What to do when Yuma infection starts?

[KindCorals]

I recently bought an amazing rock with a 2 fully developed small pink yumas on it and 3 green 'frags.' Within 2 weeks, the fully developed pink yumas had melted away but the undeveloped 'frags' are still there. They expanded fully at first then about a week in they would stay contracted all day. They finally started having small strings of brown jelly appear and after a few more days were gone. I tried cleaning the jelly very well and keeping them in moderate flow in hopes of keeping the infection clean. I tried dipping them for 15 minutes, after cleaning most of the brown jelly, in Revive but they still perished. One of my lime green yumas (that had been growing fine for about 6 months) had been contracted for the past several days and now has lots of brown jelly on it. I bought some Iodine to try a dip in that but am really not sure what else to do. Since it is usually assumed it is some sort of bacterial infection, I am thinking I will cut off my carbon dosing. I have another tank that I will transfer a few into and hope the bacteria does not follow them.

Any other advice would be great and I figure I might as well try something drastic once the yuma shows signs of infection rather than do nothing and let it melt away on its own.

Heres the pink one I lost and one of the underdeveloped yumas below it:

 

[el_pinguino]

The anemone forum has a tried and true method for treating anemones with antibiotics. If it works for anemones, I don't see why it shouldn't work corallimorphs.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2271385

I have wanted to try this myself but don't have a quarantine tank.

 

[KindCorals]

That's an idea. I'll have to see if I can locate it here and give it a try. I have another infected yuma this morning.

 

[KindCorals]

Just an update, the lime green yuma was placed in a sealed bag of water and into the sump after it had 2 visibly infected areas (one on the edge and one near the mouth). I got lazy and it ended up being in the bag for 2 full days. The water had a brown tinge to it and I could see dead pods in the bag. Once opened, it had the smell of death but the yuma look remarkably clean. I could see a hold near the mouth but I did not see any more brown jelly on the yuma itself. I added 4 drops of aqueous iodine to 1 litre of tank water, dipped for 3 minutes then back into a bag of fresh tank water. 24 hours later the yuma had begun to decompose to the point that I threw it out. I think the iodine was too strong or the dip was too long but it was strange how the brown jelly had disappeared after being in a sealed bag and the yuma exposed to ammonia.

Its a bad iphone photo but the brown spots are the tissue not slime.

My latest victim, a purple green and yellow ric now has the brown jelly on one edge so into a bag it goes. I might try some cipro if I can get it in time or even might try the bacterial powder I have to treat fish and see if that helps at all.

I pulled out the best yumas (brightest orange yuma Ive ever seen, purple with white skunk stripe, tiny tiny pink babies and my first aussi yuma a massive green with purple base) to put into another tank. my favorite yuma an orange and blue that had 2 babies slimed up when removed from the tank and the slime was brown in color. I can only assume it is now infected so it will stay in the main tank but the 2 babies seem ok.

All the other yumas appear fine for now and slimed up with the normal white slime.

 

[johanasu]

I washed/rinsed a fuzzy shroom with RODI water and then dipped in a 50/50 hydrogen peroxide and tank water mix for a few minutes. This seemed to clear off all of the brown slime and the shroom is fine today, 2 months later.

 

[madadi]

you must mean 50 %ro water and 50% 3% hydrogen peroxide found at the drug store. just want to clarify. what works for a fuzzy shroom might not work for a Yuma because I find them much more sensitive. but good idea to try in the future.

 

[geckoejon]

any update on the yuma wipeout?

i lost a dozen yumas / ricordias. lost the last 2 yesterday. i brought back a couple ricordia back from the show a couple weeks ago. i dipped, but did not qt. within a week, one of the new ones had melted. i thought my lobo had possibly stung it, so i moved the rest. then in the last 48 hrs, the other 10 yumas and ricordias melted away....

i'm wondering if anyone has found any effective treatment?

do you think the tank will stay infected? will yumas / ricodrias that i add down the road melt?

 

[justthewife]

My own experience and my opinion only

My own experience and my opinion only

I am not an expert on Yuma but I would really like to be because I love them so much. I had this happen to me where a whole rock of Pink Yuma died within a couple of weeks. It was heartbreaking. The rock was from a shipment an LFS got from the Pacific. It was quite expensive. I believe my first mistake with these Yuma was the coloring was way off at the LFS but I bought them anyway thinking the coloring would come back or improve. I had other ricordea in my tank consisting of Orange Yuma's that were doing great and thriving and Florida Rics that were doing great as well in various colors. I acclimated the new Yuma in low lights to avoid light shock. They started turning a very vivid bright pink and I thought "oh, good". This was actually NOT good as I later learned from a personal source who was in the hobby for a long time that pink yuma's will turn an odd vivid color when something is not right (this was his observation of trying several pink yuma). It is a different vivid coloration than the regular healthy creatures. It is like way off their usual coloration. Then they started expelling brown stuff out their mouths one by one and shrinking and rapidly losing all color. They developed holes in their body near the mouth and eventually disintegrated. I tried to save a few Pink in a tupperware container, still at this time I was thinking it was the lights, and placed them with substrate and bridal veil over it and placing one into an area with very little light and one with regular light. They both still shriveled to nothing. I did not remove the rock permanently that they were on as it had become part of my rockwork and it is now the home of many Florida Ricordea.

