HELP RTN

Laynrockers · Aug 10, 2015

Hi guys,

I am dialing in my new home office set up after moving over a year ago. Once i got my display tank/ frag tank up and running placed many new coral and fish orders for about 3-4 months. During this time i introduced RTN to my tank.

I am continuing to loose 1-3 corals a week. All of a sudden they will be a white skeleton, almost overnight or within a 24 hour period of time.

How do you treat this, what can help??

Tahoe61 · Aug 10, 2015

RTN, rapid tissue necrosis is a syndrome rather than a disease/pathogen. RTN is a symptom of an underlying problem.

First you have to list your chemistry, Ca/Alk/Mag, Nitrates, Phosphates SG and temp. What are you dosing if anything?Lighting? Flow?

Are corals specifically sps?

It's been my experience that RTN and STN are commonly caused by water chemistry issues.

bsstover · Aug 10, 2015

I was about to start a post on this exact thing. I have noticed over the past few weeks many of my acros demonstrating STN/RTN, starting at the bottom of the coral working its way up until it is a completely bleached acro. I have been constantly checking my water parameters for this thinking there is something about the chemistry causing the issue. From a lot of the reading I've done it says that high NO3 and PO4 can cause this. As a response I have slowly tried to get these down. It seemed that things were doing ok during this trend down and today another acro is showing signs of this. When checked today, NO3 and PO4 were nearly undetectable with Red Sea kits. I guess I'm just a little confused; do we try to run ULNS systems or dirty water? I'm sure the answer is "in between." But how are we supposed to keep it in between? I have been a running biopellet reactor which has dropped the levels, do I just use half as much media? I'm starting to get a little confused. I have been in saltwater for nearly 10 years now and this is really the first time I've experienced this phenomenon (other times I've had die offs was due to rookie or stupid mistakes). I'm going to tag along this, sorry to hijack, but I was just about to post same thing!
My current levels
Alk 9.5
Ca 400
Mg 1300
NO3 - 0
PO4 - 0.04 (which I always thought NO3 usually higher than PO4)
Salinity 1.025
LED lights running at 60%

StevenBell · Aug 10, 2015

I too had an issue with stn nt long ago.Fragged what I could off it and gave them several good dips with Reef dip and peroxide.Frags seem to be doing well now

loglan · Aug 10, 2015

Ime rtn or stn is water quality problem. I know vendors that run high NO3 and PO4 and have beautiful colored sps. Alk swings, temp swings or overall any swings in the big 3 cam cause this. Have you you changed anything or added anything to disrupt your usual routine?

Laynrockers · Aug 10, 2015

I check my levels weekly as this is a new system i am getting used to.

I have a 210G display tank, 90g sump, 40 gallon frag tank. Currently all looping or one system.

CA- stays around 400, ALK last tested was low around 7.7 or 2.73, Mag is 1500. Nitrates and phosphates are 0 with my tests. Temperature between 79-81 degrees. mostly below 80.

I dose two part A and B to keep Calcium and Alk up do to all the SPS I have. My lighting is mostly LED with a T5 retro on my frag tank.

Flow is two vor-tech MP40's. and the frag tank has a Tunze.

I have a complete mixed reef. Mostly SPS LPS clams, zoas, but really a little bit of everything. I do weekly water changes of 30 gallons, and my total water volume is 300G.I was never under the impression RTN was a syndrome rather i was told the opposite, that even the best aquariest can get it and it was not related to water parameters.

Laynrockers · Aug 10, 2015

loglan · Aug 10, 2015

It could be a number of things. Swings in paramaters. Swings in temp. Pollutants in the air. Pests. So on and so on. Just saying.

Laynrockers · Aug 10, 2015

The biggest issue in my mind, is when i do water changes and since i live in las vegas, my AWC system is in the garage, it raises my temp to 81 when doing a water change. I dont know if this is high enough to stress corals and cause them to have RTN? i know temp is highly debated as are most other things in the hobby. 95% of my corals look great.. but i am loosing frags every week.

loglan · Aug 10, 2015

Reason why I asked if you changed anything is I just had a similar problem in my frag tank. The only change I made was putting my frags on some stone tile that I cooked for 3 weeks. In a couple days I noticed 3 frags stn. Put the rest of the frags back on disc's and did a 25% water change and ran some carbon. Seems to have stopped my problem.

Laynrockers · Aug 10, 2015

This shows the AWC system and the plumbing i ran from my office into the garage and back into the office. Again my system avg 79-80 degrees currently in the summer.

reefbeard · Aug 10, 2015

Laynrockers said:
Hi guys,

I am dialing in my new home office set up after moving over a year ago. Once i got my display tank/ frag tank up and running placed many new coral and fish orders for about 3-4 months. During this time i introduced RTN to my tank.

I am continuing to loose 1-3 corals a week. All of a sudden they will be a white skeleton, almost overnight or within a 24 hour period of time.

How do you treat this, what can help??

In my experience, RTN has predominately been caused by spikes or swings in water chemistry more notably Alkalinity. Any possibility your tank water was exposed to something chemically? Air freshner mist, pesticides, etc. and do you run carbon?

Laynrockers · Aug 10, 2015

Not sure if it can be related or not. But since this set up is new i was buying and getting weekly shipments of new coral and fish for the last 3 months. About two months ago some of my LPS started to decay from the Brown Jelly disease. I was also told and lead to believe from reading that this can come in on corals you buy and can take out weak corals once infected. I have not lost and LPS in about a month, when one would get infected i just cut that head off or fragged what i could. Thanks again for the feedback and help!!!

loglan · Aug 10, 2015

Have you checked for any pests yet?

Laynrockers · Aug 10, 2015

reefbeard said:
In my experience, RTN has predominately been caused by spikes or swings in water chemistry more notably Alkalinity. Any possibility your tank water was exposed to something chemically? Air freshner mist, pesticides, etc. and do you run carbon?

This would make sense for my tank. Since i am trying to get used to where the level are out i am constantly noticing my ALK dipping and have to dose part A and B to raise the CA and ALK. The only chemicals or the like it can be exposed to in my opinion would be possibly soap. I wash my socks in my washer every week and run two wsh cycles on the hottest setting. Obviously i do not add anything to the washer, but that doesnt mean there isnt some soap residue left over???

I run a GFO and Carbon Reactor from BRS.

Laynrockers · Aug 10, 2015

loglan said:
Have you checked for any pests yet?

Nothing I can see. I have red flat worms but those do not harm acros that I am aware of. I have always had them in my tanks and slowly there population dies off.

Tahoe61 · Aug 10, 2015

Well you're obviously a seasoned hobbyist, nice tanks BTW.

You're running low nutrient systems so that alk should not be of much issue if that is the true value.

I had an episode of STN, the cause was I was dosing based on bad values from test kits. I now use mostly Hanna Checker but if I see an issue I then start backing up chemistry with other test kits, Salifert and Red Sea mainly.

It's is possible that this is indeed a pathogen introduced to the tank.

I would dip in an Iodine dilution, and perhaps consider testing for Potassium as well Iodine. Personally I like Lugols.

bsstover · Aug 10, 2015

I questioned in my own tank pathogens. More so, bacterial infection such as vibrio. I have thought about dosing cipro to see if this helps with the rtn.