I think this is happening to a greenbirdsnest coral I got off craigslist. Has anyone had experience with this before? What causes it and is it treatable? Do I have to worry about it affecting other corals in my tank?
Answer to ? 1…yes
Answer to ? 2…Are you sure it is RTN and not STN? There are many causes, flatworms, redbugs, chemical unbalance of your water and baterial infections. RTN usually happens within 24 hrs., causing the entire coral to bleach out, looking all white.
Answer to ? 3… remove coral and treat with a coral dip for 5 - 10 mins. Quarentine coral for at least 2 months.
Answer to ? 4… YES YES YES
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: Yup John in right.
You may want to add / change your carbon.
Corals purchased from an unknown source should be put in QT for observation for a minimum of 30 days IMO.
And if it’s not out of your DT yet there better be a good reason.
I’m pretty sure its RTN. The coral is half gone and it was fine yesterday. h I have a nice mix of SPS, LPS and softies and it is only affecting the new birdsnest coral. I also got a few frags of the same coral and they are unaffected? I dipped it prior to putting it in my tank with coral rx. I do have seachem reef dip i can try which is iodine based i believe.
I have a purple/blue tort that I have had for a few months now and it also seems to be dying from the bottom up,it’s been slowly losing color for a few weed now.is there anything that I can do for it?i will try to get a pic when I get home
[quote=“mortyn02, post:4, topic:5102”]
I’m pretty sure its RTN. The coral is half gone and it was fine yesterday. h I have a nice mix of SPS, LPS and softies and it is only affecting the new birdsnest coral. I also got a few frags of the same coral and they are unaffected? I dipped it prior to putting it in my tank with coral rx. I do have seachem reef dip i can try which is iodine based i believe. [/quote]
Can you post a pic of the coral??
I am dipping now. What should i do? I don’t have a QT setup at this point? Do i dip the frags of the same coral even though they seem unaffected?
mortyno2…Were the frags freshly cut when you got them? how long have they been in your Tank? Are they all in the same place or at different levels as far as height goes in your tank? We will need more info and your water params to be more helpful.
If it were mine, right now I would remove it and cut off the dead skeleton part and reglue it to another plug or piece of rock.I wouldn’t bother the other frags if they look ok.
beadlocked450r… Again will need your tank info like water params and lighting and frag placement in your tank.
John is dead on point here. I have been through this and I lost a lot of colonies. I wish I would have known that the sip can help. Now I dip everything before it goes in my tank. Unlike some I do not have a quarantine tank. with my birdsnest it gets temperamental depending on flow and light, sometimes it would lose tissue but then once I moved it the tissue would grow back. For me it does better high to mid height in my tank and low to medium flow. High flow has never done well for me with my birdsnest.
I do not think these like nitrates at all. A reactor with NPX bioplastics is also a good investment.
i lost 3 or 4 to stn and one to rtn in my exp. nothing will save it, once it gets it its done i fragged all that had stn and the frags grew a bit then died it sucks that it happens. two of the stn were doomed from the start. the rtn one never really grew so i knew something was wrong, when my calcium part ran out alk went up 3 dkh and it rtn’d. the purple bonsai i had got stn it was brown then colored nicely polyps out but growth was slow or not at all, but i left it alone, then stn from the bottom in a month it was gone, i fragged it and the frags died this was my first bonsai i now have 2 frags and they both grow pretty good. My opinion is, if they aren’t growing they’re dying, or will be dying in the future this is a good topic and i would like to learn more so any experience, articles, advise, would be appreciated.
tim, you said some mighty smart wordswhen you wrote, "my opinion is, if they aren’t growing they’re dying, or will be dying in the future "
most excellent
Beadlk, if the tort has been fading slowly for months it prbably needs more light, cleaner water. check for amonia, nitrite, and poke your finger in the sand bed, if you have sand, and see if it smells like hydrogen sulfide. a little of that is bad for acros too.
Morty, Its been my hard learned experience that if an acro starts dying from the base up and moving fast, the only way to save it is frag it again, above the bleaching. it could be a toxin from another coral in shipping, or bumping killing it. or bacteria. once it starts its hard to stop. but if you clip it off above the dying edge, and glue it to a clean plug and lightly dip it, you stand a good chance of saving a piece. otherwise the whole thing is gone in a couple days.
I used to buy most of my acro spieces from TFPs old dead and dying coral tank. they tossed any nearly dead coral in there for $5. take it straight home and snap off the good tips. id say 80% of them survived and grew. the month before they were selling them as $80 colonies, until they started to RTN.
A break in time saves nine.
Here is a pic…
[quote=“moliken, post:11, topic:5102”]
tim, you said some mighty smart wordswhen you wrote, "my opinion is, if they aren’t growing they’re dying, or will be dying in the future "
most excellent[/quote]
lol rare but occasionally happens…
Something to keep in mind, dipping frags in a iodine based solution WILL NOT kill red bugs.
Trates are 5,po3 is .13,alk2,1.025sg,ca500
I think your phosphates should be lowered and not sure what alk2 means. My alk range is between 8 to 11 with 7 being low. And I would try and get the calcium level down to @ the lower 400’s. How often and how much of a water change do you do? And test for magnesium.
Try cutting all the dead white skeleton off that tort and glue the remaining frag onto a new plug. And I agree with Kaptken, it should be moved to a better location for more light.
if your alk is 2.1 meq, that is way too low. like an equivalent 5 DKH. and the trates and phos are high too. acros dont like those much.