Yuma population being decimated...

[metalManiac]

Guys, im at a loss as to what to do.

I had around 20 different color morphs of ricordea yumas, some of which were really really nice and all were doing great for over 6 months. Then i bought a xenia....

The damn thing melted overnight in my tank sending xenia snow all over the place! :eek2:

Sure enough 2 days later, my yumas start detaching from rocks and floating around, some still stayed attached and looked quite well. "Its the damn xenia toxin" i said to myself, so without further adue, i ran carbon and done 4 x 30% in the next 3 days.

Then the real decomation began.

The detached ones started first... Bam i would wake up in the morning to find that a detached yuma has turned white, mouth gaping and mush by the end of the day (the yuma was open and healthy and otherwise glowing with goodness the night before).

So i made arrangements to have all my Yumas moved to a friends tank since i was thinking that the toxins are still present in my water.

Since they have been at my friends tank for a while i get a constant pm every morning stating "yuma looked friggn great the day before, attached to a rock, opened up, no shrivelling or anything but now its white and half turned to mush". (his tank has been established for over 3 years and his yumas are all doing great).

So i am slowly witnessing the demise of my Yuma collection which took me 2 years to achieve (achieved this by going to all the LFS withing a 40min drive from my house every stocking day of every week).

I simply can not think that a bacterial infection or anything like that could be the culprit (since all of my friends yumas which are sitting right next to my ones are doing great). Could the toxin have done its damage and all i am witnessing is a slow and painfull death?

My tank is quite small, only a 20g, so thats why im thinking the xenia got to them, the toxin concentration would of been quite high.

Im seriously contemplating bailing out of this hobby, even though i love it to death.

 

[RipCurrent]

Well, I'm no expert, but don't bail. If you enjoy this as much as you obviously do, then step up and beat the darn thing. Ok, if it's the Xenia toxin, maybe they need more time to recover. If it's not the Xenia toxin, what else could it be? What are the similarities and differences between your tank and your friends? Placement, lighting, water parameters....... Perhaps you've done the right thing in removing them from the toxin, but in their weakend state any other small change is a problem.

I'm sure there'll be folks along soon with specific questions and recommendations, but in the mean time don't put everything up for sale. Instead find out exactly what is the same and what's different.

Hang in there.

 

[metalManiac]

well, the lighting is exactly the same. (same bulb same ballast). his nitrates are undetectable (wheres as mine were 1ppm), pH same, his calcuim alkalinity better than mine. placement is exactly the same (at the bottom of a 2ft tank), flow might be a little lower in his tank.


we both are bashing our heads against the wall because all we can really do is watch them wither away to nothingness. If at least i knew it was some sort of infection that i can try and treat or something, i just wish there was something i could do rather than just watch them drop one by one.

 

[Sk8r]

I'd run a lot of carbon, do a partial water change, as you've done, and put polyfilter in for good measure, and maybe run a diatom filter or micron filter...my notion is they swallowed something that's really hurt them. When I had some breakdown in a xenia colony, I noted some silicate-like shards that seemed to form part of the xenia stem. I'm wondering if it could have loosed something that's functioning rather like ground glass, cutting tissues? I wonder if you took one of the bad ones, fragged off almost all the top, if you could get it to grow healthy tissue from the base.

 

[Justin74]

To me, from your notes it seems apparent that the xenia tipped the scales and made it too toxic for them. First, I wonder why your xenia melted, low pH? Shrooms are much more forgiving of water fluctuations opposed to the notoriously sensitive xenia, so you may have had a problem already and just werent aware.Now that the xenia did melt you got all of it's toxins polluting the tank as well as any initial issues. Scratch the partial idea, a large waterchange is warranted here, of at the very least 20-30%. This will help dilute some of the toxins, and help fix any pH/alk issues. Carbon is also a very good idea, and so is polyfiber if your store carries it.


-Justin

 

[jasper24]

FWIW I had about 20 stalks of xenia in my 58 melt over the period of a week and nothing was affected what so ever. I have acans, Yumas, Fla Ricordea, other lps and softies.

 

[metalManiac]

well i had acros (and still have acros) in the same tank and they are kicking on and doing great, no browning out so im not too sure if it was my water parameters.

It almost seems like the xenia toxin specifially targeted the yumas. :rolleye1:

It was a very weird and wonderfull xenia though, it was bright yellow.

 

[Justin74]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8190779#post8190779 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jasper24
FWIW I had about 20 stalks of xenia in my 58 melt over the period of a week and nothing was affected what so ever. I have acans, Yumas, Fla Ricordea, other lps and softies.

That can be very misleading. No two systems are the same, so things can react differently. So your saying you had 20 stalks of xenia die in your tank. Were you running carbon while this happend? Did you do nothing?Or, did you do a waterchange prior to or after the die off? Are you running a refugium? All of the above could have a direct influence on your results.

-Justin