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RTN due to bacterial infection or Coral/Anemone warfare?

EZreefin

NJRC Member
Hello everyone,

I had a perfectly healthy looking PC rainbow colony I have been growing out now for over a year. I have had an anemone next to it this whole time. Yes there were some markings on the side of the rainbow which showed the anemone was brushing up against it but nothing that I thought was a major issue.

This morning I woke up and went to check on the tank only to see the colony half dead! I don't know if it was a bacterial infection or if it was the anemone which decided to gain some more ground for itself. I had to break apart the colony in hopes that I could save some frags from the mother colony.

Has anyone had an anemone do this in anyone's tank over night? I had them irritate coral and maybe brush tissue off but the coral always seems to recover. Here are some pics. I literally took pics. Of the tank the day before . And I have pics of this morning along with a trap I built to get the nem off the rock. ( Upper left in the tank in first pic. )1000002914.jpg
 

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MadReefer

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
Man that sux, it looked good yesterday. I know my nem stung the crap out of my stylo one time and yes was overnight.
 

ericrodriguez

NJRC Member
It’s going to happen this way every time those anemones are no joke, even aptasia will kill most sps if not caught in time!! Hopefully your Frags survive
 

mwil79

NJRC Member
Keep an eye on all of your SPS. This is how it started for me when my town added chloromine to my water source, a month later all SPS was gone. Standard rodi won't remove it. Check the tds on your source.
 

EZreefin

NJRC Member
Keep an eye on all of your SPS. This is how it started for me when my town added chloromine to my water source, a month later all SPS was gone. Standard rodi won't remove it. Check the tds on your source.
Thanks for the reply.

I have a 7 stage RO unit with 2 - 1 micron carbon blocks in it. They are suppose to remove chlorimine. And they are only 5 months old. I have 2 inline TDS meters one before the membrane and after, the next is before the Duel Di resin chambers and after. The last one reads 0 TDS.

I checked all the other SPS.they all look good. Polyps are all out, not color loss in any corals.
 

EZreefin

NJRC Member
It’s going to happen this way every time those anemones are no joke, even aptasia will kill most sps if not caught in time!! Hopefully your Frags survive
Thanks.
I made about 7 frags this morning. Around 9:30 am By 3:30 in the afternoon 3 turned completely white with a mucus on them. I removed them right away. I don't want any of the mucus on the frags to get into the water column. The rest still had good color so I hope they pull through.
 

EZreefin

NJRC Member
Update:

I had to frag remaining pieces into smaller frags. I thought I cut into healthy tissue above the damaged tissue but I guess not high enough. It started traveling up some of the frags. I was hoping for the largest frag to recover but this morning when I checked on it I saw it that it was also receding.

I cleaned the clippers in-between cuts just in case it is an infection and I didn't want to infect what could be a nice clean cut. So I am down to 6 small frags from the mother colony. Hopefully they hold on.

The trap looks like it is working for the Anemone. It is poking out this morning.
 

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