yuma maybe melting

[eastlake]

wanted to ask some of the local folks too. I have what I guess is a fancier Yuma, orange center with blue/green edges. Yesterday it started to "puke" brown slime from its mouth and has continued into today. It's near some giant green yumas that are doing great so I'm not terribly concerned about light or flow. I did take it out of the tank and gave it a smell to see if it smelled like it was rotting, it had a slight odor but I also have to admit that I do not smell my corallimorphs as a habit so I don't know what would be considered a normal Yuma mushroom smell. When I put it back in the water the mouth closed up tight so I'm assuming that the infection, if it is indeed there, is still in its infancy and I put it under an overhang with less light and flow. I've been trying to find various remedies to nip this in the butt, if its even possible, and it seems to range from Cipro to cutting in half, flushing the innards to clear the infection, dipping in revive, then placing the two halves back in the tank. Or is it perhaps expelling digested food or zooxathellae because there does not seem to be excess slime anywhere, just the brown slime out of the mouth. Any and all advice welcome as I don't want to lose this neat coral.

 

[eastlake]

For anyone interested I'm going to try to make this a progression thing. So I got home from work last night and concluded that there would be no harm in trying to cut the Yuma to purge the infection. I took the Yuma out of the tank and gave it a smell and there was a slight odor of decay. It took some convincing, "hi honey, I know you had a long day at work but could you smell this coral for me and tell me if you think it smells like death?" but I had my wife confirm the same thing after also smelling a healthy rhodactis mushroom that for all purposes had no smell at all. So, using a razor I cut the Yuma in half then split the rock in two pieces. Next I gently rinsed the guts with a turkey baster in clean tank water followed by a 15 minute soak in revive. After the soak one more dip and swish in a cup of clean tank water then I placed them in another cup with holes in the side and placed under a rock ledge with low light and low flow to let the two halves recover. After turning the tank lights on this morning there wasn't any brown slime or anything else to indicate that the infection was still present but only time will tell. I'll keep this going throughout the process and if its effective then maybe I'll try another fancy Yuma or two. But no need in counting my corals before they grow so fingers crossed.

 

[eastlake]

also, anyone with experience fragging yumas in general. do you guysd put them in low light/shade for the recovery process or do you put them on the bottom of the tank back into direct lighting

 

[Burgman]

Hi,

Sorry no one with any Yumma experience had replied to your problem.. Seems that the majority of the people on this forum are more concerned with selling their junk than helping fellow reefers. Sound like you are on the right track with your process, I would treat the Yumma with low light medium flow and then move it after it seems to recover.
Sometimes trying to save a coral works, sometimes it's not successful, only time will tell.
Good luck with your process, I think you are doing the right thing but sometimes all the rinsing, dipping, & cutting only stresses the coral even more.

 

[eastlake]

Yeah, I figured that if I let the possible infection progress then I'd end up with no Yuma and if I cut in in half to purge the infection then maybe it'll live and I have two. If it was healthy and it survives the fragging then I have two, or if the infection takes hold again and it melts then at least I tried. Ill try moving the cup into a little stronger flow. I assume this would be to keep the slime from building up and possibly creating yet another infection correct?

 

[Burgman]

Hi,

Corals need water movement to expel waste and take in nutrients. I would think that water movement on a sick or damaged coral could only help the coral to recover.

Dave

 

[eastlake]

probably correct. here's what it looked like before the cut, I'll take some pictures of the halves when I get home and likely get those pictures up tomorrow. You can see how obviously happy the green ones are, enjoy

 

[e7bin]

It looks like you have some cyano near where it was located, which would indicate insufficient flow, I'd move it to an area with better oxygen levels before I dipped it or cut it up and see if it improves at all.

 

[eastlake]

I think the flow there was fine, they actually wave gently in the current that they're getting in that location. The vast majority of the maroon/red in the picture is darker coralline, the cyano is on the other side of the tank . Well here's an update, took a couple pictures last night that I'll upload in a second here. The two pieces have not melted or detached from the rock and I can no longer smell decay. They don't really look any better or worse but I'm sure its going to take a while for them to recover and fully heal since they were/are sick.

 

[mzkrista]

Be careful about bringing your mushroom close to your eyes, they will squirt when ****ed and I'd hate for you to lose your eyesight from coral toxin.

 

[eastlake]

Thank you for the heads up. I don't have any pictures to load up today but when I turned the lights on this morning at least one of them went from looking like a half moon shape to a pac-man shape, the other one is at a weird angle that made it difficult for me to observe the shape. En route to healing? I sure hope so.

 

[eastlake]

Over the course of the weekend it looks like they've shown continued healing as the both of them are almost completely circular again. However, it looks like they're starting to bleach so I moved them to a spot near a chalice that I have that is recovering from some rtn so hopefully that low light will help them recover from that as well.