Of course anybody wants to make money. I would too.
Exactly. They could be consuming the dying/dead coral tissue. They could be consuming bacteria on the dying/dead tissue. They could be consuming something that’s consuming bacteria on the dying/dead tissue. Who knows?
Skepticism is the opposite of close-mindedness.
Actually, no it won’t RTN. It will be dead when you come back but it will still have all of its tissue and still be colored. Trust me, I’ve done it enough times forgetting how many frags I’ve cut.
Had I read this in year 2 or 3 into my coral reef aquarium journey I probably would've called B.S. and not given it another look. Now that I've experienced enough coral success and loss across many years I can say that I'm keenly interested in learning more about this research and maybe doing some tests. I've seen a lot of wild imported corals come in and some will rtn weeks or months after arrival while in holding, usually starting from a point of tissue damage, then are quickly stripped in a day or two. I've seen enough tanks nuked by dosing pump failures as well to have picked up on the differences in the way a coral that has been torched by a param swing dies vs one that is being consumed by some small parasitic origin, but has not been observed to have any visible infestation.So if you haven't heard...Prime Coral has some impressive videos showing a parasite that's responsible for RTN and others that might be responsible for STN. This guy is from Florida and his name is Dr. Ara Deukmedjian. This Philaster parasite that he's captured on video eating acros sure fits the description of being the RTN culprit for all these years. This thing is very aerodynamic, extremely fast, and the numbers found on the Acropora frags and colonies are staggering. I've owned several microscopes and have never seen anything like it. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places! In his multiple videos, they've literally been caught with their hands in the cookie jar- if you will. Yep...munching away on beautiful acropora colonies, chalices, and other SPS. All of them full of zooxanthellae too! I'll post a video below, but it's very impressive. We'll get into more details later.
There's also a study back from 2014 that links Ciliate communities to coral disease. Yes ICH is one of them! I found this very interesting. Make sure you watch that video as well.
2014 Study found here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1385110115300095
In Houston...we're already hot on the trail doing research and testing. Dr. Deukmedjian does sell a product that is used as a dip. He also has another for in-tank treatment. This has lead many people to become very skeptical, but after you watch the video evidence of these parasites dying, you start to think wow! Trust me though...these videos are incredible! They speak for themselves. Anyway, the in-tank treatment is questionable with fish, but the dip is already working for several people. Psxerholic has been testing and I'm testing now too. Psx has already reported success with his fish. I think he mentioned he did loose one. I'm not sure if that was due to the treatment or what.?
Many more questions to be asked and nobody has all the answers yet which is why we're all working hard to find out more details. I'll link a video below that highlights the best two videos. There's many more on his channel. See the description section on my video for all the information about the products and join us in our search for all the answers and help test with us.
How much more evidence do we need? We need to get on this. For me....who cares about the product. Let's find the culprit first and then we'll deal with the product later.
