Red Dragon RTN

[spsick]

Upgraded to a larger tank using all existing equipment and rocks, just used 1” new sand (soaked and rinsed af in RO) as I didn’t want a big nutrient release event.

So tank has been running a few weeks and my colony (8” squash sized) started RTNing one branch here and there every other day. I keep snipping them off 1-2” below and tossing. Colony has good PE and other branches are growing.

All params are solid and consistent with the systems history. (Newer kits, refractometer and probes calibrated) Only thing different chemistry-wise is the lack of nitrates. System was running at 5-8ppm always. I’ve been feeding heavy without rinsing and can’t get them above .5ppm.

Is this enough to do it? All the other corals and starting to grow nicely. Still doing my weekly 15% WC

77.7-78.1°
425 ca
7.3 alk
1350 mag
410 potassium
.03ppm P04
<.5ppm N03
1.025 sg
All RO prefilters and DI are newer. 0ppm TDS

I’d love to hear others experience. This is the first coral I’ve lost in years.

Pic for attention

 

[drawman]

Upgraded to a larger tank using all existing equipment and rocks, just used 1” new sand (soaked and rinsed af in RO) as I didn’t want a big nutrient release event.

So tank has been running a few weeks and my colony (8” squash sized) started RTNing one branch here and there every other day. I keep snipping them off 1-2” below and tossing. Colony has good PE and other branches are growing.

All params are solid and consistent with the systems history. (Newer kits, refractometer and probes calibrated) Only thing different chemistry-wise is the lack of nitrates. System was running at 5-8ppm always. I’ve been feeding heavy without rinsing and can’t get them above .5ppm.

Is this enough to do it? All the other corals and starting to grow nicely. Still doing my weekly 15% WC

77.7-78.1°
425 ca
7.3 alk
1350 mag
410 potassium
.03ppm P04
<.5ppm N03
1.025 sg
All RO prefilters and DI are newer. 0ppm TDS

I’d love to hear others experience. This is the first coral I’ve lost in years.

Hey Ben it's Tim from TCMAS.

My guess is it's just a big colony not liking change (ie lighting, flow, nutrients). If it were me I may consider taking some big frags and remounting. Do you usually run Nitrate that low or is that a change from your previous tank?

 

[spsick]

Hey Ben it's Tim from TCMAS.

My guess is it's just a big colony not liking change (ie lighting, flow, nutrients). If it were me I may consider taking some big frags and remounting. Do you usually run Nitrate that low or is that a change from your previous tank?

Hi Tim. That was kind of my thought as well. It’s def a change I was 5-8 ppm consistently before the migration. I considered fragging but didn’t want to stress the colony any further. One of the big branches I chopped off I took a piece that was a good 2” away and remounted but it was gone 2 days later.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Too many variables to consider, but if your RD has good PE during the day, it means that it’s not getting enough flow( or nutrients) . Colonies grow into the flow you position them into, if you move big colonies around your priority should be to make sure they are getting exact amount of flow or more than before. Red dragon is known to RTN when it gets too big. It is unlikely that you will save this colony but I would advise you to increase flow and slightly increase feeding in proportion to your tank size to get your parameters consistent. Most importantly don’t make any drastic changes to your setup for now.

 

[spsick]

Too many variables to consider, but if your RD has good PE during the day, it means that it’s not getting enough flow( or nutrients) . Colonies grow into the flow you position them into, if you move big colonies around your priority should be to make sure they are getting exact amount of flow or more than before. Red dragon is known to RTN when it gets too big. It is unlikely that you will save this colony but I would advise you to increase flow and slightly increase feeding in proportion to your tank size to get your parameters consistent. Most importantly don’t make any drastic changes to your setup for now.

Awesome thank you. That def played into placement so it is getting more flow for sure. Strangely the branches that RTNd are in the most flow (not direct powerhead hammering but nice varying constant heavy)

I did not know that big colonies were known for RTN but I am not surprised or overly disappointed as a loss of something was to be expected when changing tanks with big colonies. If this is the only one so be it. Was just wondering if it was indicative of something specific like low iodine, nitrate or something.

 

[jda]

Red Dragon is not an easy coral. Lots of people lose this one and then never lose another. I would just chalk this up to a move and fresh tank and red dragons being hard - in other words, don't take it too personally and don't chase after anything.

.5 nitrate is no different than have 5 or 10. Any excess is enough and is excess so having more excess does not matter. My red dragon grew out of control with about .1 nitrate... which is also excess.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I agree with the above, and your tank looks really nice, well done with the rocks! The hardest part of moving into a large tank when you have big colonies is replicating the flow that they were in, and for some acropora it doesn't work well. I would make sure you clip some of the nice branches off if it if it keeps happening and mount in a permanent spot to hope they start growing back again.