Share your thoughts on RTN

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ouling

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I'm been through many RTNs due carelessness and no superglue, and 100% of those are from flow. What i think is when the coral (sps) is stressed, it is much easier to have it RTN on you. So what I mean is if your tank is going through a bad phase, or havn't gotten any attention in 2 weeks like mine, the most innocuous thing may trigger a RTN. I had my one of my Anacropora RTN this morning when I found it fell to be back of the tank, the half that is sticking out of the rock is fine (had flow) the other half behind the rock is dead. RTN is tissue being gone in super fast, and these things are usually respatory problems, when the thing can't breath (no flow) it dies. I don't think moderate alk/calcium/ph problems can directly trigger all out RTN, at least i've never seen it. What alk/calcium/ph do is cause stress, and if something adds to that stress then the things is gone. And also I believe that from a tank with extreme amounts of flow, when the coral fell to a place, such as behind a rock in a deadspot with almost no flow, it reacts very negatively.

Please share your thoughts, thats just my worthless opinion:boo: .
 
I think your pretty close but RTN can be caused by inadequate light, bad water conditions, diseases/bacteria, etc. You have experienced it from flow and that is certainly one cause. And yes any thing "non-optimal" will cause stress and make the coral more prone to RTN.
 
I hate RTN!!!




I think that temperature is the root cause of it though. Large temperature swings or high tank temps.
 
What I really would like to know is that if one coral RTN suddenly, (3 corals have in 2 weeks in my tank), does the RTN coral expel something in the water that makes the other coral want to RTN also? like a chemcial signal or virus or bacteria?? I know RTN can be cured by this one drug that i cannot remember the name, so it must be something bacterial that is triggering the entire coral to die.

Temp can be an issue, especially with the weather swinging from 96-78 in a week. I have a chiller and heater and fans to help but i think the tank still feels a bit of change despite the fancy equiptment.

Please share your thoughts.

I had 3 corals RTN on me! All because of falling behind the rocks and getting no flow, and a galaxia looks like it's about to go also becasuse i had a live rock accident that fell on the guy, multiple times! Usually things fall to the back of the tank and is fine, but i guess different corals respond differently... Must be the rapid change in water chemistry and the light thing, temp may have a bit to do with it too for stress.... Basically a bit of everything, just like a hot dog.
 
Dude, I do not know how to say this in a nice way but, you know the answer to your question. You dumped a whole bottle of CA in your tank a week and a half ago. Your Alk has gone from 18dkH to 6dkH in the past few day (and I am sure you dumped a bunch of additives in to get it back up to 15+ dkh), I am sure your PH has been all over the place, you have admitted that your tank temp is all over the place! The only thing that has not changed is your salinity (that we know of but do tell if you have gone from 1.026 to 1.015 in the past week.)... I hate to say it, but all the fancey equipment in the world will not help if you do not stop letting your tank swing from one extream to the other! Corals like stability, heck anything in the tank likes stability, and SPS is some of the hardest hit by swings...

Get it under control and quit messing with the tank for awhile. let things simmer down and find their balance and then keep it there. That is my honest advice... RTN is soon to be the least of your worries!!!

BTW: if it was me, I would cut the colony and save what you can... but IF the cause is enviromental (which could be) then the cut off section is just as at risk. Borneman seems to believe it is not bacterial and, while no one knows and I do not like Borneman all that much, I tend to think he might be right here. QUIT MESSING WITH YOUR TANK BECAUSE I BET THAT IS THE CAUSE!
 
yea i know. But my personality is that way and i just do things RIGHT AWAY. Too late now and i'm going to correct the calcium and alk to modest levels and get aggressive with the stats in a week or two. I never think my alk reached 18, because during a snow storm, the acid titration would actually count the precipated calcium and magnesium as dkh also. And everything was fine during the snowstorm era-i think a supersaturation actually prevents things from going out of hand. But now i've dosed in correct levels :) and actually pulling the calcium up by 35ppm or so daily. Alk been dropping by 1-2 dkh daily, which is not very strange considering i'm doing calcium aggressively. Thats my explaination for what i've done but i'll be leaving it alone for now. Just keeping up with the uptake is all i'm concerned. 380ppm calcium, 8dkh, pH 8.0-8.4 (not very strange for me)
 
ouling;53550 wrote: I never think my alk reached 18,
Click to expand...

