Should I expect more RTN?

[alveoporanutt]

Hello!

I was doing a water change this afternoon and saw that one of my large Acro colonies was undergoing RTN. I have no idea why. I took out immediately. My main question is whether this could be a sign of others RTN-ing soon??? Below are my parameters and some pics

Salinity: 1.025
CA 460
Mg 1380
KH 8-8.3 based on time of day
ph: 8.1-8.5 based on time of day
Temp- 77.5-78.1
Nitrate: 3
Phosphate. 0.06 - been lowering it and maybe using lanthanum chloride shocked the system???
Last ICP test showed no issues minus high phsophate

Interestingly enough, over the last 2 days I have been getting amazing PE — more so than normal. Colors all look great to me

PS — sorry for bad photos- took through a few cheap iPhone lenses

 

[bubbgee]

Battling this for a couple of months and losing several frags, the answer is yes for me. I started losing my high end frags first and then random cheaper acros. The hard part is identifying the culprit.

What I did to slow it down was:
1. Keep temp in range. Because summer, I let my tank temp rise to reduce energy cost of running AC all the time and that was not a good idea.. warm temp also means more ideal for bacteria-- both good and bad. Fixed this by adding a chiller and managing tank temp under 80F.

2. ICP test. Stopped all dosing (my hunch is that it's an amino acid in one of my dosing regimens) and water changes.

3. Stopped UV and dosed Dr Tim's EcoBalance-- just in case it was vibrio. Ran out of the bottle and still had an issue after this. Added more bacterial diversity with Aquaforest life source.

4. Dosed a drop of iodine daily. That was a suggestion off of archives about RTN/STN from the OGs.

5. Added a catalytic carbon filter to my RODI setup to remove chloramines -- I watched a reefing podcast that postulates that water management companies dose more chloramines to control bacteria, which is of course anecdotal. I'd rather be on the safe side since I don't know how much is in my water anyway. I just wanted to rule it out.

6.. Followed the Moonshiner's protocol of witch hazel and prodibio vials nightly. 50ml of witch hazel per 100g and one vial of prodibio. So far it has been 7 days and the RTN of my RRC AB frag stopped (knock on wood). I bought enough to complete a two week regimen which I wanted to do just in case. This has been most effective out of all the steps I've done.

I did lose a lot of high end SPS frags while battling-- so my lesson learned here is only buy the frags during fall/winter time so it adapts before summer. Maybe continue the witch hazel treatment preemptively during next summer.

 

[alveoporanutt]

Battling this for a couple of months and losing several frags, the answer is yes for me. I started losing my high end frags first and then random cheaper acros. The hard part is identifying the culprit.

What I did to slow it down was:
1. Keep temp in range. Because summer, I let my tank temp rise to reduce energy cost of running AC all the time and that was not a good idea.. warm temp also means more ideal for bacteria-- both good and bad. Fixed this by adding a chiller and managing tank temp under 80F.

2. ICP test. Stopped all dosing (my hunch is that it's an amino acid in one of my dosing regimens) and water changes.

3. Stopped UV and dosed Dr Tim's EcoBalance-- just in case it was vibrio. Ran out of the bottle and still had an issue after this. Added more bacterial diversity with Aquaforest life source.

4. Dosed a drop of iodine daily. That was a suggestion off of archives about RTN/STN from the OGs.

5. Added a catalytic carbon filter to my RODI setup to remove chloramines -- I watched a reefing podcast that postulates that water management companies dose more chloramines to control bacteria, which is of course anecdotal. I'd rather be on the safe side since I don't know how much is in my water anyway. I just wanted to rule it out.

6.. Followed the Moonshiner's protocol of witch hazel and prodibio vials nightly. 50ml of witch hazel per 100g and one vial of prodibio. So far it has been 7 days and the RTN of my RRC AB frag stopped (knock on wood). I bought enough to complete a two week regimen which I wanted to do just in case. This has been most effective out of all the steps I've done.

I did lose a lot of high end SPS frags while battling-- so my lesson learned here is only buy the frags during fall/winter time so it adapts before summer. Maybe continue the witch hazel treatment preemptively during next summer.

Thanks! Agree on temp. I am in Tx so I constantly blasting the AC. Looking at my apex graphs, I never see more than 1 degree change but I’ll keep following

I do add aminos but been doing this for about 8 months.

