MICHAEL PALETTA
1 HOUR AGO
While we have come a long way in the hobby and have improved our husbandry skills for keeping corals immeasurably over the past four decades, we still have much to learn, especially in the area of coral diseases. Having worked in human medicine during this equivalent period, I have seen a dramatic improvement in the understanding and treatment of many diseases during this time frame.
Unfortunately, there has not been an equivalent improvement in regard to most coral diseases. As with most things in the hobby, much of what we have learned and are still learning is through trial and error. To point out how little our understanding of coral diseases is when researching this topic, I found that many of the maladies that we experience with our corals have been anecdotally named by us, the hobbyists, rather than by the scientific community. A case in point is tissue necrosis, which has been a problem in some of our corals since the early 1990s. To most of us this disease, as its name implies, is generically when the tissue on an sps coral sloughs off the skeleton regardless of the reason. But even this is not correct, as tissue necrosis differs markedly depending on whether it is rapid tissue necrosis, RTN, or slow tissue necrosis, STN. Which again are names given to this disease by hobbyists.
For the whole article, please go:
Managing Tissue Necrosis | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog
While we have come a long way in the hobby and have improved our husbandry skills for keeping corals immeasurably over the past four decades, we still have much to learn, especially in the area of…
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