with a lid on it at all times except when adding salt. I never really noticed it when I used Reef Crystals. I only noticed it while using Tropic Marin Pro. I never noticed with Reef Crystals that it does detoxify heavy metals. Maybe I have some metals in my bins, tank, etc and the Reef Crystals helped to detoxify them in the past. Switching to TMPR allowed the metals to add additional items to my ongoing list of issues.

 

[JCOLE]

Not sure if you have run a N-DOC, but I will mention that I had STN daily for about 4 weeks. I was alternating Acropower with KZ Aminos long-term (using 1/4 the recommended daily dosage of each). The N-DOC showed an extremely high level of Nitrogen and Triton recommended stopping amino's. My nitrates had also been elevated recently (20-25ppm).
Of course I'm not sure if the elevated N had anything to do with the tissue necrosis, but it might be something for you to consider since I noticed you have been using Acropower. I don't know how likely elevated N by itself would be a cause of RTN/STN but I suppose it could be a contributing factor or at least, something to consider.

Apreciate the recommendation. I have never used N-DOC. ATI does test nutrients but I imagine for the price of the Triton N-DOC it would test more than what ATI does.

I stopped Acropower and started up my original Seachem Reef Plus and Reef Trace regime. Already seeing major improvements.

I plan to send off another ICP test to ATI in a month. I might send off a N-DOC to give that a try as well.

 

[JCOLE]

Figured I would document this here in case someone comes across this in the future or is going through this now.

The good news is things are improving!! Haven't had any deaths or signs of decline for about a week now. Alk has finally stabilized and I am getting color back with some new growth as well.

Fingers crossed. I did a couple of things so far and I think they helped.

1. Changed RODI filters out. Scrubbed both barrels and refilled them with new water.
2. Switched back to Reef Crystals and did a couple of big water changes
3. I put a Polyfilter in last week and hopefully it is removing any metals, toxins, etc if available.
4. Stopped Acropower and started dosing Sechem Reef Trace and Reef Plus again
5. Dosing Iodine daily to bring back to normal levels - I think this was a major problem with the low levels
6. Switched 2 out of 3 Coral+ T5 bulbs out of my 6 bulb setup to Actinic and Blue+. This has given the DT and Frag tank a more blue spectrum which they were accustomed to. This is anecdotal but I think it has helped.

I am going to continue this routine with one or two water changes a week then send off another ICP test to see if things have improved.

Full tank shot the morning before removing the dead pieces

After removing the dead pieces. The tank is looking quite bare now.

And here is the damage..... Too many things at once leads up to this!

These are the pieces I lost throughout all of this mess...

ATL Raspberry Lemonade
BC Aquabat
BC Battle Stag
BC Blood bank
BC Blue Angel
BC Blueberry nasuta
BC Catapult Fireball
BC Lemon peel
BC Sky Parade
BC Ulimate Table
Blue Tip Teal Stag
Cali Tort
CC Black Hornet
CC Dream Catcher
CC Needles in Haystack
CC Rainbow Hyacinthus
Green Slimer Spongodes
Greg Hiller aqua delight
JF Fox Flame
Miyagi Tort
PC Rainbow
Reef Tech Starburst Montipora
RMF Acid Trip Milli
RMF Green Devil
RMF Red Devil Nasuta
RMF Tigers Blood
RR Cylon Raider
RR Wolverine
Snipers blue
Tyree Red Dragon
WhiteTip Stag

These pieces have either lost color or show signs of tissue necrosis. They have stopped though and seem to be improving

BC Aquatic man table
BC Dales Purple Unknown
BC Firecracker Table
BC Heart and Soul
BC Peril Betty
BC Poison Envy
BC Rainbow Brite
BC Rainbow-Melon Teni
BC Shades of fall
BC Sunset Milli
Copps Calacali Stag
Greg Carroll Ultimate efflo
Reef Ready Grape Juice
UC Strawberry Shortcake
Vivid’s Rainbow Delight

To wrap this all up. I think the main issue was my very low Iodine. I think Iodine plays a major part in our systems with coral health and their ability to heal. I think the mixture of metals, bad RODI filters, Vibrant, Chemiclean, Fluconazole, and changing the lights to T5's with a much whiter spectrum caused a great deal of stress and damage to the tissue of the corals. Again, this is purely anecdotal but I feel if my Iodine would have been where it needed to be then the corals could have recovered quicker without losses, etc.

