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RTN causes, treatment, prevention

25K views 32 replies 11 participants last post by  crab0000 
#1 ·
I have read several articles by Borneman, and Calfo already.
No speculation please. If you have personal experience with RTN please share it and the results.

What are the options or is it a lost cause and once spotted remove and destroy.

Thank You.
 
#2 ·
In my experience once it is spotted it is too late. I have had several corals that developed RTN and I could do nothing for them. I have tried dipping and fragging the corals and neither helped. I would love to get some new things to try because there is a terrible feeling knowing there is nothing I can do to help.
 
#3 ·
i have been lucky so far in my RTN events. they have been from recently fragged corals that i just introduced to the tank. i have had only one stop RTN'ing once it started. unfortunatly i do not know why that one stopped. it was the longest of all the frags.

i have had a couple of TN events. i noticed that parts of the encrusted base were receeding. the first time i saw this it was the alk that was low. once that was corrected the coral started to encrust over the dead parts. the secound time it happened it was my S.G. it got a little low. again once corrected the corals started encrusting again. in all of these cases the TN was very slow. maybe a mm a day. it was not bleaching it was dying.

hth,

G~
 
#5 ·
I have had a few cases of RTN. It was always on recently aquired wild acro colonies. I used to try fragging once it started but I was never able to save the coral or any of the frags. I have never lost an acro that I received as a frag that had come from someone's established tank. I have never had it spread from one coral to another but I usually yank the colony when it starts.

I do have a few older colonies that start to die off at the base where it's encrusted but I speculate this is from being shaded by the top part of the colony. The tissue doesn't slough off it just recedes very slowly. Some of these have been doing this for a long time and the colony looks just fine.
 
#6 ·
Rick O said:
I have never had it spread from one coral to another but I usually yank the colony when it starts.
That is useful info. I yanked this piece at the first signs of flesh coming off. I hope it is contained.

This morning I fragged it high above the dieing area in hopes to save a piece. It sounds as if it may have been an exercise it futility
 
#7 ·
Geoff said:

i have had a couple of TN events. i noticed that parts of the encrusted base were receeding. the first time i saw this it was the alk that was low.
hth,

G~
My paramiters are all in line ( I'm a numbers hen I watch all the time)
But I'll keep an eye on them.

thank you.
 
#8 ·
We lost all our SPS a couple of years ago to an RTN event. The tank crashed at the same time, and it was likely the cause of the RTN, rather than the other way around. (We were upgrading systems - it was a disaster.) We blamed stress for the RTN, but managed to lose everything in 24 hours. Thankfully, most were frags, but still...

I've more recently gotten back into SPS, and lost a frag to RTN.It was precipitated by trauma, and even with fragging lost the frag. (Granted, it was small.) I do know that the local LFS here will frag a colony aggressively if it starts to develop TN. It works for them. I (knock knock knock on wood!) haven't had the, erm, opportunity to try it myself.

Danielle
 
#13 ·
wildernet said:
Hey Chris I still have that frag that you gave me. I can let you have it back and I can get another frag later. I think it will grow faster in your tank.
Thank you so much for the offer, I wont be adding anything for 60-90 days to make sure it was isolated.
My other 25 colonies seem to be OK for now.:)
 
#21 ·
The acronym means rapid tissue necrosis.
Although it has been found that Necrosis has little to do with it. The acronym has just stuck
Basically the coral just shuts down, stops living, dies, Some times with in only a few hours.
 
#23 ·
That sounds like an infection, In RTN the living tissue just slides off leaving a bare white coral skeleton.
Think of it like a major burn on a person, how the skin just blisters and slides off. That's what RTN looks like.
 
#24 ·
I had RTN on some frags I got from GARF.org. 2-3 months after I got them, with new growth and encrustation, they just started dying off. I don't feel that the RTN spread because there were intervals of several weeks between each frag dying. And only the Garf acropora frags died, no other genus's and no other acro's I'd gotten from anyhere else. They would die so fast that when I'd see them in the morning, they'd almost completely sloughed off their tissue, and I just left the skeletons in the tank.
 
#26 ·
My exp with RTN and the colony that I lost effected no other sps in the tank. I had two corals come into contact with each other, by the time I seperated them one had begun to melt down. Not really knowing what to do I rode it out, and watched it slime its tissue off and into the water column. This didnt seem to effect any other colonies in the tank.

-Dustin
 
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