RTN!! $@#&!!
 

Well Crap!!!


Looks like there is a section at the base of my "branching confer echinopora" that is RTN-ing...... I'm keeping an eye on it at the moment and if it get is any bigger I will frag off the branches and sacrifice the rest of the coral.....there's no way I'm risking letting this spread to any of my other SPS's (there finally starting to look really good)

Here's what I'm dealing with.....any suggestions would be appreciated

http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/q...k/P4290053.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/q...k/P4290054.jpg

the rest of the coral seems to be happy

http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/q...k/P4290055.jpg

The coralline directly in front of it looks sick too. Is there a bright light shining in that spot?

Maybe it's the pic, but all the SPS look white...?

I changed the bulbs a few days ago and went alot blue er this time....I just haven't got the with balance on the camera set right......give me a sec and I'll try again.

not that I wanted to...but I'm not willing to risk this spreading.....I went in hacked it all up :sad:

pic's are uploading

Still haven't quite got the camera settings right.....but this gives you a more natural looking color

http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/q...P4290055-1.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/q...P4290054-1.jpg
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/q...P4290053-1.jpg

Hard to tell, but they look almost completely bleached.

thats kinda how im seeing it too, what issues were you having before??

I can't get the camera set just right on the color.....they are quite light, and have been growing faster under the new lights.....I just assumed that was the color they should be as they were really browning out under my old fixtures.

I changed out 2 current 36" 4-bulb fixtures in Dec to a 48" Tech 8 bulb fixture.

Start cutting now

Nothing.....I just added this and a few other corals a few days ago, (I bought them from a local guy that was shutting down)

So far the red planet still looks fine.....not the best color but like I said it's only been in for a few days.

Tis the season for RTN and tank crashes it seems.

Have you dipped to confirm you don't have any AEFW?

Looking at that link, they all look very bleached. How long is your light cycle?

No...I didn't think that would be necessary.....I bought then from Danny Z when he shut down and he never had any problems with them.

Should I have?

Ya, always with any new coral, regardless of where it came from

Dusk to dawn (4x54watt T-5) 7:30-8
day lights (4x54watt T-5) 8:30-7

That should be ok right?

My bulbs are as follows

4x ATI Blue+
2x ATI Aquablue special
1x Giessaman Aqua pink
1x Giessaman Pure Actinic

Might be a bit much. I use about 7 hours of daylight, seems to work well. With too much light, they can over oxidize nutrients at the cellular level, causing bleaching. I'd maybe back off a few hours and let them darken up, then reassess from there.

So.....is my dusk to dawn ok? or should I be backing that off as well?

Depends on the intensity of the light, I'm not familiar with T5. I use a single actinic from 8am to 1:30pm, then daylight until 8:30, then back to the actinic until midnight. Works way better for me over my previous 10 or 11 hour daylight cycle. Saves on bulbs too.

This may be a stupid question....but if they were bleached....would I suddenly experience a growth spurt?

The last 2 months or so my other SPS's have been growing by leaps and bounds

Not sure, but I'd guess probably not. And it's possible I'm just not seeing the pics right, but even with the white balance off, you should see some color. The RP, you can see the polyps fine, so I have to assume the tissue is white. It should be red, or under less light, a green tinge. Not white.

I'm sorry to say but I don't see any truly healthy corals in those pictures. Extremely pale and bleached looking corals. Pale colors are from too much light, and/or too little bioload-feedings....

Yes you can experience a tempory growth spurt when corals are put into this environment but soon they stop growing and things go down hill.

The RP and the one that I had RTNing have only been in my tank for a few days.....so I don't think they would be good to use for an idea of my corals....

but here...this was a few days ago of my Milli, is this bleached?

http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/q...k/P4240049.jpg

Ya, that's a white milli, which don't exist in nature :)

That looks kinda cool but ya that is a bleached green millepora....these corals are stressed.

Ok....so I'm a little confused on what I should do about it.....a week or so ago I changed bulbs.....I went from 4 to 2 "day light" bulbs.

Now I just changed my timeer to pull back the day light to 7 hours.....but the new bulbs should be better for color as well...right?

Should I just do that for now?

What are you running in the reactors? Do you have fish in here? Do you feed them a fair amount?

well....a few months ago (under my old fixtures) it was a brown "green" Millipora so....guess I went from one extreme to the other...lol

I also started Bio Pellets about 3 months ago.....so should they not supply some additional food for them?

I would say to drop your daylights down to 5 or 6hrs (temporayily but maybe 7-8 after colours come back).....keep your actinic period 11 or 12 that is fine. If you think you have a low fish load and dont feed much, well you can up those....possibly significantly. Also Amino Acids might help till you get things back in order.

**edit** bio-pellets is another clue...you need to feed a lot more after your biopellets get working. Sounds like you have both problems....too long of a photo period and too low nutrient/bioload/feedings.

New bulbs could help, or make the problem worse.

If your bulbs are old, and/or you were running them for longer then normal, that could cause a bleaching problem.

New bulbs will be brighter. With little zooxanthellea left to protect them from light damage it could cause them to give up the ghost. If you do get new bulbs, you might want to reduce your light cycle even more, or raise your fixture up until their color starts to return, then slowly go back to normal.

I have carbon in one and Bio Pellets in the other

My fish are
1 Hippo Tang
1 Sail Fin Blenny
1 Mandarin
1 Coral Goby
2 Purcs
1 High Fin Goby
1 6 line Wrasse
1 Yellow Tang

I feed once a day.....either 1/2 a cube Mysis, Brine shrimp or a pinch of new life spectrum pellets........with a pinch of algae/sea weed pellets every other day

Ya, that's my guess too.

Kinda light. In my tank with 12 fish (bigger than your load), I feed mysis or plankton twice a day, a full sheet of nori everyday and I toss some various pellets and flakes in when I'm hanging out at the tank. the frozen is usually at least a 1x1 square, rinsed in a strainer.

What size of tank are you running man?

Am I wrong in interpreting that Bio Pellets will provide a food source for my corals as well as help with trates/phos?

They all look bleached and starving. start feeding these corals and not fish food. Give some amine acid like the one from Zeovit and coral vitalizer from zeovit. Fauna marin have good coral food too. They are in very bad shape and they will probably die if the conditions are not changed.

I would reduce the light to acclimate them to the new light slowly and feed them each day.

None of them have the right color and look normal.

I've got a 180 with larger fish. I haven't used biopellets, but have heard they can starve the tank of PO4 and NO3, both essential in small amounts to fuel growth. Not sure about them feeding corals, I haven't heard that, but I haven't looked either.

Some companies claim the bacteria that feed on the bio pellets, no3, and po4 feed corals. I have never seen or heard of hard evidence.