Oh well. You live and you learn. I will never use Vibrant ever again and will only use Fluc or Chemiclean if all hell breaks loose. No more trying for quick fixes. I spent about 4 hours on Sunday removing 95% of my bubble algae. It wasn't bad and was actually pretty satisfying to get my hands back into the tank for some husbandry. If I would have just done that a year ago then my tank would probably not be in this mess right now.

Here's to a new year and some big colonies!!

 

[Loosechangereef]

Once reefer always a reefer some one told that years ago , we always thinking of next build or striving to make things work . Well good luck hope all works out

 

[drawman]

Figured I would document this here in case someone comes across this in the future or is going through this now.

The good news is things are improving!! Haven't had any deaths or signs of decline for about a week now. Alk has finally stabilized and I am getting color back with some new growth as well.

Fingers crossed. I did a couple of things so far and I think they helped.

1. Changed RODI filters out. Scrubbed both barrels and refilled them with new water.
2. Switched back to Reef Crystals and did a couple of big water changes
3. I put a Polyfilter in last week and hopefully it is removing any metals, toxins, etc if available.
4. Stopped Acropower and started dosing Sechem Reef Trace and Reef Plus again
5. Dosing Iodine daily to bring back to normal levels - I think this was a major problem with the low levels
6. Switched 2 out of 3 Coral+ T5 bulbs out of my 6 bulb setup to Actinic and Blue+. This has given the DT and Frag tank a more blue spectrum which they were accustomed to. This is anecdotal but I think it has helped.

I am going to continue this routine with one or two water changes a week then send off another ICP test to see if things have improved.

Full tank shot the morning before removing the dead pieces

After removing the dead pieces. The tank is looking quite bare now.

And here is the damage..... Too many things at once leads up to this!

These are the pieces I lost throughout all of this mess...

ATL Raspberry Lemonade
BC Aquabat
BC Battle Stag
BC Blood bank
BC Blue Angel
BC Blueberry nasuta
BC Catapult Fireball
BC Lemon peel
BC Sky Parade
BC Ulimate Table
Blue Tip Teal Stag
Cali Tort
CC Black Hornet
CC Dream Catcher
CC Needles in Haystack
CC Rainbow Hyacinthus
Green Slimer Spongodes
Greg Hiller aqua delight
JF Fox Flame
Miyagi Tort
PC Rainbow
Reef Tech Starburst Montipora
RMF Acid Trip Milli
RMF Green Devil
RMF Red Devil Nasuta
RMF Tigers Blood
RR Cylon Raider
RR Wolverine
Snipers blue
Tyree Red Dragon
WhiteTip Stag

These pieces have either lost color or show signs of tissue necrosis. They have stopped though and seem to be improving

BC Aquatic man table
BC Dales Purple Unknown
BC Firecracker Table
BC Heart and Soul
BC Peril Betty
BC Poison Envy
BC Rainbow Brite
BC Rainbow-Melon Teni
BC Shades of fall
BC Sunset Milli
Copps Calacali Stag
Greg Carroll Ultimate efflo
Reef Ready Grape Juice
UC Strawberry Shortcake
Vivid’s Rainbow Delight

To wrap this all up. I think the main issue was my very low Iodine. I think Iodine plays a major part in our systems with coral health and their ability to heal. I think the mixture of metals, bad RODI filters, Vibrant, Chemiclean, Fluconazole, and changing the lights to T5's with a much whiter spectrum caused a great deal of stress and damage to the tissue of the corals. Again, this is purely anecdotal but I feel if my Iodine would have been where it needed to be then the corals could have recovered quicker without losses, etc.

Oh well. You live and you learn. I will never use Vibrant ever again and will only use Fluc or Vibrant if all hell breaks loose. No more trying for quick fixes. I spent about 4 hours on Sunday removing 95% of my bubble algae. It wasn't bad and was actually pretty satisfying to get my hands back into the tank for some husbandry. If I would have just done that a year ago then my tank would probably not be in this mess right now.

Here's to a new year and some big colonies!!

Glad to hear things are turning the corner! It is interesting how some people report getting iodine in the water makes acros more resilient. I think I noticed something similar myself in the past but like everyone else cannot pin it down to only that.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Glad to hear things are turning around Josh! Those skeletons are brutal. I still haven’t figured out what caused my acro crash years ago. They are so painful!

That’s a very interesting theory on the Iodine. I would have thought all the water changes would keep that up. Any idea what caused it to deplete?

 

[ryshark]

Glad to hear things are turning around Josh! Those skeletons are brutal. I still haven’t figured out what caused my acro crash years ago. They are so painful!