Then a few weeks down the road I received a purple Yuma as a gift that was healthy when I got it. Good color and good size. This one started out fine and then after a few weeks started with the same problems as the pink ones did and died within a month displaying the same symptoms as the others did.

Then I started worrying about my other Yuma's and Florida's getting sick and that the disease was still somewhere in the tank. I ended up losing one of the Florida's that was closest to the sick yuma's rock. Two orange Yuma's started looking strangely and started losing their bubbly texture and again the coloring was off but it was not a vivid color, they turned an odd faded color. Then another started losing it's nubs. When the orange Yuma's that I had in the tank for a year started to disintegrate more, I decided to cut them off the rock to try to avoid a possible spread of the disease. A small piece of each one was left on the rock. I started observing the rock the pink Yuma's had came on and noticed an abundance of bristle worms coming out of it at night. I removed the rock and dipped it in a Lugols solution for 20 minutes and many many worms came out of the rock. I did put the rock back in the tank because like I said it became part of my rockscape. I started reading everything I could find on the internet from Forums right down to scientific PDF's that I found and all said they had tried everything to save their Yuma's but once the infection took hold there was nothing that helped them. (I have not tried to look up to see if any new information has developed since last year). There was not even any reason/knowledge given as to why the infection comes about in the first place that I was able to find. Just that it simply happened to some Yuma's and it was very often the Pink variety.

After a while I noticed the tiny pieces of the orange Yuma that I had cut away from their rock began to develop mouths and started growing into baby yuma. These are still in my tank and are healthy and have grown now. I also have two others that appeared near these yuma of another that I had removed from the rock. They are very slow growers but they are healthy and are growing. My one other Orange Yuma (this one was tank raised) that started losing its bubbly texture has since recovered completely just by leaving it alone and placing it away from the others. I also removed some bigger bristle worms as I found them because they seemed to be attracted to the sick yuma (again, just my limited observation as I started to check for predatory reasons for demise). At any rate, my yuma's are all back to normal and are healthy again. My Florida Rics were not really affected with the exception of one.

My limited conclusion is, I won't purchase Yuma that have lost their coloring in the LFS. I was guilty of not quarantining them when I got them The Orange Yuma seem to be more robust than the pink or purple, and have a possibility of recovery (this being based on my observation of cutting the orange ones away leaving a tiny bit and on the tank raised orange Yuma I had in the tank and of other people mentioning to me that they only have good luck with the Orange Yuma). The bristle worms may have been eating the ailing Yuma's thinking they were detritus along with a few hermit crabs (those I did not remove) and that didn't help in their recovery. It might have helped that one of my Yuma was tank raised and not directly from the ocean in it's recovery. I am also of the opinion that when I cut the diseased parts of the Orange Yuma off it was able to grow again. I have no way of knowing if this would happen with the Pink or Purple ones as I did not try to cut them off to regrow them. I also have no way of knowing if cutting them and removing bristle worms would help others in saving their own Yuma's even though it seemed to have helped mine. And the final conclusion is....I will no longer be buying Yuma that are not tank raised as in my opinion, if the creatures are documented to not do well in captivity by many people (aside from the people who know without a doubt that they are able to grow anything and do well with them)that they should be left in the ocean to begin with. In my own personal opinion, Florida Ricordea are more apt to survive in the hobby as only one of my Florida Ricordea was affected. Anything I have posted here is just my own limited observation and opinion and if anyone else tries this and is not successful I am not responsible for the outcome as this was a one time occurrence of sick Yuma in my tank but I am a firm believer in any observations one may have in keeping corals healthy and thriving or that might spark something in someone else's mind no matter how novice the person is. All in all it took about 4 months for the Orange yuma to recover or to grow back into something healthy, and a complete loss of about 12 pink yuma that never recovered for me along with one purple yuma that never recovered.

The whole time of this occurance I was checking parameters and they were all very normal and I was doing 10% water changes every Saturday. All other tank inhabitants were healthy and thriving. Thanks for listening.

 

[Nano sapiens]

I lost a couple beautiful wild Yumas many years back, which is quite common. They came in a direct Indo shipment and when one started to go...all three went. The safest purchases are captive bred and other than a wild orange Yuma I've had for 15 years, all the captives have been with me for many years now.

The majority of Indonesian wild Yumas are known to 'melt' and some LFS won't even carry them. It is likely that the holding conditions and shipping stress weaken the animal to the point that it's immune system is compromised. It is a similar phenomenon to Indo Elegance coral issues. If I were to try wild again, I'd definitely look into the Aussie livestock even if I had to pay more since the handling and shipping are much better and faster.

 

[johanasu]

you must mean 50 %ro water and 50% 3% hydrogen peroxide found at the drug store. just want to clarify. what works for a fuzzy shroom might not work for a Yuma because I find them much more sensitive. but good idea to try in the future.

50% drug store H2O2 (~3%) and 50% tank water.

I don't think they sell pure H2O2...

 

[KindCorals]

Get some Ciprofloxacin and treat ALL yumas immediately in a hospital tank if they show any signs of this infection! I will provide a better write up soon but it looks like my collection is saved after a long treatment with cipro!

 

[madadi]

treat for how long? I have cipro as well as a ton other broad-spectrum antibiotics.

 

[KindCorals]

My meltdown started from an aussi hot pink yuma rock most likely collected a couple hours by plane from my LFS. Cipro works well because it easily dissolves in water and is broad spectrum covering lots of 'water' bacteria from what I remember reading.