RTN! Help

Alright don't take to long you never know, Might come back to a white branch

 

Seems like it!! it was fine this afternoon and now it has A LOT of white.

 

Best off saving what ever is alive & Throwing out the rest. Suck's but it happen'd to the best of us

 

Good luck!!! Keep us updated on the progress!

- Mag.

 

thanks, I'm sorry too!

It's in high flow and the calcium is 500, magnesium is 1350, alk is 8.5 and no major temperature swings.

 

Well, I'm about to frag it right now. I was told by my LFS dKH of 8.5 was okay for only having two SPS in the tank. I can work on raising it.

 

Kacy – First, I am sorry to hear you are experiencing this.

RTN is contagious, most people just pull the coral. People refer to this as RTN Disease…its not a disease, actually it stands for Rapid Tissue something or other….basically, fast tissue die off for “whatever the reason”. Often times this is due to swings in parameters; salinity, ph and temp etc. when ATO’s fail and the like. Stopping the progression is very hard to do – so I agree with the advice in this thread … cut it off as if fragging that section. Then make sure the tank is and remains stable.

The reason it spreads is really unknown, but the speculation I have heard over the years is toxic secretions from the rapid die off or some sort of infectious bacteria or bug or whatever.

I hope it works out well for you – take a few pictures of the progress and if (hopefully) successful you can post a thread of the occurrence and what you did to save it as to help others faced with it in the future. Good luck !!

Still Grumpy ?? gotta work on that girl ! I suppose this isn't helping tho...hang in there !

 

Try to frag as far away from the dead tissue as possible. I've had to do this before and even though I fraged a seemingly healthy piece, the frag still RTN overnight. Also, I think your Alk is fine, your Ca is too high in relation to the dkh. For example a balanced Ca and Dkh is about 420ppm Ca and a dkh of about 9. My dkh is always around 8-9 and I have a lot of sps with no problems. IMO, a dkh of 12 is the upper limits of where you want it. Anything from 7-12 though is acceptable and as mentioned stability is key. I believe natural ocean water only has a dkh of about 7.

 

Yeah I read somewhere about ocean water and dkh and it was somewhere around 7 I believe. That's why my LFS guy told me 8.5 is fine. My Ca is really high...it used to be off the charts. I don't know what's up with that.

Anyways, I couldn't save the stylo. The RTN was so vast by the time I cut away all the white I would have been left with nothing. Ugh.

 

IME getting your mag up to 1450-1500 will give you better balance in calcium and alkalinity. What your LFS said is true but alot of ppl (me included) like to drive calc and alk up higher. I keep my alk at 11, calcium at 440 and magnesium at 1450-1500. A dip in either calcium or alkalinity tells me it's time to test and more than likely dose mag.