I do not have the energy to find the post right now but rest assured you should go back and find a post made by you in the past two weeks because that is what you stated your Alk was.

ouling;53550 wrote:
Nitrate goes up 10ppm every week
Click to expand...

I did find this quote by you too... Again more instability within your tank...


All this is not to harp on you but just to make a point. You raise alot of questions on the forum and that keeps discussions going, that is good. You seem to ask the same questions over and over again and proclaim to be an "expert" in chemistry but fail to see how the administering of additives is clearly effecting your tank!

Again if you want my advice, both now and in the future, put the bottle of CA down and step away from the tank! Think about what you are adding and how it is effecting your tank. Shooting for a number of a test kit is not good for your tank. Get the tank to good stable numbers and see what it takes to keep it there. Spend the next 3 months letting the tank work through all that imbalance and get a fresh start on it. Doing anything else is soon to lead to much bigger problems that might just nuke your tank and push you out of the hobby.

That is my last advice for you, take it or leave it.
 
Ya and there is not one thing to cure kit as it is probably many many different things that cause and actually are called RTN. And yes it can spread to other corals but usually only does so to either touching or extremely close corals.

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/0498/0498_2.html">http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/0498/0498_2.html</a>


Also see this

[IMG]http://www.ericborneman.com/Biographical/My%20writings/Plymouth.pdf">http://www.ericborneman.com/Biographical/My%20writings/Plymouth.pdf</a>
 
Xyzpdq0121;53585 wrote: All this is not to harp on you but just to make a point. You raise alot of questions on the forum and that keeps discussions going, that is good. You seem to ask the same questions over and over again and proclaim to be an "expert" in chemistry but fail to see how the administering of additives is clearly effecting your tank!
Click to expand...

I think you just need to sit back and let things be for a bit. I know it is hard and probably more so because of your background, but doing things really slowly is the way to go. My alk and pH are all over the place as well, but it takes weeks for swings to occur usually. dKH in most systems doesn't drop from 15+ to 3-4 overnight on its own. I think if you just started dosing the recommended doses and stopped obsessing on the test kits you will find your corals won't have nearly as many problems. I often think over testing is worse than under testing for some people.
 
Cameron, I think overadjusting is the worst thing people do! You can test however often you want but verify with a few tests at different times of the day before taking action. I learned that the hard way years ago when I accidently only put 3 ml of water in a test kit instead of 5ml and then threw a bunch of calcium in . Come to find out it was fine before and I had shot it to almost 600!

Anyway Cameron is right. slow and steady. be sure you have a plan and have verified results. And rather then just throwing some in know how much you need and go with a plan!!

The plan has to be wholistic also as Brandon mentioned. Looking at one parameter while ignoring the others is a losing battle!

A classic on adjusting calcium and alk adjustments

a>
 
I found this post about RTN on another forum. I can't speak for it's accuracy.

"Before I go on, it's important to point out that Rapid tissue necrosis is classified as a viral infection (Anti-biotics will not do a thing to help the coral). Rapid tissue necrosis is often observed as the corals tissue is falling off the coral, often in sheets. The genus Acropora and Pocillopora seem to be most effected by this disease. Slow tissue necrosis (Commonly referred to as &#8216;STN&#8217;) is related to rapid tissue necrosis, although the disease progresses much slower. What&#8217;s the cure? Unfortunately there is no guaranteed cure. Most of the time, you will have to break off the area infected with RTN and hope that the main coral doesn&#8217;t get RTN again. Always remember to discard the infected coral to ensure that the disease does not travel to any other corals. Usually environmental factors cause RTN, which includes poor water quality, improper temperature, large amounts of stress, quick changes in pH, and so on. Sometimes a coral may appear to be doing fine for years and then one day decides to get rapid tissue necrosis and within a day the whole coral is lost. RTN can completely kill a coral in a matter of hours. I once lost a very nice purple with green polyped table Acropora hyacinthus in less than 30 minutes due to RTN. I have also had some limited success with 2 out of 4 frags with putting a super glue over the infected area of the coral and hoping that the coral doesn&#8217;t get rapid tissue necrosis again. This may work, or, this may end up in the coral getting RTN for a second time due to the first necrosis event. If you decide to use this method, do so with caution. I cannot guarantee any success using this method.

