FarmerTy Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I've been hearing and seeing so many instances of SPS corals STN'ing/RTN'ing over the last 5 months that I wanted to take a unofficial poll of how many people have had this experience. If possible, can people share their experiences and their timeline of their events and if it is still ongoing? Please keep this to established populations of SPS and not just from adding a new frag if possible. I am curious to see everyone's experiences and if there is a possible commonality between all the episodes of STN/RTN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 I'll start first. Been established with SPS for I've 3 years and have not witnessed any periods of stn and rtn over that timeframe, other than from possibly new frags that didn't transition well or my one episodic salinity drift that RTN'ed one coral overnight. System has been pretty bulletproof for SPS. Currently going through an upgrade as many of you know. There are too many factors and variables to pinpoint a cause in my tank but about 5 pieces have been experiencing STN within the last 2 weeks. All parameters are in check which is the oddest part of the mystery. The STN will generally stop when I frag the STN'ING portion. I have been experimenting with moving any colonies that are stn'ing to the new system and that has generally halted the STN even though more time will be needed to confirm those results. Is this my tanks way of telling me to hurry up with the transition already? Biggest guesses would be more than usual amounts of gfo and biopellets used to combat all the extra nutrients as I extract rocks and corals from the old tank. But again, too hard to pinpoint as so many variables have changed with the tank upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I believe mine was alk related. I tend to run on the low side of the alk scale (and some believe that the Hanna alk meter reads low), and I left my doser on program mode instead of dose mode for a few days. The combination of my alk consumption increasing via increased SPS mass with my dosers non-functioning put me in a very precipitious range. This was combined with a GFO swap which i believe really tanked the alk, leading to the RTN of 2 colonies that I've had for some time now. One seems to be doing OK, the other looks like its going to perish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brian.srock Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I did have a piece start to slowly STN but I pinpointed that to about 3 weeks ago when my Mg levels dropped to 1240 and I was out of BRS Mg supplement. The piece has since re-encrusted. I now have a problem with a Brain Coral though and about 1/8 is starting to bleach and the tentacles are way over extended. The plan is to aggressivly clean the sump sandbed this weekend as I believe I have old tank syndrome which is what is taking my alk each night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Alk related as well due to a clogged dosing pump and messed up alk test kit. In observation my digis and setosa were affected much worse than the acros which only a few were showing the slightest signs of bleaching/STN. Looks like they are already starting to recover without needing to frag. The tips never stopped growing while it was happening which is interesting. I believe when I had high alk, I was getting burnt tips. Low alk = burn base??? I switched to Richard's multi GFO chamber method and my PO4 has been much more consistent. Going to add a 3rd chamber and do 10 day rotations, with each reactor having GFO for 30 days total. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jpowell490 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Question that I have a theory on. How many of you that have experienced this dose (with an automatic doser) numerous chemicals daily or weekly? I think why most of us that try to keep SPS and do not dose, the corals eat up more than we anticipate and they suffer. Now with those that does, the nutrients are always there regardless of a water change, etc. My theory, the secret to keeping SPS successfully is dosing kalk, etc. on a regular basis, faithfully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 Jestep, that's interesting that you observed continued growth as well. All the one's that are Stn'ing are still growing and the polyps are 100% out until the stn line gets to them and then they pull in and die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 I think all that have responded have some sort of automated dosing. My parameters never swing which is 100% the reason why I have had the success up to this point with SPS. Like I said, the tank upgrade has caused a lot of extra variables that are usually not there though my maintenance routine has stayed the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jpowell490 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Yea mine never swing either, but I have a Birdsnest that has this very thing going on for no apparent reason. I think when you are not dosing your corals are in a stable state, not really growing a lot, etc. Almost like dormancy. When you dose, it is like your corals being at the buffet, all you can eat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 I have always had the experience of birdsnest being too finicky. For being considered "beginner" SPS corals, they sure do get mad for no reason and die. I have SPS that are way more sensitive to conditions and they are bulletproof but I breathe wrong on a birdsnest and it dies. Odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 +1 for birdsnest being stupidly finicky. They grow super fast for months or more and then RTN in about 2 hours while everything else in the tank is totally fine. Had this for more than a year in my tank gone in a day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Yea mine never swing either, but I have a Birdsnest that has this very thing going on for no apparent reason. I think when you are not dosing your corals are in a stable state, not really growing a lot, etc. Almost like dormancy. When you dose, it is like your corals being at the buffet, all you can eat. Ah OK, i see what you're saying, and I agree with you. I treated some of my first SPS TERRIBLY, and they didnt die. They also didnt really grow. Now that I dose, my growth is very good, but seems more susceptible to getting pissy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 should i stop dosing my tank so my birdnest doesn't get moody? oops, fixed a disgusting little Freudian typo in that one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jpowell490 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Lol no keep dosing! I think that is he key to SPS. Everyone probably already knows that, but..