Help, Sps die off

[mutley29]

All my SPS are RTN'ing and i don't know why, all params are fine, phos 0 and have added nothing new to tank for at least 6 weeks, it's strange because my ricordia seem to be suffering too as do my hammers and torches to a lesser degree, everything else is fine, clams are happy as are my 2 RBTA's, i'm stumped, have been running carbon and phos ban 24/7 and changed out regularly, nothing seems to work.

just about to start a large water change 40% or so.

Anyone got any ideas?

Anton

 

[Anonymous]

Rapid PH change?

What are your water parameters?

 

[Len]

What are the visible symptoms? Is the tissue just sloughing off, or is there brown slime that's covering the stoney corals. RTN is either bacterial or protozoan, and about the only thing you can do is to siphon off as much of the decaying flesh as you can, do a water change with the same temp and salinity, and frag what you can to save pieces of the colony. I know it's terrible. In the summer of 98, i had a mass RTN occurance

 

[mutley29]

Nitrite/Nitrate/Ammonia all 0

the flesh of the corals just seems to come away like we peel after sunburn, pH is fine too, i just can't explain, would low O2 cause this to happen?

This is really disheartening, after i came back at Xmas and found most of my Sps had bleached due to caretaker error, (he had been messing around with my auto-top-off and it dumped close to 50gal in the main tank) i was just starting to get back on top of things, i seriously do feel like jacking it in, but i won't i'm far too stubborn to let this beat me

Thanks for the help

Water change done, will do another 40% tomorrow or Sunday

Anton

 

[Len]

Just try to contain as much of the decaying tissue and siphon it out. If it gets around on other corals, there is a greater chance of infection. FWIW, elevated temps seem to "promote" RTN, so keep the temp reasonable. RTN outbreaks seemingly occur more often during the summer.

Good luck. I know from first-hand experience how frustrating RTN is.