Help SPS problem....

[fishguy_8]

Hi, a buddy of mine got an sps frag and its not his first. He's had sps for a while and never had any problems, he has mh and its up in good lighting area and current and his levels all are fine but yesterday he woke up and his week old frag he bought looks like its losing its flesh. the flesh literally looks like its coming right off the rock. Its some kind of acropora im not sure. He said all week it was looking good and hadnt changed anything as far as new creatures or anything and all of his other corals and sps are doing fine? any idea what this is im talking about?
Jon

[zhenya]

Jon,

Most of the time,when reefers describe this sort of problem with Acropora corals, it is the dreaded RTN(Rapid Tissue Necrosis) or SDR type desease that is responsible for this. Here's couple of links for you to read about RTN:

http://reefland.com/links/links.php?...ted&link_id=34
http://www.aquarium.net/0498/0498_2.shtml

[fishguy_8]

I found this quote in the article (first one) you posted gene...." SDR, like "RTN," is contagious, rapid, and very fatal. Also, no pathogen has been isolated from SDR cases." so itd be a good idea to remove the "corpse" now before it spreads to his other acros i take it?

[Reefland]

You can do 1 of 2 things. Take the coral out and try to frag it; cutting it well above any tissue that is sloughing off; or remove it completely and chalk up the loss. Fragging a good piece is often sucessful.

Scott Z.

[zhenya]

You can do 1 of 2 things. Take the coral out and try to frag it; cutting it well above any tissue that is sloughing off; or remove it completely and chalk up the loss. Fragging a good piece is often sucessful.

Scott Z.

I agree with Scott.Although, even fragging not always a guarantee but it is worth a try,unless there is nothing left to save,of course.
Fragging and isolating in the QT is often results in success,I've heard.
I had used lugol's dip and fragging in succession and it helped me in the last case but all my tries before that were fruitless,unfortunately.

[SueT]

I have a very good friend locally that has had great success with a Sea Chem product. It's a coral dip I believe and he treats the affected areas, full strength with like a cotton tip applicator and he's had very good success with RTN type problems with his sps. It will stop the recession and mostly regrow the tissue in the tissue loss area.