Rtn

[frantz]

Got my first case of RTN this morning. My coral has been doing really well so its disappointing to get this now. About 2 1/2 inches of a branch of acro. I cut of the branch as low as I could and fragged a few points from the other side of the coral. I did a 5% water change and tested my water (API)
temp 77
Sal 1.025
ph 8.4
ca 380
kh 12
Phos ~0
No3 ~0

I started dosing vodka on the 7th but am only up to 10mL a day (5mL am 5mL pm). I also added a 5g bucket DBS last week. My pH had be low a month ago and I had been gradually bringing it up with buffer. Could the fresh sand in the DBS have caused this spike (a week ago it was 8.0)? I was under the impression sand wouldn't raise pH unless your pH was really low. Anyone see anything else obviously outta wack? Further suggestions to prevent more loss?

 

[Jaycen B.]

Did you start your vodka dosing on the 7th of this month? I too have been vodka dosing and I am only up to 4.1 ml a day, I started 38 days ago on a 200 gal system. Might want to look into that. Have you seen any other strange things going on in your tank? But rtn is one of those things that have many causes.

 

[frantz]

Darn decimals! I am only doing 1.0 a day (.5 am and .5 pm) sorry for the mistake. aprx 180 total gallons.

 

[Jaycen B.]

That sounds better. Have you been keeping up on your tests for alk while adding the buffer? A kh of 12 would be on the high end for vodka dosing. An alk swing may be the cause.

 

[landon]

Frantz;725872 wrote: Darn decimals! I am only doing 1.0 a day (.5 am and .5 pm) sorry for the mistake. aprx 180 total gallons.

Wow. Yeah. When I saw how much you were dosing my mouth dropped. I've been dosing for a week and am only at .63 ml. Good catch though.

 

[ichthyoid]

Lose the API test kits would be a great start IMHO. Your nutrients appear to be at zero and alk at the point of burning tips. You really don't know with API.

 

[frantz]

Well I do have a red sea NO3 test and I used it to verify the API when I think there might be an issue. Because I didn't have problems before I was comfortable with the API for general ideas of conditions. Everything else is doing alright and the RTN hasn't spread since taking out the bad section. How fast does this stuff really spread? When will I know if i'm out of the danger zone?

 

[ichthyoid]

I have no experience with Red Sea. You are not in 'general condition' range with the alk and nutrients. You ARE in ulns range. You can 'fly the plane into the ground' without good instruments (tests) -IMHO. NO nutrients is not 'low nutrients' and can kill coral just as fast as high nutrients can.

 

[ralph atl]

Ditch the API...get Elos or Salifert

 

[lear192]

I guess my Fish are drunk..LOL I also dose but I dose 1ml per 25 gallons and up the dosage .05 ml per week. It will be 4 weeks tomorrow.

 

[frantz]

Ok, so no more RTN progress at this point. The branch I cut off completely died but everything else is okay including the main parent and the frags i cut. Now I'm thinking maybe it was something else. It started lower on the branch and worked its way up to the tip. Any ideas or did i just truly dodge a bullet?

 

[snowmansnow]

Sounds like the coral got stung or something ... I've had RTN a few times over the years and I've NEVER been able to stop it by fragging something....

That being said... it looks like you are throwing a lot of changes at your tank all at once... make sure to go slow

B