Interesting on ecobalance! Luckily I have a bottle. I also have bag of lifesource but haven’t used it in a while. Clogs up socks so fast!

For my RODI I’ve got two Di resin chambers and my ICP tests don’t show any issues with my topoff water

Never heard of the witchhazel regimen! I’ll need to look into this.


Two more things do add. I did start vodka dosing 3ml/day. I also just changed water two days ago using a fresh bag of salt. Maybe that was the culprit??

 

[SeaDweller]

not necessarily. one colony could be very unhappy. doesn't mean it'll be widespread. I lost 2 smooth skin colonies last week: a golden dragon and Hungs rainbow explosion. Nothing else is affected. just keep a close eye on the others, and when you notice TN, try to frag-save anything you can.

 

[bubbgee]

Thanks! Agree on temp. I am in Tx so I constantly blasting the AC. Looking at my apex graphs, I never see more than 1 degree change but I’ll keep following

I do add aminos but been doing this for about 8 months.

Interesting on ecobalance! Luckily I have a bottle. I also have bag of lifesource but haven’t used it in a while. Clogs up socks so fast!

For my RODI I’ve got two Di resin chambers and my ICP tests don’t show any issues with my topoff water

Never heard of the witchhazel regimen! I’ll need to look into this.


Two more things do add. I did start vodka dosing 3ml/day. I also just changed water two days ago using a fresh bag of salt. Maybe that was the culprit??

If it's the bad kind of bacteria, the vodka unleashed a lot of it. Any carbon dosing and aminos is gonna feed that bacteria until you rebalance the biome. It's not the salt unless the ICP shows heavy metals.

 

[Nate Chalk]

Not even needing to read anything. Always expect rtn and you'll never been disappointed.

Exhibit ABC

 

[bubbgee]

Not even needing to read anything. Always expect rtn and you'll never been disappointed.

Exhibit ABC

Looks like chemical/biological warfare issues. Do you run ozone or carbon?

 

[SudzFD]

Thanks! Agree on temp. I am in Tx so I constantly blasting the AC. Looking at my apex graphs, I never see more than 1 degree change but I’ll keep following

I do add aminos but been doing this for about 8 months.

Interesting on ecobalance! Luckily I have a bottle. I also have bag of lifesource but haven’t used it in a while. Clogs up socks so fast!

For my RODI I’ve got two Di resin chambers and my ICP tests don’t show any issues with my topoff water

Never heard of the witchhazel regimen! I’ll need to look into this.


Two more things do add. I did start vodka dosing 3ml/day. I also just changed water two days ago using a fresh bag of salt. Maybe that was the culprit??

I have a hard time with the amino theory, I am not sure how that could cause this. I do think unstable parameters can cause this whether that’s salinity changes or temp changes or some other change. I went through this when I had an overflow issue causing me to dump my ATO in and drastically lower my salinity.

Witches hazel does help and it’s in a lot of the Coral remedies like Coral recover. It also makes your skimmer go nuts so heads up there.

I personally suspect a bottoming out of nitrate could be a cause. If it’s at 3 I’m guessing it’s been lower, maybe quite often. Aiming for above 5 would likely help. I’ve been dosing neo nitro to help me with my bottomed out nitrate. Hope you get it figured out. It’s frustrating. I did have several colonies I thought I had lost make a big recovery once I stabilized things and kept my nitro up. I also started dosing Red Sea Ab+ which is amino acids and that helped a lot.

 

[Nate Chalk]

Looks like chemical/biological warfare issues. Do you run ozone or carbon?

I do what are you basing that on

 

[Dburr1014]

Hello!

I was doing a water change this afternoon and saw that one of my large Acro colonies was undergoing RTN. I have no idea why. I took out immediately. My main question is whether this could be a sign of others RTN-ing soon??? Below are my parameters and some pics

Salinity: 1.025
CA 460
Mg 1380
KH 8-8.3 based on time of day
ph: 8.1-8.5 based on time of day
Temp- 77.5-78.1
Nitrate: 3
Phosphate. 0.06 - been lowering it and maybe using lanthanum chloride shocked the system???

Why are you lowering it? It's at the bottom end already. Immediately stop.

Last ICP test showed no issues minus high phsophate

Interestingly enough, over the last 2 days I have been getting amazing PE — more so than normal. Colors all look great to me

PS — sorry for bad photos- took through a few cheap iPhone lenses

How about your flow and lights?

