help solve my STN issue

[surfn]

ok, so i've never had this problem ever before...and I quite can't figure it out. as far as i can tell, i have absolutely no pests, as i have added very little to the tank in the past couple of months.

the STN problem is with 2 colonies, a sarmentosa, and a pink milli. both are receeding from the base up, very slowly. ALL other corals seem to be completely fine. and again, i've inspected both colonies and do not see any pests that i am familiar with....

i'll run down the history of events in my next post.....

 

[surfn]

ok, here is a list of events leading up to this....(pump arrangement did not change during this time, and pink milli stayed in the same spot the entire time).

leading up to this i had only been feeding my tank some flake food every now and then, and skimming very wet in order to fight an algae out break, many sps lightened up allot during this several month period, but no bleaching.



10/15: Sarmentosa colony at highest point in the tank, getting blasted by light, looks fine. also have a sarmentosa frag sitting on frag rack on back of tank very high, looks fine (frag had been made in september).

10/31: Placed Sarmentosa colony in sand bed as i ran out of room, low in the tank but still in direct light.

11/8: Alk 9.7dkh, Ca 410, Mg 1440, NO3 0, Salinity 1.025
changed carbon, everything looks fine (still looks fine on 11/15)

11/25: placed sarmentosa back up top b/c tips lost some color, possibly due to lack of flow at bottom of tank.

12/1: 10g water change, changed radium bulb.......sometime that week i notice the sarmentosa colony has completely bleached, and polyps not extending. same goes with the sarmentosa frag on the back wall. (not sure if this was before or after adding the new bulb).

12/11: Alk 9.5dkh, Ca 395, Mg 1200, NO3 0, Salinity 1.024
starting to feed more frozen foods to the tank to get sps to color up, used several tubes of the aquamed stuff to attach corals to rocks and hold other rocks in place. started to noticed slight STN on sarmentosa colony.

12/26: started to notice slight RTN of the milli

12/29: Alk 6.8dkh, Ca 380, Mg ???, NO3 0, Salinity 1.024
crap....apparently my LM3 somehow got unplugged and had no power (I dose 2-part), i have absolutely NO CLUE how long the tank went with it unplugged. i dosed in some baking soda to get alk back up to 10dkh.

1/6: Alk 10.7dkh, Ca 390, Mg 1290, NO3 0, Salinity 1.024
both sps still seem to be STN'ing....slowly. sarmentosa still looks bleached, no polyp extension. milli looks fine other than STN'ing at the base.

 

[surfn]

more info......

at first, i figured the bleaching of the sarmentosa was just due to the new light, but it was odd that both the colony and the frag bleached at the same time. no other corals seemed to be effected, but in the past i have noticed severe lightening of some sps when i changed radium bulbs. but i just figured it would recover with time if i left the colony up at the top. i since gave the frag away around 12/8, so i don't know the progress on it.

when i first noticed the STN at the base of the milli, i also saw some scratch marks on the coraline near the base. i immediately thought of my emerald crabs. as i've seen them perch into the nearby sps colonies at night. they like to hang out in the green birdsnest and pink stylo right beside the milli colony.

so i figured this might be some sort of territorial battle, as i've had an emerald crab kill a green slimer acro in the past. so when i saw my biggest emerald crab sitting in the closest colony to the milli, i took him out and tossed him in the mantis tank.

since then i've seen other emerald crabs perch in the stylo and birdsnest right beside the milli. but have never seen ANY emerald crab on the rock that the milli or sarmentosa sit on. even at night....

it never even came to mind to make sure the LM3 was functioning properly after seeing the STN on the milli.

lastly, the STN on the milli is on the right side of the colony. the base stretches about 4inches in diameter...the left side looks perfectly normal. the STN started on the right side of the colony (right beside where the sarmentosa sits), and now the STN is spreading across from right to left.

 

[surfn]

so what do you think is causing all of this?

and what should I do from this point out? just hack the colony up and try to save whats left? and discard the dead/dying pieces?

should i try to do some sort of lugols dip?

its not a big deal with the sarmentosa, as i can take the entire rock out of the tank. but the milli is epoxied down to a very large rock i can't move....that could be more difficult, and i only want to have to hack it up as a last resort as it is a large colony.

 

[NapoliNewJersey]

It happened to me a while back but it was on a Live aquaria delivery and it was receeding the day I got it. So what I did was chop it up and saved 2 of the 3 frags into smaller frags. One is the same size now, one is way smaller, and one died.


Also someone on NJRC just had the same problem. They didn't really figure out why but I link your thread to his on NJRC and maybe someone can figure this out.

If it gets much worse I would try and save what you got so you don't lose the whole colony.

 

[twon8]

low alk caused this, under 7 is dangerous territory, especialy if you normally are around 10

 

[surfn]

It happened to me a while back but it was on a Live aquaria delivery and it was receeding the day I got it. So what I did was chop it up and saved 2 of the 3 frags into smaller frags. One is the same size now, one is way smaller, and one died.


Also someone on NJRC just had the same problem. They didn't really figure out why but I link your thread to his on NJRC and maybe someone can figure this out.

