Massive RTN event

[Brandon McHenry]

First off I’m sorry to hear about your losses, they can be very frustrating and sometimes difficult to identify. The good news is that I do see some green tissue left near the bottom, meaning it’s possible for that area to recover. The branches however look like they have some algae growing on them which means there is no tissue left there. Here are some things to check that may be involved:

- Do you have any stray current in the tank?
- Is there any chance there is any rusting metal in the tank?
- Did anything get sprayed near the tank?
- Is there any chance you lost power over the last couple of days and the corals were without flow/oxygen?

Unfortunately we may have to play the guessing game for a while to get to the bottom of it. If you are saying you saw white strings coming from the corals then that sounds like mesenterial filaments to me which almost always means the corals are irritated by something. Sometimes it’s no big deal and it’s a minor irritant, other times the corals are waving goodbye. Do you have any pictures from last night while the incident was beginning?

 

[Brandon McHenry]

Ground probe for sure. And no not slime, I've seen that many times.

I did grab a few more pics. I'm horrible with pictures BTW!

Here is a frag of strawberry shortcake. You can clearly see the line of division between the skin that sloughed off, and the live flesh.

And here is fox flame. You can see the white "flesh" peeling off the skeleton. And how brown it has gotten. The brown if I blow on it with a turkey baster, will blow right off leaving a white skeleton, but still has polyps.

Also based off these pictures I would wager that brown algae growing right on the surface of that greener algae are dinoflagellates, which can produce some nasty toxins and can kill corals as well. Might be worth getting a cheap microscope to check it out.

 

[Foothill Corals]

Not RTN, all the corals you show have potential to bounce back.

 

[homer1475]

No didn't think to take pics last night. I was rushing around trying to figure out how to a WC without my mixing station working.

No stay voltage(actually just checked it with a meter).
Haven't lost power in the last few weeks, but I did notice I turned my skimmer off the other day, and it was still off.DOH!
Nothing sprayed near the tank by me or the wife(shes just as much into the hobby as me, and knows better). I did clean the glass with a spray glass cleaner that I have used a million times over the last 10 years.

 

[homer1475]

The brown is not algae, its the skin turning brown, and peeling off.

I've fought dino's in the past, several times actually(stupid trying to run ULN), and I know it's not dino's. But I do have a scope, so maybe I'll pull some off and scope it?

 

[Brandon McHenry]

This brown dust here looks like dinos to me. Well worth checking it out if you have one just to knock that off the list.

 

[Brandon McHenry]

No didn't think to take pics last night. I was rushing around trying to figure out how to a WC without my mixing station working.

No stay voltage(actually just checked it with a meter).
Haven't lost power in the last few weeks, but I did notice I turned my skimmer off the other day, and it was still off.DOH!
Nothing sprayed near the tank by me or the wife(shes just as much into the hobby as me, and knows better). I did clean the glass with a spray glass cleaner that I have used a million times over the last 10 years.

Good to know these are not potential causes it helps get us closer!

 

[Brandon McHenry]

Also another random thought. Do you have a potassium test kit? Severely depleted potassium can cause issues in SPS corals.

 

[homer1475]

I want to thank everyone right here right now! While I'm new to the stick game, I'm not new to keeping corals. I may have some dino's still(had coolia), but massive UV is running and has been for a few months now.

 

[homer1475]

No potassium kit, but I do weekly WC's religiously, so that shouldn't be an issue either.

I just find it odd that a coral can bleach(if that is exactly whats happening here and not RTN), but the one right next to it is fine. Almost all my corals looked to be loosing flesh last night(SPS), but most seem to have recovered this morning.

Let me grab some of that algae and have a look see under a scope. BRB to post results......

 

[ca1ore]

Hard to say. That polyps remain holds out some hope for recovery. Your water parameters don’t raise any red flags. RTN usually means complete colony loss, including the polyps, but your pictures suggest more than just bleaching. Only thing you can do is keep water quality as high as possible and see what recovers. Beyond the obvious things like temp or alk spikes, trying to identify cause is usually a fools errand. Although it always get trotted out as a cause, there’s no bigger red herring than ‘stray’ voltage IME.

Usually it’s just a combination of stresses over time that finally results in a colony loss, and then the problems can cascade to other colonies that may also be on the edge. So, there is no clear identified stress event. Green slimmer is among the most resilient of SPS, so some hope I’d think.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Here's how I would approach this in a stepwise fashion:
1) New carbon
2) If you have a LFS that carries Polyfilter, you could consider picking a couple pads up and throwing them into the tank.
3) Go through your pumps/heaters one by one and inspect them for damage.
4) Massive water change.

This should minimize any damage that is caused by contaminants. This won't help with is bacterial or pest-issues, which it honestly doesn't look like. The timeline is too quick, and the pictures don't look like an infection.

 

[RedFrog211]

Hurts to see this happen.. hope you get it figured out friend

 

[Lizbeli]

That stinks so bad... I had a refugium light get wet from an overflowing skimmer and the electrical burnt up and spilt over into the sump. I had two acros that looked pretty much like yours. White and dead looking but some polyps. I threw them on the sand out of the light and they regained their flesh and are colors up now. Took a few weeks.

I would consider lowering your light so these pieces can heal.

 

[homer1475]

Just scoped the brown, still have some dino's but not too bad.

Not the best cell phone pic, but they are still present.

 

[homer1475]

Unfortunately I run T5's, so there is no way to "lower" the light output. Supposed I could raise the fixture up a bit?

I'm not to worried about figuring it out, more of "will it spread to the other sticks in the tank?"

 

[Juniorh2r]

Just got into the stick game about a year ago and have never seen this happen, or witnessed any RTN or STN events yet so I was assuming this is what it was.

So do you guys think since the polyps are still there, they can recover?

it happened to me polyps were there but it looked like it was bleaching but in a few weeks it recovered.

 

[dedragon]

nvm

 

[Brandon McHenry]

Just scoped the brown, still have some dino's but not too bad.

Not the best cell phone pic, but they are still present.

Well at least the uv should keep them under control. Did any of your acros look like this last night?

 

[homer1475]

Well at least the uv should keep them under control. Did any of your acros look like this last night?

That is exactly how they looked last night!