RTN event....wild vs cultured

[Lowenbrau]

Well...... now I know the RTN pain.

4 weeks ago my tank busted the front seam and leaked. I took everything out and filled a spare tank. I have had the new tank setup a week later, transferred all rock and corals and fish. I lost only a single fire shrimp and one coral to RTN.

I made the switch to MH a week ago, placing it 20 inches above the tank to slowly acclimate the tank. On Monday, I came to the tank being 84 instead of the normal 80. Since then, 4 colonies have started to RTN. The water tests out normal, I did a 5 gallon water change on Sunday.

I believe all the colonies were wild, I bought them from FFE several months ago. The only unaffected corals are my 4 frags from captive raised corals and 1 wild one.

I am so frustrated....I thought SPS was the way I wanted to go....

[Lowenbrau]

WHat have been your experiences with wild SPS?

I guess I will have to go with all frags and grow 'em up.

[picassomike]

Yea,captive raised SPS seem to be almost invincable.I had a heater failer a couple months back,bleached parts of the wild colonies,but all my frags acted as though nothing had ever happened.I also have another brown wild colony,I cut frags off of it and put a couple different places in my tank.The frags are turning green,but the colony is still brown as ever.

[Lowenbrau]

I have tried to frag as much as I can. The colonies I have left what hasn't rtn'd yet I am trying to save.


I am really discourged right now, I had to buy the new tank, then I upgraded the lights...I have spent so much money and time....and everything is falling to s**t. Almost makes me want to give up, almost. :)

[Lowenbrau]

Once a colony has started to RTN, can it recover or will it all need to be fragged?

[picassomike]

The part that RTNed will never recover.Its only chance of living is by fragging or unless the RTN stops.There will just be a big white sketeton below the healthy tissue,if it would stop.

[Russ]

Doesn't this sound more like a bleaching event, rather than RTN?

[jeffsdesigns]

RTN is when you have tissue lost.

Um...when you introduce your MH..did you just flip them on and let them go or did you start with maybe 5 hours and then add a day..to slow aclimulate them?

Jeff

[Lowenbrau]

i started with 4 hours a day,but the lights are 20" above waterline. i had440 watts of vho before. It has been tissue loss from the botttom up.

[smiller]

Don't throw in the hat yet. I have had almost no losses from frags, but some of my wild coral experiences have not been so good. I have even lost a couple of wilds for unknown reasons that had been healthy and growing for a year. All but three or four of my SPS were started from small frags and I have only lost one (that I can think of) that was not related to aggression. Plus the frags usually grow so fast that within a year or two they are larger than what the average wild colony would be. I know that wild colonies are big and beautiful and beg you to take them home, but IME it has often not been the way to go. Buy frags from some of the vendors or fellow reefers here on RC and see if you are not much happier. Take a look at the growth page on my site, you will see what I mean.

[Lowenbrau]

I appreciate the words of encouragement. I am, as soon as this event is over for sure, going to go on a massive frag hunt. I will try to buy from reefers first, vendors second.

I am within a few months of ordering my dream tank, a 269 gallon that will go in wall witha large storage room behind it. I feel like somehow I did something wrong, and it worries me to take another jump and spend $6-8000 on a new tank.

[Lowenbrau]

I think the event is over, I had to frag all but 2 colonies. It is pretty funny to see acro crabs ina 2 brach frag.