I understand that using tap water isnt the greatest but i know lots of people that live in the city, even very close to me that are not having any issues

Ive used tap for years now with no issues, Mike as well, no issues. I was a little worried when I moved to Lethbridge but once again no issues.

When I started reading this I thought maybe because of your 2hr drive something happened. It did to me during one of our calgary trips. Not sure if the corals got too hot or cold in the cooler but I lost half of my SPS.

Now I see your loosing a bunch of your fish which tells me its not the coral its the water. Something has gotten into your tank whether its from a water change or maybe some cleaning chemical indirectly or chemical from work.

Chemicals wont test on a aquarium test kit. So i'd guess its that.

Hey Steve, I purchased some from mostly everyone there and everything is doing great. I'm actually quite happy with my tank at the moment.

We don't use chloromine and 2 days in open air would easily get rid of chlorine. I don't believe it's tap water related.

Perhaps some cleaner or something was on your hands when you put them in the tank?

I would just like to clarify that i am not saying that i think that this was caused from the original corals cut or from the owners they were purchased from. I am merely asking if it happened to anyone else. I believe i got amazing deals at the swap and would definitely buy from everyone again.

IMO i would check check and recheck water peramaters, loosing both fish and coral in high numbers could be caused by so many things. It could be from something like dirty hands or too much hand in the tank, to evaporation swings, to complete water chemistry's being out of whack. Think about any changes made in the last few months that you may have over looked-good luck.

if its happening over time then its stn, not rtn:wink:
what are your parameters????.....

Sorry STN...I will post parameters tomorrow for those who are interested. I also found what appears to be a reddish copepod or amphipod today. I have never seen one of these so i have no idea what it could be..maybe it is the source of some of my issues.

Don't concern yourself with the RTN/STN terminology, the term doesn't even exist outside the hobby and there is no exact time to distinguish between the two (they're both relative terms). Tissue necrosis is more of a dis-ease than a disease, caused by an upset in the tissue function due to changes in any of the external factors that corals depend on to survive. RTN is not caused by any specific bacteria or parasite, although an attack by such an organism could certainly trigger tissue deterioration, either fast or slow depending on the sensitivity of the coral. RTN is most apparent in Acro and Pocci corals because of this. You need to consider that you picked these frags up in Lethbridge, drove 2 hours to get home (did the temp change significantly in this time?), you acclimated the frags (how exactly did you acclimate?). If your water parameters were drastically different than the frag tank (especially Nitrate levels) it could very well shock a sensitive coral. Did you place the frags in too much flow or not enough flow? Did you place them too close to the light? Something as simple a soap residue from washing your hands and touching a coral is enough to kill it. Why don't you post your parameters AND a list of the frags you bought. You said 80% were affected, were they mostly SPS? You had mentioned a Devil's Hand deteriorating, soft coral are pretty resilient, if you have a dieing leather coral I would really take a look at tank conditions and parameters. My point is there are a lot of factors to consider, you probably should retrace your steps and you may think of something you might have done to trigger this.

Ok...help the new guy....I've gleaned that the "TN" in RTN and STN is Tissue Necrosis but what are the "R" and "S" for ?