First time dealing with rtn, few questions.

[WDKegge]

So I'm dealing with stn for the first time on a large colony of Miyagi Tort in my tank and had a few questions.

So for starters, there have been no swings in parameters, no new additives, and pest free tank.

I have this particular acro in several different spots in my tank, and 3 out of the 4 colonies are all rtning.

The main colony

Group of frags I'd made awhile ago, all 3 are rtn from the base up, with the center one losing flesh the fastest.

Everything else in my tank is as happy as can be. I'm not particularly worried about losing this colony. It's one of my less colorful pieces and it's taking up prime spots for other pieces I would like to grow out.

I guess my question would be is why this particular sps is having an issue, is something effecting that particial type of coral? Just curious as to why only that specific coral having issues in multiple spots and multiple colonies.

My tank:

 

[Queen City Corals]

Hey WDKegge, since you haven't added anything new into the tank I would probably send out an ICP test to see if you have something leaching or if maybe a test kit went bad and one of your parameters isn't testing properly. Since its multiple pieces of the same coral across the tank I would assume it would be some sort of leaching.

 

[REEFTIDE]

Do you do water changes? What do you dose?

 

[WDKegge]

Thought I would update this post, I believe I have found the issue.

Never had to test for it before as I have never had an issue but over the past 3-4 months I have had an unlucky string of fish related incidents resulting in me losing several of my larger fish.

Hannah Nitrate: 0.0 ppm
Hannah Phos: 0.012 ppm

After skimming around through reef2reef and other forums I found many other posts with people having very similar issues to me (tissue receding from the base, poor color and polyp extension). And everyone having these issue that I was able to find also seemed to have bottomed out nutrients.

I have started dosing brightwell nitrogen and phosphates and will start hunting for some more fish.

 

[Uriken]

Is that an Aptasia on the right side under the top frag in picture 2?

 

[WDKegge]

Is that an Aptasia on the right side under the top frag in picture 2?

Probably.

 

[ScottB]

Thought I would update this post, I believe I have found the issue.

Never had to test for it before as I have never had an issue but over the past 3-4 months I have had an unlucky string of fish related incidents resulting in me losing several of my larger fish.

Hannah Nitrate: 0.0 ppm
Hannah Phos: 0.012 ppm

After skimming around through reef2reef and other forums I found many other posts with people having very similar issues to me (tissue receding from the base, poor color and polyp extension). And everyone having these issue that I was able to find also seemed to have bottomed out nutrients.

I have started dosing brightwell nitrogen and phosphates and will start hunting for some more fish.

I went through something similar when I finally had to rehome some monster tangs & foxface. The whole system was a little "off" when my bioload changed that much, that fast.

Given that experience, I would absolutely dread having to go fallow for velvet.

 

[WDKegge]

Noticed several more colonies having the receding white tissue around the edge, I have ordered a triton test and have my fingers crossed I can track down whatever the issue is asap. In the meantime I will continue to bring nitrate and phosphate up slowly while I wait and keep my fingers crossed that things improve.

Here are some pictures of what I am dealing with:

 

[markalot]

Something happened to your params a couple of weeks ago, most likely. Remember with acros things are delayed, and if you react when problems happen you might make things worse. So can you think of anything that might have happened a while before problems started showing up? Alk swing? Less feeding, lighting changes, flow changes?

 

[Huskymaniac]

Rtn can be contagious so be careful spreading infected tissue around. Don't want to freak you out but if it's true rtn it can take months to recover. I would start by dripping your light intensity into an acclimation mode. Maybe add some fresh bacteria to the tank.

 

[WDKegge]

Something happened to your params a couple of weeks ago, most likely. Remember with acros things are delayed, and if you react when problems happen you might make things worse. So can you think of anything that might have happened a while before problems started showing up? Alk swing? Less feeding, lighting changes, flow changes?

Maybe slightly less feeding over the past few months, tank is run on a calcium reactor and parameters are always stable with weekly testing. This tank has been running on auto pilot for the better part of the year with no changes to anything. The most change the tank probably sees is once every few months when I clean my pump impellers and might have slightly increased flow after, but nothing that would warrant this type of die off all over the tank.

Woke up to previously healthy encrusting frags on my frack rack shooting skin off.

Just got done going through the sump with a fine tooth comb checking all pumps heaters and looking for rust or some other contaminant, no dice.