Overall, fragging the coral would be the best route to go. I would frag the coral 1" from where the the tissue is falling off of the skeleton (this will lessen the chance of the fragment getting RTN for a second time due to the first incident)."
 
Ok thanks for the advice. Don't need to get angry :) It's my tank and my corals... If I had the passion of adjusting calcium and alk immediately then it is something I do, not that I think about how rapid raise in calcium would affect my corals.

My nitrate was high because I had my little sister playing in the sump all the time and didn't know it.

Alk was that high because of calcium precipatation and thus causing a strange test.

I don't deal with this kind of problem all the time, and I know for a fact that the 12oz of calcium gluconate I dumped in would raise my calcium to normal levels due to the low calcium concentration of the thing. I relied on that if it is supersaturated, it would fall out of solution, and i would stop adding it. BTW I added it very slow, half bottle first and the other half in 4 hours.

We all learn from our mistakes. I don't proclaim i'm the chemistry expert, but i've taken my share of science in my school. I just don't know the biology of corals as well as you do.

No one told me the chemistry in the reef tank must be corrected slowly before. I did all the hard calculations including the molar conecentration of whatever calcium solution i make on paper before I added anything in. What i thought was this: Corals are stressed at low alk/calcium levels, and things not being perfect drives me crazy; therefore a correction must be made immediately. I was not able to test magnesium at the time so i relied on calcium supersaturation to tell me the concentration of magnesium in my tank. I also didn't read the back label of SeaChems reef calcium to know that is calcium gluconate and does not release ionic calcium until much later.
 
LOL... Ya we all learn from our mistakes and you are right it is your tank so do with it what you like. It is just not my recommendation for a text book way to keep a sucessful tank. That means very little, I know but I would refrain from suggesting people follow your approach. Relying on a CA supersaturation to figure out you Mag levels is not for the faint of heart! This is just my observation but your methods seems to have left you with a reef tank that is a problem. Judging by your posts in the past few weeks, it appears that your math is off a bit, or you would not be having some of the problems you are.

I do not think any of us are angery, again it is your tank, your money, and your animals lifes in your hand... But you ask for help and you are going to get opinions, you might not like what you hear but everything in this thread has been vaild from all the people who have posted. it is up to you to decided to take the advice or not. Just be forwarned, if you come up here in a month and state "I am having a problem with Mag levels because I tested XXX and adjusted XXX over the period of 10 min..." you are likely to get a few "I told you to step away from the tank!"
 
yea. Mag is fine for now and so is everything else. I keep my alk very unaggressively at 8-9 dkh and very happy with my 400ppm calcium also! maybe 420 is better... lets go get that bottle... lol see thats my problem, it's never good enough, and I add too much and everything comes out again. Half of my oolite in my sand i've made it myself. :thumbs:
 
Well admitting you have a problem is the first step!!!


Reef chemistry is not a perfect science, you are dealing with living things not lab equipment. Read anything published by any of the major experts and they will tell you, "do not chase the number, strive for a good balance." Your tank will tell you what it needs and what your levels should be at..
 
The guys on WWM would tell you to stop all additives and water change water change water change. Give it a couple of months and see where you're at.
 
Never, I hate waiting. I'm already done with the additives. finished in 4 days from 300ppm - 420, alk is 7 and going to be at 9 soon. From the way my calcium get used i would need to do a 100% water change every 2 weeks at least.
 
kwl1763;53954 wrote: All I'll say is good luck! That attitude and this hobby don't mix :)
Click to expand...

Most hobbyists DO find this out the hard way after ignoring advice. Afterwords they either learn from their mistakes or leave the hobby.
 
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