Possible solution to end RTN forever?!?
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Just got out of the hospital with chest pain. All checked out O.K. Turns out, I’m just getting old, but no vessels were blocked.
Andre just texted me about some interesting findings so I wanted to update the thread so that we can continue to discuss and share our thoughts.
Here’s the backdrop:
-Andre-
Next part of the STN battle.
Found by accident something weird. Invisible bacteria showed up in an angle in the deteriorating tissue at the TN line under the scope.
In order to make them visible, I dyed the coral in green so the Hulk bacteria turned green under microscope for further examination.
Interesting is that these bacteria only found in the mucus of the deteriorating tissue, not on the skeleton and not on the healthy tissue
But this is only from a first observation.
Need to verify if other TN corals do appear with the same effect and bacteria!
Andre just texted me about some interesting findings so I wanted to update the thread so that we can continue to discuss and share our thoughts.
Here’s the backdrop:
-Andre-
Next part of the STN battle.
Found by accident something weird. Invisible bacteria showed up in an angle in the deteriorating tissue at the TN line under the scope.
In order to make them visible, I dyed the coral in green so the Hulk bacteria turned green under microscope for further examination.
Interesting is that these bacteria only found in the mucus of the deteriorating tissue, not on the skeleton and not on the healthy tissue
But this is only from a first observation.
Need to verify if other TN corals do appear with the same effect and bacteria!
Just got out of the hospital with chest pain. All checked out O.K. Turns out, I’m just getting old, but no vessels were blocked.
Andre just texted me about some interesting findings so I wanted to update the thread so that we can continue to discuss and share our thoughts.
Here’s the backdrop:
-Andre-
Next part of the STN battle.
Found by accident something weird. Invisible bacteria showed up in an angle in the deteriorating tissue at the TN line under the scope.
In order to make them visible, I dyed the coral in green so the Hulk bacteria turned green under microscope for further examination.
Interesting is that these bacteria only found in the mucus of the deteriorating tissue, not on the skeleton and not on the healthy tissue
But this is only from a first observation.
Need to verify if other TN corals do appear with the same effect and bacteria!
Thx man for the support to keep the guys up to speed here on R2R.
I really don't find the time to keep up with all the info and material and stuff I do.
Anyways, anyone is invited to help to ID the green HULK in the videos.
I dyed the coral to make this bacteria visible.
No way to see it otherwise ;-)
Thanks to the wife for that idea, lol.
BTW, the brown circles are Zooxanthellea !!!
The white elongated ones are the Nematocyst's of the coral tissue, loaded and ready to discharge ;-)
You can see on/in some of them the loading mechanism...............
The white elongated ones are the Nematocyst's of the coral tissue, loaded and ready to discharge ;-)
You can see on/in some of them the loading mechanism...............
OP
OP
Hopefully M. Sweet will weigh in somewhere!
Very interesting to say the least. Strong work!
Very interesting to say the least. Strong work!
crusso1993
7500 Club Member
Just got out of the hospital with chest pain. All checked out O.K. Turns out, I’m just getting old, but no vessels were blocked.
Andre just texted me about some interesting findings so I wanted to update the thread so that we can continue to discuss and share our thoughts.
Here’s the backdrop:
-Andre-
Next part of the STN battle.
Found by accident something weird. Invisible bacteria showed up in an angle in the deteriorating tissue at the TN line under the scope.
In order to make them visible, I dyed the coral in green so the Hulk bacteria turned green under microscope for further examination.
Interesting is that these bacteria only found in the mucus of the deteriorating tissue, not on the skeleton and not on the healthy tissue
But this is only from a first observation.
Need to verify if other TN corals do appear with the same effect and bacteria!
Happy to hear the chest pains were nothing serious. Initially, I thought they could have been brought on by all the "razz-ma-tazz" surrounding the claims made by Prime Corals! Lol
OP
OP
Thx! Lol...I’ve been dealing with them on and off for about a year now. HR has been 130’s resting at times for no apparent reason. I did several EKG’s, an Echocardiogram, and a Nuclear Stress Test with Gamma Scan. Everything was clear. I feel much better not having to worry about it at work now.
Anyway you guys could get some zooxanthellea from the tn area and maybe some of the healthy flesh zooxanthella to compare?
Have you cut any up to look on the inside of the skeleton?
Can you link to wherever you are posting?
Well, here is a Video of a Philaster showing the ZooX in the body already eaten.
In my Video above you will see the ZooX shown as well in brown circles, so you get an idea of the humungus size of the Philaster compared to the bacteria and microorganism shown in the video ;-)
As you may notice, there are not much Philaster and other ciliates found in this case of extreme rapid tissue necrosis..........
I compared tissue from healthy areas vs. tissue from TN areas with the result of that the green stained bacteria is only been found in the sections that do experience TN.
This I found across 3 different species where I did this comparison.