That’s a very interesting theory on the Iodine. I would have thought all the water changes would keep that up. Any idea what caused it to deplete?

I was just looking at some Triton test results that BRS did on saltmixes and it shows Reef Crystals has WAAAAY more Iodine than TMPR. With that said, TMPR still does have an acceptable amount. I could see how going from RC to TMPR would have lowered his Iodine levels.

 

[JCOLE]

Glad to hear things are turning around Josh! Those skeletons are brutal. I still haven’t figured out what caused my acro crash years ago. They are so painful!

That’s a very interesting theory on the Iodine. I would have thought all the water changes would keep that up. Any idea what caused it to deplete?

Thanks Mike. Yeah, it is pretty painful just watching them go and there really isn't a whole lot I can do at the moment to stop it. Did my daily morning check before going to work and I found another stag this morning starting to go....

To be fair, all of the pieces that I have lost did have a sign of something wrong. They either lost PE or looked dry during the months of treatment. Kinda expected to lose some of these. What is disheartening is watching one that was doing very well just RTN overnight.

As far as the Iodine, I cannot identify why it is depleting so quickly. My ICP in March of last year also came back with low Iodine levels. I believe I was still using Reef Crystals then as well. I cannot remember if I even did some water changes during the months of dosing Vibrant, etc. This could have been an issue as well. I also don't skim wet. I usually empty out my skimmer cup every 3-4 weeks so I am not pulling it out quickly with the skimmer.

I started dosing Seachem Reef Iodide for the last two weeks. I tested with Red Sea's Iodine test on Monday and it came back clear which is a higher limit than the kit tests for. I currently stopped dosing Iodide and will test this weekend to see if it has come down.

I purchased a Hanna Nitrite tester from BRS and when it arrives on Friday then I am going to try the Iodine test utilizing the method @Rick Mathew came up with. This seems like a really good method of giving precise readings for Iodine. Looking forward to seeing what those results are.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Yeah, that makes sense that you might have low Iodine if you were not doing water changes. I use IO salt with weekly 10% water changes. I did some Iodine testing for a while, but it was never an issue doing the water changes so I don't bother anymore.

When I've dosed Vibrant, I kept up with my weekly water changes. With Reef Flux, I skipped a week. So basically I dosed, then ran for two weeks, then did a double water change and added Carbon back on.

With both I can tell you that acros weren't happy. I don't recall any losses with Vibrant, just irritated ones that later recovered. With my last dose of Reef Flux, my Fox Flame pretty much toasted. Technically it's base is still alive... I think the issue I had with Reef Flux may have been that I had GFO offline at the same time and perhaps the elevated levels of Phosphate caused an issue? Just a purely unscientific theory of mine.

Sometimes we never really find out the cause of this stuff...

 

[Rick Mathew]

Thanks Mike. Yeah, it is pretty painful just watching them go and there really isn't a whole lot I can do at the moment to stop it. Did my daily morning check before going to work and I found another stag this morning starting to go....

To be fair, all of the pieces that I have lost did have a sign of something wrong. They either lost PE or looked dry during the months of treatment. Kinda expected to lose some of these. What is disheartening is watching one that was doing very well just RTN overnight.

As far as the Iodine, I cannot identify why it is depleting so quickly. My ICP in March of last year also came back with low Iodine levels. I believe I was still using Reef Crystals then as well. I cannot remember if I even did some water changes during the months of dosing Vibrant, etc. This could have been an issue as well. I also don't skim wet. I usually empty out my skimmer cup every 3-4 weeks so I am not pulling it out quickly with the skimmer.

I started dosing Seachem Reef Iodide for the last two weeks. I tested with Red Sea's Iodine test on Monday and it came back clear which is a higher limit than the kit tests for. I currently stopped dosing Iodide and will test this weekend to see if it has come down.

I purchased a Hanna Nitrite tester from BRS and when it arrives on Friday then I am going to try the Iodine test utilizing the method @Rick Mathew came up with. This seems like a really good method of giving precise readings for Iodine. Looking forward to seeing what those results are.

Let me know if you need any help.

Rick

 

[violetjones]

Crazy was just reading this thread. Assuming due to bad batch of Turkish Tropic Marin?

Hope you are using a new salt!

 

[kent78]

Hello everyone! I wanted to reach out to see if I can get some opinions from everyone regarding a big RTN episode on my system. Please bear with me as this is a lot.

