What RTNing looks like

melev

melev

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Some ask "What is RTN?"

First of all, it is an acronym for Rapid Tissue Neucrosis, which means the tissue is dying fast. Ever heard of 'flesh eating disease' on shows like ER? It has to be cut off quickly before it gets into your entire body. Acropora suffer from RTN, and it just happens seemingly for no reason whatsoever.

Here's a lovely piece from April 9th of this month.
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And then yesterday it started to RTN at the base:
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Basically, the tissue begins to look very thin, and just sloughs off the coral skeleton in flakes or disintegrates. Here are a series of pictures of it, taken out of the water. I removed it so it could be fragged, cutting off all the healthy pieces in hopes part of it might live. While out of the water, I took a series of macro shots just in case there were parasites I was overlooking.
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Here's the core, 24 hours later.
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And the frags aren't giving me much hope.
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I hope these pictures help others in identifying this situation in their tanks.
 
Marc, hope y'all don't mind, I made this a "Sticky", since we have so many new folks that need to know this!

Hope the frags survive!!
 
Good idea, Cathy.

Here are a few more images. There are 7 frags mounted to this rock, although I only labled 6.
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And maybe two will survive.
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This piece came from Brent when he arrived from California (broken sump), so I'd say two months perhaps.
 
I don't know. I'm just glad they don't hang themselves like they do in your tank! :p
 
RTN is the worst, it just sucks to leave for work in the morning to a beautiful tank and come home to a half dead colony. You freak out, frag it up, and hope for the best.

The two times I have had RTN have been due to swings in my alk, primarily increases too fast. When I moved my 24nano to my house I did a 50% water change which was the big mistake. I had so many SPS corals, the Alk was getting sucked out and my Alk was about 7 when the salt mixes at 11. Therefore the 50% waterchange swung my alk instantly and all SPS went to RTN, yet all softies were happy. The only SPS that survived was my green slimer and now it is wayyy greener than ever (probably because he gets more alk to himself now :)
 
Marc,
Can RTN reverse itself? I have a colony that looks like it may be starting. If it can't be reversed, I'd rather frag it now.
 
According to Eric Borneman that studied this, the reason fragging doesn't always save these corals in distress is because the damage took place within the guts of the coral already. The best thing you can do is cut off some of the top healthy sections, even if those are 1" frags as they are the furthest point from the area of fallout. Good luck!
 
If only there was a digital ALK meter we could run.

I personally have only had RTN when my alk was changed to quickly. I have been lucky so far and have been able to save them by fragging.
 
Think it maybe red bugs look at the bottom center of this pic. Looks like1 [attachment=1]ImageUploadedByTapatalk1397601648.046226.jpg[/attachment]

Also look on the right just above tissue loss there looks like 2 are there. You may have them breeding in your sand coming out to eat like crazy.
[attachment=0]ImageUploadedByTapatalk1397601737.835240.jpg[/attachment]


Sent from pay phone in the airport.
 
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