First thing I usually suggest is to dim the lights 10% for a week or two.

Second is to make sure you have massive flow.

 

[kynan]

I have been battling random STN and then lost two colonies that had been thriving. Finally found this culprit, reefwave 45 with wires bursting out of the casing. Pumps don’t always have to fail to do something insidious.

 

[Dburr1014]

I have been battling random STN and then lost two colonies that had been thriving. Finally found this culprit, reefwave 45 with wires bursting out of the casing. Pumps don’t always have to fail to do something insidious.

No broken wires? Electrical tape that up.

 

[Nate Chalk]

I have been battling random STN and then lost two colonies that had been thriving. Finally found this culprit, reefwave 45 with wires bursting out of the casing. Pumps don’t always have to fail to do something insidious.

How is this causing coral loss? Submersible pump?

 

[Spartan76]

I’m pretty sure aminos triggered rtn in my tank. Whatever pathogenic bacteria causes it, can get amped up with the aminos.
I did one thing that arrested it. Cutting off the healthy looking parts of the colony and liberally washing the ends with peroxide. The frags I did that with recovered.

 

[bubbgee]

I’m pretty sure aminos triggered rtn in my tank. Whatever pathogenic bacteria causes it, can get amped up with the aminos.
I did one thing that arrested it. Cutting off the healthy looking parts of the colony and liberally washing the ends with peroxide. The frags I did that with recovered.

What's your peroxide recipe or procedure? Thanks!

 

[Spartan76]

Bought a regular bottle of peroxide from drugstore, All I did was use a 5 ml syringe and liberally drip it over the cut end of the frag. I just had to do this again with a birdsnest, 7 of 9 frags survived a week later.

 

[mcarroll]

Phosphate. 0.06 - been lowering it and maybe using lanthanum chloride shocked the system???
Last ICP test showed no issues minus high phsophate

Interestingly enough, over the last 2 days I have been getting amazing PE — more so than normal. Colors all look great to me

Obviously messing with PO4 (Lanthanum Chloride) is what did it....no need to speculate on other matters.

Tank seems to look great, BTW. You know what they say about not fixing what isn't broken??? ;)

Hit the undo button on that change and cross your fingers you didn't put a chink in anyone else's armor.

ICP will probably reveal LC in the water....I'd skip the test and be googling how to remove LC from the water the fastest/bestest way possible.

 

[archipelago]

Obviously messing with PO4 (Lanthanum Chloride) is what did it....no need to speculate on other matters.

Tank seems to look great, BTW. You know what they say about not fixing what isn't broken??? ;)

Hit the undo button on that change and cross your fingers you didn't put a chink in anyone else's armor.

ICP will probably reveal LC in the water....I'd skip the test and be googling how to remove LC from the water the fastest/bestest way possible.

I don't necessarily disagree with your diagnosis, but I'm curious about what makes you 100% certain it is the Lanthanum Chloride that has triggered the necrosis?

I have used this on at least one SPS only system with no ill effects, and WWC uses it to control PO4 on their systems.

 

[mcarroll]

When there's a change followed by a problem, you can believe it's the change that caused the problem almost all the time. Odds of it being "something else" is more like the odds of hitting the lottery...not likely.

But if there's significant evidence of something else, we don't ignore it – I just think it would have been mentioned already. So.....

Further, circumstantial evidence is how the corals reacted – it's consistent with phosphate issues. They were adapted to a level, you changed it drastically (to them) and here we are.

What was the reason for the change, BTW?

WWC is a retail operation and I'm not sure how closely you'd really want to mirror what they do.

Doing it once doesn't mean a whole lot, unfortunately....you may have gotten lucky.

 

[archipelago]

When there's a change followed by a problem, you can believe it's the change that caused the problem almost all the time. Odds of it being "something else" is more like the odds of hitting the lottery...not likely.

But if there's significant evidence of something else, we don't ignore it – I just think it would have been mentioned already. So.....

Further, circumstantial evidence is how the corals reacted – it's consistent with phosphate issues. They were adapted to a level, you changed it drastically (to them) and here we are.

What was the reason for the change, BTW?

WWC is a retail operation and I'm not sure how closely you'd really want to mirror what they do.

Doing it once doesn't mean a whole lot, unfortunately....you may have gotten lucky.

Understood on all fronts. Thanks.