A little background on the system. I have a 150 gallon SPS dominant tank which is about 2 years old. I started the tank off with Mars Aqua Chinese black boxes. Things were going well for about a year. I picked up a $5 frag of Pocilopora and didn't notice the tiny bubble algae on the bottom of the frag until it was too late. This led to a massive bubble algae outbreak. I tried everything from Foxface's, Emerald crabs, etc and nothing touched the stuff. This led to me using Vibrant. I used Vibrant for about 1.5 months and it worked great on the bubble algae. However, it did cause issues with some of my pieces which led to discoloring and a dry look and also brought on Dino's. I worked on Dino's and was able to rid Dino's in about a month or so.

Things were going well for a couple of months and then I used Chemiclean along with Fluconazole. Those worked well and I really didn't experience any issues with corals except I lost 1 frag of Echinata.

Fast forward a couple of months and around the end of June, I started Vibrant again because my bubble algae was at plague proportions again. All corals were looking great with good color when started. I dosed for about 2 months or so and stopped because I lost my Red Dragon colony and a couple of frags. Things turned around within a month or so and I didn't lose anything else.

I decided to change out my lights at the beginning of November from the Chinese Black Boxes with Upgrades diodes to a 6 bulb retrokit with all ATI bulbs. Things were looking great and my ALK consumption jumped with great growth. Around the middle of November, I dosed Chemiclean because of a lot of Cyano in my frag tank and some in my Display Tank. After a week I decided to dose Fluconozaole again because I had an explosion of GHA in my frag tank. I ran Flucnoaole for about a week then decided to do a water change because things were looking "dry". Since the beginning of December things have seemed to take a turn for the worst. I have lost about 6 colonies and about 15 frags. They all start from their tips peeling.

Really at a loss for words here. I know I did a lot at once and I am torn as to what it could have been. My wife swears it the lights but I refuse to listen because I do not want to go through the work of taking down the retrokit and installing the LED's again.

Here is a breakout of the timeline of events.

March 2018 - Started up 55 gallon tank
April - 2019 - Moved everything over to 150 gallon tank and added additional rock
November 2019 - Dosed Vibrant for two months - cleared up bubble algae but made corals angry and Dino's kicked in as the result of it
March 2020 - Dosed Fluconazole - Cleared GHA and lsot 1 frag of Echinata
June 2019 - End of June I dosed Vibrant for two months. I quit because I lost a Red Dragon colony and a couple of frags. The system turned around the end of September-October.
November - Changed lights out to 6 bulb retrokit T5's with ATI bulbs
Middle of November - Dosed Chemiclean and then Fluconazole
End of December - Added Chaeto back to my Fuge and it has taken off and filled up my entire 20 gallon fuge within 2 weeks.

Paramaters
ALK - 8-8.3 - Per Trident
Cal - 400 - Per Trident
Mag - 1390-1400 - Per Trident
NO3 - 4.67 - Per Hanna
PO4 - 0.08 - Per Hanna

I sent off an ICP on 12/30 and waiting to see what I get.

This is very frustrating and depressing. Many times over the last month I have been on the verge of throwing in the towel. I won't though. I have spent too much time and money to just give up. It is depressing when I am unable to pinpoint what is exactly going on.

I looked around and found what looked like ALK precipitation going into the Sump from my dosing tube holder. It is weird because it is coming from a spot where there isn't a tube. Any thought of what this could be? It seems to have hardened or calcified when it touches the water. I use Seachem Reef Fusion for my Alk and Calcium

Full tank shot taken on 11/01/2020. Switched to T5's about 2-3 weeks prior to this. This is when a couple of pieces started to show issues.

I took these pictures the other day. As you can see this is not looking good and also the bubble algae has returned again for the 3rd time!!

I completely lost this one since the picture was taken.

I completely lost this one since the picture was taken.

I completely lost this one since the picture was taken.

Any suggestions you guys can think of and some words of encouragement to keep me going would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks again!

hey you ever thinking about dino also one of the reason to the aroporas rtn? why i am asking it cuz i saw some tiny stringy brown slime sticking on most of your acros! that was so similar to the problem of dino that i am currently deal with, 50%of my acros die already, even most of easy sps such as birdsnest and stylos and montipora! low nutreits was the cause of my dino outbreak, currently i am dosing po4 and no3 also h2o2, keep uv 24hrs on, using active carbon and change it weekly, change socks everyday, things finally getting better now since been battling it about month ago. these dino was not so visible at all, doesn't looks as much as some youtube videos shows that all over the tank, but this type of dino are sooo toxic, whatever they attached to just breach especially sps corals, their's name is Ostreopsis dino!