Is STN a disease in your water?

[BantyRooster97]

I recently went through some major ups and downs in my tank. It had been stable for more than a year & I put in a new rock that leeched phosphates into my water. I started to lose corals which is why I discovered the problem. Once I removed it, the phosphates dropped, very rapidly from .25 to .07 (in 1 day) and I guess this stressed my corals even more.

Anyway, no to my question. During the process I lost several corals over night, total white bleach out. Then several started to STN. I fragged them & put them on plugs but now every couple of days a new frag or coral is starting to STN.

Is STN caused by something in the water I can remove?

All my params are back to normal & have been stable for more than a week.

 

[BoomCorals]

STN can be caused by many things. Among them is stress from instability of parameters including phosphate etc. Also the corals likely stressed from the high phosphate, but it takes a few days to show. Corals often STN from something that happened a couple days prior.

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

STN and RTN are two things that we still do not know much about in this hobby. STN/RTN is not a disease but a bacterial strain in our water and in the ocean, one of the most present bacteria in fact. When a factor occurs that stresses or weakens the coral(s) it gives the bacteria a window to jump in causing STN or RTN. Your best bet it to frag the corals but success has also been seen with temp and salinity changes. The bacteria does not like temps below 78 or salinity above 36. When kept under those two ranges many people have been able to recover large colonies.

 

[BantyRooster97]

How long do you think it takes for them to no longer be stressed? It has been a very weird experience! I lost 2 corals that had been in my tank for more than a year, that even survived a gradual ALK spike of 14! (It took months of my neglect - no testing - to get that high). The phosphate spike was pretty rapid, & so was the decline when I took the rock out.

 

[BantyRooster97]

Temp below 78 will be tough, but I can get salinity to 36 pretty fast, I keep it at 35 already. 1 small water change will increase it that much.

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

Its very hard to say with every tank being drammatically different from one another but if everything is stable again they should recover relatively soon, my friends STN frags completely encrusted the frag plugs after just 2 weeks!

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

You dont need to get salinity any higher they dont like salinity ABOVE 36 so below that is fine. The Temp/salinity strategy is more for large colonies that you want to save and not frag. Since you already fragged them I don’t know if this will make any difference but it will be a preventative for another TN attack.

 

[BantyRooster97]

Not sure I follow... They (TN) don't like salinity above 36, so shouldn't I try to get it above 36? My temp is at 78 pretty constantly, I am going to turn the air up in my office & my heater down & see if I can get the temp to 77.

Where should salinity be?

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

Oh yes im sorry my mistake[emoji23]salinity above 36 I can be slow at times‍. Since you have already fragged them maybe just change the temp and leave salinity? If frags arent showing any sighns I would say its better to keep stability instead but it they do show sighns I would up the salinity .

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

Keep me updated Id like to hear how things go

 

[BantyRooster97]

Thanks. I have a couple of frags that are also showing signs of STN, though it is much slower than the others that were mounted to the rocks & had been in the tank for over a year. I am going to up the salinity a little, slowly over the next couple of days & see if the temp will drop below 78. Temp stays pretty stable in my office between 78 - 78.5 through out the day, with no heater on.

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

Ahh ok

 

[Holy_makerel]

I've been dealing with this for 6+months. By my numbers my tank should be doing great but I've been having this grow period then stn events in a cycle over and over. A few friends and i finally decided it must be bacterial in nature. My tank is a year old and parameters have been stable for a long time. Most of the rock came from my old system which was up for several years prior.

Seems to specifically target SPS since all my LPS are growing and thriving. I removed all acros and dipped them in an attempt to give them an opportunity to heal but it did not help.

I'm planning on setting up a 120 soon and was gonna put all my SPS into a qt tank for multiple dips over a few weeks to try and eliminate the bad bacterial strain before adding them to the new system.

Good luck! It's been really frustrating for me to try and correct this issue.

 

[BantyRooster97]

WOW, good luck! Hope this isn't my future!

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

I've been dealing with this for 6+months. By my numbers my tank should be doing great but I've been having this grow period then stn events in a cycle over and over. A few friends and i finally decided it must be bacterial in nature. My tank is a year old and parameters have been stable for a long time. Most of the rock came from my old system which was up for several years prior.

Seems to specifically target SPS since all my LPS are growing and thriving. I removed all acros and dipped them in an attempt to give them an opportunity to heal but it did not help.

I'm planning on setting up a 120 soon and was gonna put all my SPS into a qt tank for multiple dips over a few weeks to try and eliminate the bad bacterial strain before adding them to the new system.

Good luck! It's been really frustrating for me to try and correct this issue.

Its a specific strain of the bacteria in the vibrio family. Ironically, this turns out to be the most prevalent bacteria family in the oceans and our aquariums. Im curious if its pheasable to completely remove this strain from a system when we have things going in all the time such as fish, corals, invertibrates, etc.

 

[Holy_makerel]

Its a specific strain of the bacteria in the vibrio family. Ironically, this turns out to be the most prevalent bacteria family in the oceans and our aquariums. Im curious if its pheasable to completely remove this strain from a system when we have things going in all the time such as fish, corals, invertibrates, etc.

I think its a long shot to try and help my SPS pieces but I'll try it out. I'll report on how it goes. In my current system, after dipping, in an attempt to rebalance bacterial populations i added a bottle of bio-spira. It was not a miracle cure haha

 

[Phelipe's Ocean]

I think its a long shot to try and help my SPS pieces but I'll try it out. I'll report on how it goes. In my current system, after dipping, in an attempt to rebalance bacterial populations i added a bottle of bio-spira. It was not a miracle cure haha

Okay keep me updated

 

[TwentyfiveCents]

Would having a UV filter help with stn? I read if your params are perfect and you get STn then people say it much be bacteria causing it, so would having a good UV filter help with the problem? Assuming your params are perfect and you still get stn and ftn

 

[Tahoe61]

Would having a UV filter help with stn? I read if your params are perfect and you get STn then people say it much be bacteria causing it, so would having a good UV filter help with the problem? Assuming your params are perfect and you still get stn and ftn

I am curious about this as well. Great question.

 

[Peng]

It's a disease caused by many potential factors. STN and RTN are usually caused by bacterial infection. RTN happens to everyone's tank. Healthy corals don't usually get them. Stressed ones are susceptible to bacterial infection. If your corals are still dying slowly you can dip them in antibiotics every day. Because you don't know what bacteria is/are causing the issue you can dip them in sea water mixed with a little bit of wide-range antibiotics like erythromycin and Furan-2. If you are carbon-dosing or dosing any amino acids, vodka, vinegar, etc that needs to stop too.