Coral bleaching in your reef tank? Sick fish? RTN?

Ich, Velvet, RTN, STN, Alkalinity swings, low pH - there's a nearly endless list of things that can go wrong in your reef tank. Even things as simple as not having normal Acropora polyp extension can be a cause of alarm for a lot of reef aquarists (it's not always bad). The thing to remember though is to make sure you've identified the issue - or at least a issue - before you make a change to address it. Don't just try stuff - that's a great way to risk the rest of your reef. Stability is key, even in times of crisis for our tanks. Only change things when you know for sure they're a problem, and don't change to many parameters at once.

Always test your water as a first step. You can use your normal test kits, or you can send a sample out to Triton for a very detailed ICP test - but test your water. See if something stands out. Maybe it's not even something wrong, but a sudden change in a parameter can be enough to cause issues. Frequent testing can identify these sorts of issues before they cause problems for your tank.

If you can't find anything wrong through any of these methods it's very possible that your sps coral or fish has a virus or something we can't see. In fact, a lot of the time, when coral bleaches out in our tanks I think it's probably a viral issue - something wrong in our care stresses the coral, they're unable to fight off the infection, and they succumb to it. Often once coral bleaching has started you can't do much to stop it, and in those cases perhaps cutting a frag off a healthy part of the coral can save the overall colony.

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