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planeden Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Lol no keep dosing! I think that is he key to SPS. Everyone probably already knows that, but..... not trying to derail, but i just started dosing this week and i'm paranoid because it seems that 90% of the tank crashes are caused by dosing mishaps. so any excuse... i'm tracking my dosing progress in my build thread if anyone wants any follow on discussion or just to laugh at me. anyway, back to the regularly scheduled STN conversation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckyuv Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 All mine started bleaching out and stopped showing polyps. I found black bugs on mine tho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woods Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 I recently had a Garf Bansai STN over night. It was a mini colony that I had for about 2 months. None of my other few SPS have had problems. The only thing I can think of is that the day before I place a new zoa frag within 2 inches of the GB and for some reason it didn't like it... But other than that I can't think of anything that would have caused it. I don't dose as I have very little SPS. All my parameters are fine and like I said my other SPS are fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 After my aqua scape change, everything was fine for a while. I added a carx and started tweaking that for a while and had a few small alk spikes. Also added some cuc from someone else's tank that was shutting down that I didn't take the time to properly acclimate. I'm pretty sure that entire cuc died in my refugium and cause a phosphate spike. I lost about 7 sps colonies which included 2 large ones that I had for a very long time. I had several colonies stn to the point where I had to cut them up to save them. It has taken about a month of keeping things steady and feeding my fish regularly to get things back to normal. I had 3-4 colonies that stn'd at the base over the course of all this, but continued to grow at the tips. Very odd. As of now, I'm getting my color back, and getting growth again. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haze152 Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 I have lost 4 colonies so far I thought it was alk swing but now I am not so sure. Alk has been stable for a couple weeks and I had a miilie frag RTN over night yesterday Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckyuv Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 If you guys need me to hold stuff for you lmk. I'll especially hold haze pearlberry and Ty's blue echinata and of course juicemans pink tipped blue acro but like I said just lmk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBMarlin Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 My episode happened a bit longer than 5 months ago but I figure I would share my experience as well. Like many others in this thread I had a clogged Alk line from my doser. This was compounded by the fact that I started adding water to salt (not sure why I changed to this method) instead of salt to water and mixing way too long, by doing this I was losing a lot of my Alk via precipitation. I was constantly testing my makeup water when I was trying to figure out what was going on and it was almost always low in Alk and never consistent. Once I read here on ARC that you are supposed to add the salt to the water and only mix for a few hours my makeup water tests spot on with what is on the jug (salinity salt). Running low Alk is dangerous if you do it for a long while and then try to raise it, Acros will begin to recede and some will never stop. Anyway, it has been almost a year since I lost 75% of my Acros but things are finally on the rebound! -brett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 This is a recent event in PeeperKeeper's display tank. It's a 75 that has four 54W T5s (two sets of 10,000K and actinic one in back and one in front) and two 250 watt DE MH. About 7 or 8 weeks ago one of the MH bulbs quit. We had discussed LEDs in the past and after the bulb had been out for roughly 3 or 4 weeks PeeperKeeper got the light working then a few days later I added a 2' 12000K 30 degree BML fixture. 5 days later PeeperKeeper noticed RTN at the base of just one of the corals. Action taken was to turn off the LED and dip the coral and make some frags. 9 days later I installed a 12000K BML with a 75 degree lens. No additional RTN has been noticed since the original observation. PAR readings with the LED fixture is about 150 PAR in the middle front to back and half way up from the bottom directly under the fixture which is roughly 20 PAR higher than with the MH. The coral in question is high at the back of the tank in the very middle directly under one set of T5s and getting light equally from the sides from the MH and MH/LED fixtures. Par readings showed very low readings around the base: Considering the base is getting very low light levels with the both the MH and LED fixture I'm pretty sure what caused the RTN was the tissue at the base adjusted to even lower levels with one fixture out for 3-4 weeks and the jump in lighting was to much stress. It's difficult to say if dipping stopped the RTN from progressing or if the RTN had already stopped before it was dipped but it wouldn't have hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramsey Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I'm curious, how many people that have had this problem are carbon dosing (vodka, biopellets, zeovit, etc.)? If you are, what salt are you using and what is your alk? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I've been reluctant to ask (so as not to reveal my dumbassness), but it's killing me. What does STN'ing/RTN'ing refer to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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