Addition of nitrate and STN

[gurthystag]

I decided to write this thread to document my strange experience in which I can only draw theories but may have an answer. Every time I add any form of nitrate manually to my tank it starts an STN event in my sps. I have tried calcium nitrate esv and homemade, potassium nitrate, and ammonium nitrate, all same results. My tank seems best under 0.08 p04 and nitrate 2ppm or lower. I will attach all my ICP values.
My theory is I have a bad species of bacteria in the tank and when nitrate levels increase at a faster rate they multiply attacking my sps at a more intense level than the corals can naturally handle. It doesn't take much, Ive never overdosed or or brought my nitrates above 5ppm, all within a 2 week span.
Second theory, I have a red planaria problem and when nitrate is added they release toxins into the water column. They never seem to bother anything otherwise and I use methods to keep the population down. Flatworm exit has me worried there are too many in the tank for a safe execution but I've noticed a population dip since adding a melanarus wrasse, leapard wrasse, canary wrasse, and a spotted mandarin. Let time win that battle.

What I've done to bounce back
I started dosing a pro biotic bacteria by doctor fosters and Smith. I even use a turkey baster to apply directly to the effected sps. Idea Is to strengthen the coral internally and out compete the bacteria destroying the coral from the inside.

I started dosing flat worm stop and coral booster by karollen-zucht. Together they have been claimed to boost sps immunity to combat acro eating flatworms which I don't have but I can use the fortified immunity.

So far it looks like I have stopped stn. Some more observation will be required but I haven't seen any regretion for a week. Regrowth will be my indication. I would like some opinions on my theories and if anyone has had similar experiences

Triton Lab Showroom - Explore this water test results and click on the image above.

Someone wants to show you the water test results and shared this link to the evaluation. Click on the image above to explore the water test results.

www.triton-lab.de

for NDOC attachment for OES

Water temp 77 degrees

Fish health not affected in any way during entire event.

 

[KrisReef]

Interesting!
As the flatworms decline a reapplication of nitrates can be evaluated for the flatworm toxin hypothesis, if you care to?

The additional microbes aiding recovery is also an interesting situation. Who knows what it all means?
Thanks for posting your observations and theories/ thoughts on acro health vs TN incidents. These events are a big challenge for us trying to keep our colonies growing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

While I've not heard of it before, I can believe the planaria respond to nutrient levels (directly, or indirectly) in a way that releases toxins.

By indirect, I mean that boosted N might increase something to grow (coral, algae, etc.) and that growthtakes a needed trace element from the water that causes stress to the planaria.

 

[gurthystag]

With my low nutrients, I would imagine that the addition of nitrate would make the corals happy but it's always the opposite, I've always been attentive to the p04 as well, it doesn't bottom while dosing nitrate. By day 3 alk consumption drops and by day 7 or so, I start to see STN. Large water changes seem to do the trick to restabilize. It can take upwards of a month for alk consumption to start increasing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

With my low nutrients, I would imagine that the addition of nitrate would make the corals happy but it's always the opposite, I've always been attentive to the p04 as well, it doesn't bottom while dosing nitrate. By day 3 alk consumption drops and by day 7 or so, I start to see STN. Large water changes seem to do the trick to restabilize. It can take upwards of a month for alk consumption to start increasing.

What were you dosing exactly?

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I was plagued with a similar issue in my tank for an extended period (1-2 years). At the time, my nitrates were super low, reading about 0.2 ppm on the Salifert test kit. Any attempt to raise nitrates would unleash STN with a particular pattern. At the time, I suspected a coral pathogenic microbe was the culprit. I wanted to do a biome test to see if any of the known pathogens were present, but the tests were not available in Canada at that point. So I never did the test.

I first noticed the problem affecting cyphastrea corals. I would get individual polyps turning white, bleach, die, and then the tissue surrounding the dead polyps would recede and die. It affected all SPS and LPS that had smaller polyps. LPS with big fleshy polyps were unaffected. Occasionally, a coral would survive when a small patch of tissue would make it through the STN, sometimes only a single polyp, and would grow back. However the new, re-grown tissue, was not immune or resistant to the issue and could, and would, be affected by future occurrences. The issue appeared to affect encrusting and plating corals more severely than corals with a vertical growth pattern. At the time, I wondered if the disease was causing affected corals to loose their tolerance for higher PAR, which would explain why corals with horizontal growth patterns appeared to be affected the most.

Any attempt to dose any of the commercial nitrate or DIY additives to raise nitrate, would trigger an outbreak. It was a very frustrating time. The issue eventually went away on it's own. Though I did take steps that may or may not have helped to resolve it. I started dosing Dr. Tim's Eco-Balance as one of it's stated features is that it contains bacteria intended to combat vibrio. Not knowing what pathogen was causing the issue, but knowing that vibrio can cause coral mortality, I decided to give it a shot. I used the Coral Colours recipe that they provide as away of adding the Eco-Balance on a regular basis.

Months after the problem receded, I eventually started dosing ammonium and that did not spur the problem to re-appear. However the issue may have already resolved by then anyway.

My tank is currently 1.7 ppm nitrate as of today, and has been as high as 15 ppm recently, and the problem is not occurring. Though whenever I see any STN in the centre of a coral, away from an edge, I start to worry that the unseen coral killer is still on the prowl.

I continue to dose a weekly addition of either PNS Pro BIO or FM Rebiotic.

