...rtn...

I came home from work on Friday night and saw one of my acros had its flesh peeling off of the skeleton staring at the bottom and a few other random spots. I took it out immediately and fragged a 1/4" piece hat was still in a healthy section and tossed the rest of the acro for fear of the RTN spreading. The frag was tossed 24 hours later due to RTN on it as well.

What causes RTN and is there any way to rid a tank of RTN besides removing the infected coral?

 

RTN is an outcome, not a disease. However, it can be the result of disease; usually appears to be a stress induced opportunistic infection. So, it can spread, but *usually* remains in a infected colony IME. However, removing a colony may be safer, but hard to say without knowing the cause. There are probably over 30 pathogens that could cause RTN though. The best thing is usually to keep conditions optimal and parameters such as alk, pH etc.. stable. Keep waterflow high and so on. Sometimes reduced lighting can help, as light although good for a health coral, can be a stressor as well ,especially for an unhealthy coral. Avoid any perturbation that could weaken the corals defenses should be limited.

 

Yes it is a symptom of another issue. Honestly I do not think anyone can say definitively what the exact cause always is. Seems like it could be something as benign a shift in parameters, to any number of pathogens, even changes or decline in flow can cause it IME.

I have had it occur for no obvious reason to only one coral and not affect the others. Sometimes all you can do is frag it.

 

I can't think of anything that I did recently that could have caused a change or fluctuation in parameters. I am hoping that this was an isolated event.

Thank you for the info.