ICP test is on the way but I have a feeling at the rate things are going I'm not going to have any sps left by the end of the week.

Changed out my RODI filters, they were on the older side but have always had a reason of zero TDS, is it possible the carbon may have exhausted and is not pulling something out of the water?

Added a bag of carbon on the off chance that something got into the tank.

My next step would be to do a large water change with fresh RODI filters? Not sure if I should push things.

Also should note the random other LPS/mushrooms and other coral I have in the tank are perfectly happy.

 

[WDKegge]

The other odd thing to me is that SPS that losing skin are colorful with polyps out and happy, I checked last night with a flash light and almost all SPS had feeding sweepers out.

 

[Yazannreef]

Had same issue recently and was a combo of metals in the tank leaching and an alkalinity spike!
Fixed both and tank now is back on track

 

[Yazannreef]

Stopped dosing to let alk drop naturally from 10 to 8.5 (Alk was showing 8.5 on trident while in reality it spiked to 10 without me double checking with my Hanna checker)in a course of 2 weeks.
Few 15% water changes every week
Added Metasorb to absorb metals
Added UV sterilizer

 

[ScottB]

Maybe slightly less feeding over the past few months, tank is run on a calcium reactor and parameters are always stable with weekly testing. This tank has been running on auto pilot for the better part of the year with no changes to anything. The most change the tank probably sees is once every few months when I clean my pump impellers and might have slightly increased flow after, but nothing that would warrant this type of die off all over the tank.

Woke up to previously healthy encrusting frags on my frack rack shooting skin off.

Just got done going through the sump with a fine tooth comb checking all pumps heaters and looking for rust or some other contaminant, no dice.

ICP test is on the way but I have a feeling at the rate things are going I'm not going to have any sps left by the end of the week.

Changed out my RODI filters, they were on the older side but have always had a reason of zero TDS, is it possible the carbon may have exhausted and is not pulling something out of the water?

Added a bag of carbon on the off chance that something got into the tank.

My next step would be to do a large water change with fresh RODI filters? Not sure if I should push things.

Also should note the random other LPS/mushrooms and other coral I have in the tank are perfectly happy.

Sorry to see this, really. I'd say keep the focus on nutrients until the ICP comes in. Not too many moving bits until the basics are secured: sufficient nutrient and no metals in the ICP.

Start dumping in the food regularly to keep a tad of ammonium coming in regularly as your fish are not doing that for you.

 

[markalot]

I'm, going to say lack of food and slow starvation that is just now showing up. Don't expect a quick turn around, and don't dump in too much food, but get some nutrients in the water and lower the lights a bit to slow down the food requirements. ALso keep an eye on the Alk because these changes, and the dying acros, are going to change alk consumption.

 

[WDKegge]

Lost the whole right side on this one seemingly overnight, it was showing stn on the base to this in the afternoon when I got home from work.

It's doing this while having great color and good polyp extension.

ICP Test went out yesterday but it looks like the triton US lab is currently down so they are shipping to germany, who knows how long before I get results back.

Nitrates are now at 8ppm and phos at 0.35, not sure what else to do at this point, if things are still accelerating I may just do several massive water changes...

This is really hard to watch after 2 years of next to no issues and fantastic growth and color...

 

[ScottB]

Lost the whole right side on this one seemingly overnight, it was showing stn on the base to this in the afternoon when I got home from work.

It's doing this while having great color and good polyp extension.

ICP Test went out yesterday but it looks like the triton US lab is currently down so they are shipping to germany, who knows how long before I get results back.

Nitrates are now at 8ppm and phos at 0.35, not sure what else to do at this point, if things are still accelerating I may just do several massive water changes...

This is really hard to watch after 2 years of next to no issues and fantastic growth and color...

So sorry. This is painful to see even from here.

Gotta be some kind of metal or toxin. Throw a bunch of polyfilter in there. @yassir999 suggested Metasorb or even cuprisorb. GAC is already in right?
*edit yes saw u have GAC running.

 

[OnPointCorals Verified Sponsor]

Sorry to see you going through this. I'm interested to see what the ICP comes back as.

You went from .01 PO4 to .35 In 7 days. From that alone I would expect serious stress. Typically the real issues happen when PO4 quickly crashes but that is an extremely fast and drastic spike.

 

[WDKegge]

From healthy to this in 24 hours.