 

[gurthystag]

That is exactly what I'm dosing. Dr tims eco balance. It's funny you mention that because I have some of the same stuff going on. My thoughts continue to gravitate to pathogen bacteria. I started heavy bacterial dosing to overwhelm and possibly out compete them. It also makes sense that some relief was observable when I ran a UV sterilizer.

 

[gurthystag]

What were you dosing exactly?

Randy, recently I dosed ESV calcium nitrate. No other dosing changes before stn started to happen.

 

[gurthystag]

I started with half the recommended dose and even deluted it and dripped it to the tank

 

[gurthystag]

Based on bottle recommendations it would raise nitrate by 0.5 and I slowly dripped it all day. I can't recall the exact dosage recommendations but I went far under it and test indicated no overdose as the parameters did not change enough to register a difference.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

For folks who get STN raising nitrate, I wonder if you would get STN raising nitrate other ways. Such as by feeding more, dosing amino acids, or dosing ammonia.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

For folks who get STN raising nitrate, I wonder if you would get STN raising nitrate other ways. Such as by feeding more, dosing amino acids, or dosing ammonia.

When I was going through it, aminos would also trigger an outbreak. I never noticed food triggering it though, but I also did not attempt overfeeding as a nitrate adjustment. For ammonia dosing, my issue had resolved before I used ammonia as a means of supplemental N.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

When I was going through it, aminos would also trigger an outbreak. I never noticed food triggering it though, but I also did not attempt overfeeding as a nitrate adjustment. For ammonia dosing, my issue had resolved before I used ammonia as a means of supplemental N.

Thanks!

 

[gurthystag]

Same, I've tried all these methods and the results are stn. One thing that seemed to work is carbon dosing small amount. Not enough to have a large impact on nutrient levels but enough to create additional bacterial food source for the corals. Basically making what little nutrients I have go further for coral nutrition. I think the bacterial increase from it also aided in balancing the bacterial culture. I may order a bacteria DNA test to see what that looks like. My theory is that under certain conditions bad bacteria gain a foothold and start to become dominant in the system. I believe nitrate addition feeds this imbalance and the only way to rectify would be to down culture them by encouraging good bacterial dominance through additives. This is weird territory to explore. I've never had an issue like this in my past systems I've maintained since 2010.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Very interesting.

It's as if there is a pathogenic organism that has a significant need for nitrogen.

 

[gurthystag]

Dennis did you ever notice when your SPS would RTN that the tips would become brittle kinda gooey, grayish in color.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Dennis did you ever notice when your SPS would RTN that the tips would become brittle kinda gooey, grayish in color.

I have seem that behaviour, though I don't remember if it coincided with the nitrate issue.

 

[gurthystag]

Update: So far I've been dosing a variety of bacterial supplements. (Dr. Tims Waste away and Eco balance, PNS pro bio) I have also dosed Flatworm Stop and Coral Booster by Korallen-Zucht. Corals have made a full recovery and the colonies that weren't affected before are exploding with growth. ALK consumption has gone from 15 ml to 40 ml per day. I have really enjoyed the Korallen products as they have seemed to really pull some purples and pinks. The ATI test I posted below will show 0 nitrates but I have managed to raise the nitrate to 1 ppm since then by adding bio balls to my filter cups and no longer using filter floss. Ideally this will slowly naturally raise my nitrate levels without introducing a sudden increase that triggers the previous attacks on my colonies. I will say as low as my nutrients are the corals do respond to bacterial dosing similar to low amounts of coral food. PNS claims they protein load their bacteria which works well alongside pro biotic eco balance bacteria. when my PC rainbow and Walt Disney were going STN I dipped them with coral RX and gave them Pro biotic bacteria baths this seemed to halt STN. I never discovered any pests in the coral dipping process.

Randy, attached is the chemistry ICP test from ATI. tell me if anything stands out to you.

 

[Kenneth Wingerter]

Update: So far I've been dosing a variety of bacterial supplements. (Dr. Tims Waste away and Eco balance, PNS pro bio) I have also dosed Flatworm Stop and Coral Booster by Korallen-Zucht. Corals have made a full recovery and the colonies that weren't affected before are exploding with growth... I will say as low as my nutrients are the corals do respond to bacterial dosing similar to low amounts of coral food. PNS claims they protein load their bacteria which works well alongside pro biotic eco balance bacteria. when my PC rainbow and Walt Disney were going STN I dipped them with coral RX and gave them Pro biotic bacteria baths this seemed to halt STN.

Very interesting. Can you provide more detail regarding dosage/administration of the probiotic bath?

 

[bushdoc]

Lucky me that I stumbled upon this thread. I have been keeping few Acros frags in my Frag Tank, where I was only dosing Ca and Alk and they were doing fine. Several days to a week or two after I moved them to my DT, STN started.
I matched PAR and chemical parameters in both tanks and the only difference was that I was ( and still am ) dosing Calcium Nitrate in my DT. My euphylia, mushrooms, zoas, chalice, deresa and all fish and inverts are doing fine there.
I am dosing ESV/B-ionic Nitrate and not even an impressive amounts (2-6ml/140 gal DT). Without dosing my Nitrate were 0 (using Hanna Checker), now they are 2-3ppm.
I am tempted to try ceasing this additive and taking chance of getting Dinos and I will definitely follow this thread.