This Video shows a piece of coral at the TN line with Tissue still on and some already deteriorated, smushed and put under the microscope. So everything, outside and inside is under the scope.
The ZooX itself is intact so far but when the bacteria are deteriorating apparently the mucus layer, the ZooX comes off the coral and will be eaten by ciliates as soon they are arrive and populate in these areas. I assume now, the ciliates are scavengers. But they may eat the bacteria from what I did see on the first few exams with stained bacteria.
Not many ciliates seem to be present at the time the stained bacteria work themselves through the mucus layer of the tissue.
So here is my current theory.
Phase 1 - Infection occurs from bacteria
Phase 2 - Bacteria cause the mucus layer to deteriorate, while the defense mechanism of the coral isn't doing anything against the stained bacteria
Phase 3 - As soon the mucus plasma is sufficiently deteriorated, the ZooX is starting to come loose and leave the coral skeleton or are exposed to the environment unprotected.
Phase 4 - Ciliates and other scavenger start to consume the ZooX exposed and do populate extremely quick
Phase 5 - (wage assumption) Ciliates are intruding also Coral skeleton and transport the stained bacteria deeper into the coral underneath the surface carrying and distributing the disease even faster. Ciliates are swarming out when running out of food and infecting other corals.
In my case I observed ciliates are coming into the play after tissue became loose hence I searched further for bacteria and found them by accident. The only way I could see the whole impact is by staining the coral in green since they luckily take on the ink pretty well ;-)
reef_ranch
Well-Known Member
Interesting theory. Seems consistent with the studies cited in this thread.
Have you had success stopping the progression?
Have you had success stopping the progression?
One good news is that I performed a single dip in a special made up dip and it stopped all RTN instantly from progressing on 4 different corals that had extreme fast RTN yesterday. Will have to evaluate the bacteria count and status under the microscope tonight ;-)
OP
OP
Yes! Weather is getting warmer and the water is too. Won’t be long and we’ll get some good stuff coming into the jetty’s!
OP
OP
Andre says this stuff is for sale too! Only $5,000 for 1 Oz. BAH HAHAHAHA! JOKE!
Hopefully...finding the proper antibiotics to make an “effective dip” will not be too difficult once we identify the bacteria that initiate the RTN. It’s just a matter of identification. Then performing culturing and sensitivity testing until we find their sensitivity.
Finding an “IN-TANK” treatment will be a huge challenge. Antibiotics need to be dosed at therapeutic levels to kill bacteria. These levels aren’t safe in our reef tanks.
Would it be possible to keep dipping affected corals and reduce the numbers enough to gain control? Probably not. I’m doubtful we’ll ever completely eliminate these guys from our systems. If we did, would this have a negative impact on the reef.? So many questions with very few answers. :-(
Lol, point taken ;-)
No, I do not plan to sell anything!!!
The community helped me so much over the years and never asked for money........
Time to give back!!!
So whatever I will come up with will be something that is repeatable and affordable for sure if this can be resolved at all!
Antibiotic treatment and de-wormer seems to harm more than help, so it's tricky with antibiotics.
Looking into all sort of directions such as homemade DIY neurotoxins, Nemacotyst's discharging, Sanitizers, Trace elements utilization, Bromination etc.
Not even sure if this bacteria is the final culprit yet.
Too early to open the bottle of champagne !!!!
And then, just if it would work on my disease, doesn't mean it would work with other TN cases!
Lot of research to be done still.
Scott Campbell
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I like your current theory. It appears most organisms on a reef or in a tank are attempting to control the bacterial soup that surrounds them. You can see the change in bacteria types and counts on reefs that transition from predominately coral to predominately algae and/or sponges. So we might not even be talking about an "infection" so much as another organism in close proximity wrecking havoc with a coral's holobiome. I have noticed the same coral in my tank experience a recurring, partial RTN in one location of the tank but never in other parts of the tank. That seems hard to explain if there was a bacterial pathogen in the tank. Perhaps all of this is just another form of "warfare" - only on a bacterial level rather than a chemical level. Which could explain why fragging a colony experiencing RTN can be helpful. You are moving the coral away from the war zone. And why physical stress (i.e. breaking the coral or touching it) might not be nearly as stressful as a bacterial invasion from a nearby coral, sponge or macroalgae. All of this could complicate any attempt at treatment if the bacteria causing the RTN is harmful to one coral but essential to another organism. Removing the affected coral and dipping in an antibiotic solution might indeed be the best solution - assuming the treated coral is not placed right back in harm's way
I certainly believe the ciliates are scavengers. Perhaps they spread the disease by transporting bacteria, perhaps they cut short the progression by consuming the invading bacteria, perhaps they simply remove all the compromised coral starving the invading bacteria of food - who knows. But as mentioned before - I would be extremely hesitant to kill off the scavengers. That just doesn't seem like a good idea.
Thank you for your work!! Very interesting stuff.
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