If it gets much worse I would try and save what you got so you don't lose the whole colony.

i believe what you are referring to is RTN, i've also had that happen with stuff from liveaquaria. i suspect its just stress from shipping. seems to happen most often with wild corals.

low alk caused this, under 7 is dangerous territory, especialy if you normally are around 10

now that i have the alk back up near 10dkh, will the STN stop? or do i need to start hacking the colonies up to see what i can save? b/c the STN still seems to be spreading.

my Mg also dropped like a rock, could that have any effect?

when an sps completely bleaches, does it normally get poor polyp extension?

 

[143gadgets]

IME when they bleach they loose polyp extension as well. Usually when they get happy the polyps return then the color. If the milli has stn then I would at least frag a piece off of it just in case. I have had stuff stn and recover, but never with rtn. When something has begun to RTN you need to chop it up and save as much as possible.

I suspect alk/mg shifts were the problem. it's hard to see pest like AEFW unless the colony is out of the tank. With a well encrusted base like that they could be anywhere underneath it. But I don't suspect that you have them from looking at the pics.

 

[twon8]

if you water conditions are good it will stop, no need to hack up.

the first pic looks worse to me, as if something else may be bothering it

i would check thoruoughly for aefw, but im pretty sure it's the parameter drop

 

[Weetabix7]

First, let me say that I am NOT an sps expert although I have been reefing for several years.
Up until very recently, the only sps I'd kept were Monti Caps, which I did really well with.
However, someone offered me an insane trade for a nice piece of Delicate Coral recently at a frag swap and I couldn't turn it down.
It did well at first, but then started to STN.
Here's what I did to successfully stop the STN and return it to health.
I fragged off the bleached/dead portion. This left me with around 8 or 9 smaller pieces.
1/3 of them I did nothing to, other than returning them to the tank.
1/3 of them I placed in a dip with 1 cup tankwater and 1 drop Lugol's for 3 mins, then returned to the tank.
1/3 of them I placed in a dip with 1 cup tankwater and 2 drops Lugol's for 3 mins.
This was an experiment on my part. I didn't really know what to do due to lack of experience with sps, so I tried what had worked for me with other corals, esp. zoas.
All of the frags have done fine and shown some new growth.
Here's a link to a thread I posted on it if you want more info:
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=139044&hl=

 

[surfn]

well, unfortunately the situation has not changed much. i fragged up my pink milli into allow of pieces, most of them look like crap now, but i dont see any more signs of STN....on them at least.

i fragged up the sarmentosa, but most of the frags are history. they look completely bleached, no polyps, no real signs of STN though....

i took some of the frags closest to the STN on the colony and dipped them in iodine for a while, i found no signs of any pests that i was aware of.

however, on some of the dead/dying areas, i can see these little black bugs.....much smaller than what a red bug looks like. not sure if they were killed by the iodine dip though, i put some frags back into the tank, and i tossed others away.

1/8/08: Alk 10.7dkh, Ca 390, Mg 1290, NO3 0

1/13/08: Alk 10.0dkh, Ca 375, Mg 1280

1/19/08: Alk 9.9 dkh, Ca 380, Salinity 1.025

and now to make matters even better.....I am now noticing STN at the very base of 2 more sps. one is a random green stag w/ blue polyps, centered in the middle of my monti cap. and the other being my nice big ORA blue tort. neither is in a good location to get a pic of at the moment, but if the STN spreads....i'm sure i'll be able to get a good picture of it.

so far, no monties have been affected......just acros....

i did a 10g water change today, and changed the carbon.


i'm at a complete loss for what is going on right now. its things like this that make me want to take a break from the hobby.....or at least get out of keeping sps.......

 

[twon8]

do some water changes, maybe raise your calcium up a bit

if you had access to a potassium test kit it might be worth checking out

 

[surfn]

do some water changes, maybe raise your calcium up a bit

if you had access to a potassium test kit it might be worth checking out

if it was low, how would that effect the corals? and how would i raise it?

only thing i can think of is potassium nitrate. not exactly something i want to add to a reef.

but i dont even really know where to get a potasium test kit anyways...

 

[twon8]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1298052

 

[J. Montgomery]

You use Instant Ocean don't you? How frequently have you been doing water changes, and how much?

 

[twon8]

try keeping your alkalinity closer to 8 than 10,

 

[surfn]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1298052

interesting....that idea is pretty far out there.

You use Instant Ocean don't you? How frequently have you been doing water changes, and how much?

i do a 10g water change (16.67%) about every month....give or take a couple of days. the IO salt I'm using has been from the same box i've had for the past 2 years or so. so no way it could be a problem with the salt.

try keeping your alkalinity closer to 8 than 10,

alright, i'll let it level off probably. i think i over corrected a bit when when i got the low reading, probably over calculated.

do some water changes, maybe raise your calcium up a bit

just raised the calcium up when i did the water change today, should be up around 420ppm now.

 

[surfn]

i dont really see anything that bothers me.......let me know if ya'll see something.

 

[surfn]

in this image, you might be able to see little bugs and worms etc.....but honestly that doesn't really bother me.

a year ago, when i had a crab kill my green slimer, i took the coral into my lab and put it under a microscope, and saw all kinds of organisms moving around and eating off the dead/dying flesh. looked like lots of very very small flat worms, very small bugs, worms, and possibly some type of amoebas.

 

[J. Montgomery]

So let me see if I'm following this:
- the first colonies affected have been in your tank for a long time, and haven't been recently remounted
- only acros are affected
- STN begins at the base and travels up

Have you dipped any of these colonies in TMPCC?