SPS help!

[Zack]

Hello,
Just to give some background info. My tank has been running for 2 years now, I have a 50 gallon with a 15 gallon fuge, 400 watt Radium MH, 65lbs of LR, 2" sand bed, and about 6 clams and 4-5 soft corals. My problem is i have wanted sps for quite some time so I decided to buy from a very well respected member of my reef society 3 large frags of green slimmer and another acro i forgot the name brown with purple tips. Anyway there was no major shipping just a car ride.

After 3 days of placing them in my tank they have completely bleached. They were perfectly fine when placed in my tank. All my other clams/ soft corals are fine and wide open, so there is something wrong with my tank that sps just don't like. My levels are as followed

salinity is 1.027 (a little high but have always kept it like that)
CAL: 485 ( i drip Kalk)
ALK is about 12dkh
no ammonia or nitrates


so any ideas on what’s up??

[paulsreef]

What soft corals do you have specifically?

[Sandman12]

nitrites?

[Zack]

xenai wood/star polyps NO LEATHERS

[blackangler]

what was the lighting in the tank you got them from?
lower you salinity! that is way to high. keep it arond 1.025
did you accumulate the corals?
could they possibly have rtn.
what were the water conditions of the tank they came from?

[H3R0]

in my experince i have had them bleach after getting home and be just fine 2 weeks later

[paulsreef]

Yeah, I agree with H3RO and blackangler on those last points. I've seen some temporary bleaching in the first few weeks as well. But I would tend to lean towards salinity and acclimation as well. I got a new gree Acro the other night and I acclimated it for over an hour. How do you usually acclimate things? I acclimate them first for temperature then do a slow drip of tank water over 45 minutes. I built a little doser out of a one gallon Rubbermaid container with a small hose and regulator. I use that thing for so many thing! Anyways, can you post some photos of them?

[Charles Poole]

Salinity gets detrimental at higher values. I have found in my personal experience that most stoney corals ( LPS and SPS ) will start to pale and slow in growth rates. Often times star polyps will stop expanding. I suggest slowly lower the salinity to 1.025 (34 ppt). This will give you a greater room for "accidental" salinity spikes due to forgotten or overlooked top-off. :)

I would never suggest placing a new coral any closer to your 400 watt radiums, than half way up. Unless you know the tank they came from, and they were captive propagated. This is mainly due to stresses incurred during shipping. As you saw from the staghorn that I sent you, that temp. can cause a coral to bleach. When a coral is stressed, sudden changes of any kind can be much like "the straw that broke the camels back".

Calcium is to high at 485 ppm when the Alk is 12 dKh. Bring this down or let it slowly fall (slowly is the preferred way), to around 430 ppm, give or take 10 ppm. IM me later on, for more on the calcium issue.

I am going to update my Water CHemistry article in a few days, and this issue is going to be covered in depth.

[mjc]

If you have rtn, the SPS tissue would look like its peeling off. The bleaching effect is perhaps due to both water acclimation and light acclimation.

[tnguy86]

what is rtn??

[Condiman]

From what I know of Rapid Tissue Necrosis (RTN)is that it is fast acting and spreads quickly. I believe that it may be caused by stressors in the water colum what I mean by this is chemical warfar between other corals in the tank. That is why most people try to run carbon and do water changes to take them out of the water. what other corals do you have in the aquarium

Possible explanations for RTN would be that it is

Entirely bacterial in origin
a stress-induced reaction
some combination of the two and
something else not yet discovered.

[Condiman]

RTN is just a common term to describe a dead or dying coral and it just describes a symptom and not an actual disease. So called RTN can occur for any number of reasons from shipping stress to poor tank conditions and it is impossible to exactly determine the cause. RTN is not a specific disease with an exactly known The appearance and speed of tissue loss and death in these corals is highly variable and some may survive from localized tissue loss that has unfortunately in many books been called RTN. Again, most, if not all, of the "diseases" of corals decribed in books are in fact just a description of syptoms and not actual distinct diseases. It would be like calling a runny nose RNS-Runny Nose Syndrome. Runny noses are in fact a condition that many humans suffer from, but it is not a primary disease, but rather just a symptom of other conditions varying from viral or bacterial infections, allergies, or many other causes. It would be misleading to say someone has RNS when their real problem is actually something which is just causing the runny nose. Knowing that RTN is in fact just a very broad category describing the death of a coral, I would say it is not unique and that many times a coral with some localized dead tissue will in fact regrow that tissue and survive.

I have done some interesting reading this weekend and I have found quite a bit of fasinating info on this disease.Here is the link www.reeftalk.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/ Cat/0/Number/14860/Main/14857

[mjc]

RTN is rapid tissue necrosis, AKA SDR, shut down reaction, are diseases in which the SPS corals are affected.

[Zack]

SAo can RTN be stopped by removing the dead tissue?

[Charles Poole]

Depending on the cause of the RTN, putting superglue or putty over the infected area, can help stop the progression of RTN. Most often this is a stress related incident, and not an actuall disease as Condiman said. I am looking for a link to an article by E. Borneman that discusses RTN in great detail. It is in the Coralmania section of Reefkeepers online.

[Charles Poole]

Here are a few links for you by E. Borneman on RTN and Coral Bleaching...

White Corals, Part II: Bleaching and Disease "Look-Alikes" (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/apr2002/cw.htm)

White Corals, Part III: Coral Disease "White Syndromes" (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/june2002/cw.htm)

BLEACHING AND TISSUE LOSS IN CORALS - WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2002/cw.htm)

Hope they help... :-D

[legolas]

I lost a finger leather recently and never quite knew why until I read this forum. I'm glad that forums like this exist.

[Charles Poole]

:)

[legolas]

oh wait, does the rtn only apply to the sps??

[Charles Poole]

No, RTN is a condition, Rapid Tissue Necrosis, or better understood as Rapid Tissue Death/Loss.

Any coral can suffer from RTN, it is the factors that cause this condition that may be species specific in some cases, but not enough is known about the causes at this time to make a definite statement. But if I know Eric, he will eventually figure it out... :)

[acropora]

This has been touched on above,but acclimation to your tank appears to be the problem.Your salinity should be lowered to 1.025.This can easily be done by adding more top off RO/DI water slowly over a few days.Be careful not to lower it more than .001 per day.In your case from 1.027 to 1.025.I would do it over a four day period.Two major factors to consider with SPS Corals are lighting and temperature.You did not mention your water temperature. It should be consistant over a 24 hr period.Do you use a heater with a temperature controller. SPS are very susceptable to temperature fluctuation. New SPS should be placed low in your tank at first and raised up over time.You can also raise your lighting hood several inches and reduce the photoperiod during acclimation.