Anyone dosing bacteria additives to prevent STN/RTN?

DrewBrees713 · Oct 2, 2018

I think it could work however dont let it get to ULN or else it can be detrimental to your corals. The idea is to add good bac to outcompete pathogen germs. I’ve tried putting this to a test, not reef related, but you’ll get the idea.

What i did was put a culture of the bac that makes its own antibiotic to an enviroment ( not into fish tank) that’s colonized by bac that produces sulfuric compound. And in a number of days the bad guys population decreased drastically. However, i noticed they rebounded if i stop replenising my good culture.

Has anyone been dosing to prevent Stn/rtn. Would love to hear your stories.

Flippers4pups · Oct 2, 2018

From what I've read is that when environmental stresses (conditions that are less than favorable for coral health) weaken coral, the bad bacteria (Vibrio in some cases) surrounding it can move in and damage it's tissue. Removing the coral and treating it using antibiotics sometimes can help, other times it doesn't. Hit or miss.
Corals have hundreds of bacterial strains that vary from one part of the reef to another in the ocean. Knowing what strains are associated with the coral we keep in our tanks would be extremely difficult to ascertain.

Adding bacterial strains to the water collum will do little to keep this from happening.

http://www.artificialreefs.org/Corals/diseasesfiles/Common Identified Coral Diseases.htm

Flippers4pups · Oct 2, 2018

Here's another good watch:

Dennis Cartier · Oct 3, 2018

I had a situation in my frag tank recently along these lines. I found that all my plating/encrusting montiporas would either STN or RTN. I came to the conclusion that I had a pathogenic bacteria in the tank that my husbandry practices were encouraging to flourish. I corrected the imbalance by decreasing my dosing of iron and using Eco-Balance in the hopes that the problem bacteria was from the Vibrio family and Eco-Balance's claim to contain a bacteria that can out compete vibrio would help.

You can read my thread here https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/hidden-threats-real-and-perceived-pathogenic-bacteria.434709/

The RTN/STN has completely stopped now and I am able to dose nitrate again without triggering an event. I only ended up doing a handful of Eco-Balance treatments, but do plan to do them on a regular basis now that I am able to adjust nitrate levels independently again.

Dennis