Dan H Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Just so newer SPS keepers feel a little better when they have losses... every once in a while even a well maintained tank can have SPS issues. While on vacation our alk dropped pretty low, like into the high 6's. Luckily that was only for about 24-48 hours. Shockingly only 2 of our colonies were unhappy with that alk crash. The PC Rainbow lost a lot of color in its base but did not have any tissue loss. I'm not surprised as that coral is hyper sensitive and loses color in the base with any alk changes, even minor. Now this was a surprise - our DaM Blue colony developed some STN. It was very very slow and over the past 2 weeks the entire base and a few of the lower arms died. We were hoping that it would stop as we've seen on some other colonies but tonight we finally decided it had to get cut. The good news is we saved most of the main section in one massive frag. We only had to make 3 small frags and lost 3-4 of the lower arms. Hopefully this will stop the STN and it can go back to being happy and growing fast. PC Rainbow DaM Blue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 I'm curious if you've tried treating STN like I did here? And if you have has it helped? I've tried it a couple more times now with moderate success on one occasion and very good success on another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Superglue is my friend with STN... just glue the leading edge of the STN and most of the time, it'll stop it if the offending conditions are remedied. When the STN is just too far spread, I'll frag it up like Dan did. I did try the Lugols once Timfish and though I think in theory it should work, for my test run of it, it sadly didn't stop the STN. I'll give it another guy the next time though as I have faith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Interestingly enough Dan, I had two frags of the Dam blue and they both suffered STN while the rest of the tank was happy. My alk had dipped down to about 8.2. I'm not sure if there is a connection. It started about 4-6 weeks ago. Lost 75% of the polyps. One little piece hanging in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 I haven't tried that Tim but it's something to consider. In this case superglue was not an option. By the time we got home most of the base had died. I think it's a coincidence Jim as we've had alk crashes before into the 7's and the DaM blue never cared. That's why we were so surprised that it had problems. I fully expected a least 1 or 2 corals to be upset, I just didn't think it would be this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Just to add data, my DAM Blue got toasted in my frag tank when my alk hit 6 dKh. My alk dipped down to 4.8 dKh at times and the acros mostly survived. As a general observation, the aquacultured acros seemed to weather the alk swings in the frag tank better than the maricultured acros but that makes sense since the aquacultured ones had a longer time to adjust to tank conditions over the years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Just to add data, my DAM Blue got toasted in my frag tank when my alk hit 6 dKh. My alk dipped down to 4.8 dKh at times and the acros mostly survived. As a general observation, the aquacultured acros seemed to weather the alk swings in the frag tank better than the maricultured acros but that makes sense since the aquacultured ones had a longer time to adjust to tank conditions over the years. I was thinking along similar lines ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Yeah, I couldn't kill my Oregon Tort even if I tried. I've had that thing for almost 6 years now! 4.7 dKh... whatever... Try again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FluxCapacitor Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Hey guys. What's STN? I can go google it too, but this will likely answer a question other less experienced reefers are having and won't go look up or ask about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 Slow Tissue Necrosis - Basically when the flesh of the SPS coral slowly dies off leaving a bare skeleton behind. It typically starts at the base of the coral although it can start elsewhere. Sometimes it will stop on it's own when whatever was causing the coral to be unhappy is fixed, but sometimes the only solutions are to remove the good tissue so it doesn't get affected by the bad tissue. You can do with with glue, or fragging, or other methods. There is also FTN (Fast Tissue Necrosis) which is when the tissue dies off very fast, like in hours. This is usually a very acute problem and is much harder to prevent the death of the entire coral. Sorry to hear you guys had problems with your DaM blues. Like I said, for me it's been a really hardy coral. This is the first time I had any problems with it and we've had our share of Alk swings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 There is also FTN (Fast Tissue Necrosis) which is when the tissue dies off very fast, like in hours. This is usually a very acute problem and is much harder to prevent the death of the entire coral. aka RTN (rapid) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 I've never heard of FTN Dan! What kind of SPS circles are you hanging around? [emoji12] I think most use RTN for rapid tissue necrosis but there's no standard so moot point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Sorry to hear you guys had problems with your DaM blues. Like I said, for me it's been a really hardy coral. This is the first time I had any problems with it and we've had our share of Alk swings. I think it is like you said in the top post, sometimes it just happens. Certainly my tank seems always in a precarious state and any acro could start to STN at any time in my experience. I typically have angry acros right beside happy ones and then they will switch roles at some point :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 HA! Yes, RTN. Brain fart. I knew FTN didn't sound right but was too lazy to Google and my brain was pre-occupied with work. Meg and I were just commenting to each other how part of the hobby is to realize that something is always going to be going wrong. Something is always going to be unhappy. So you have to just look at the positives and not freak out all the time on the negatives. It's nearly impossible to keep every last coral happy... So the expectation that somehow magically everything is going to always be happy no matter what is a lie. I could write a huge paragraph about all the failures we've had in just the last year. But I could also write a whole book on the successes. So we focus on the success, learn from the failures, and prevent heartburn and burnout. I will note however that certain corals have "personalities" when it comes to what makes them happy/unhappy. I swear, our PC Rainbow is the most fickle coral on earth. The good news is it doesn't have tissue death issues, but it loses it's color with the slightest Alk swings. One of my monti's is hyper sensitive to Magnesium. Anytime the Mg went below 1350 it would bleach out instantly. And don't even get me started on the Zoas. I know everyone always says SPS are hard, but I swear the Zoas are just mysterious. They will be growing like crazy then suddenly in a week they just wilt away. Makes no sense, no water param changes, nodda. It's like the all got together and joined the Jonestown cult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 I'll take a tank full of SPS any day over a tank of zoas. At least I know what to give them and they'll be happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 Yeah, that's my point. SPS are all about things that are testable. Zoas are black-magic voodoo polyps that literally can kill you. But they are really pretty so... I guess they can stay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 .... that literally can kill you.... You love picking on ty dont you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 23, 2016 Author Share Posted July 23, 2016 I wasn't necessarily aiming that statement at Ty... But if it was perceived that way, I'm totally OK with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 I can't be killed! I'm like the aiptasia of the reef club world! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 23, 2016 Author Share Posted July 23, 2016 ApTysai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 Just to add data, my DAM Blue got toasted in my frag tank when my alk hit 6 dKh. My alk dipped down to 4.8 dKh at times and the acros mostly survived. As a general observation, the aquacultured acros seemed to weather the alk swings in the frag tank better than the maricultured acros but that makes sense since the aquacultured ones had a longer time to adjust to tank conditions over the years. I was thinking along similar lines ... My DAM blue died too at the first sign of changing conditions. Fragged up wild corals can be pretty sensitive to changing the environmental conditions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 23, 2016 Author Share Posted July 23, 2016 Corals can be pretty sensitive to changing the environmental conditions. Fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FluxCapacitor Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 I smoked some aiptasia pretty well with a syringe full of vinegar. . Definitely not invincible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 23, 2016 Author Share Posted July 23, 2016 Using a kalkwasser paste works great too, plus it adds alk and calcium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 Corals can be pretty sensitive to changing the environmental conditions. Fixed. Haha yea, all wild corals are susceptible to dying from changing conditions, but this was a reference to the DaM blues that were fragged wild corals. I feel like larger colonies have a better chance at survival than their fragged counterparts. If anything you have more of a warning period to cut off the RTNing portion before it completely wipes out the coral. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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