yumas harder then sps?

[madadi]

so what do you guys think? are yumas harder to keep then sps corals? ive been doing really good with the sps so far. growth and color is nice. yumas so for ive had mixed results. some yumas just don't want to die, but others just dont want to live at all in my tank. is it an acclimation issue? do yumas really like that much dirtier water? im thinking of taking my skimmer offline and see what happens.

so what do you guys think? what has been something you tried that has shown an improvement on your success with keeping yumas?

 

[spanishmack]

i think they are on a par with sps in regards to water quality, keep it clean, the main reason you guys in USA will be having problems with them is if they are freshly collected/imported. once they settle in they are great but the first few months with them is a bit indifferent. the propogated ones are much hardier than the fresh ones from what i have seen/heard/read.

a friend of mine bumped up the nitrates in his tank to see what would happen, death to rics.

with higher phosphates they brown out.

 

[madadi]

i also heard that yumas collected from the wild have a bit of a hard time acclimating to tank life. one thing it struggles to acclimate to is bright light. some of the ones i have in my frag tank are under 6 T5s and still it seem very bright for them.

 

[spanishmack]

yep, from what i've heard they live under other corals on the reef/ in caves etc so blasting them with light is gonna melt those ones

 

[Azurel]

I would say they are close.....I think acclimation, collection issues are the biggest problem. I also think that photo acclimation is a big part that most don't consider especially with the bright pinks and reds. It took almost $700 in fluorescent pink for me to figure out that they need a long term acclimation to the artificial lighting we have. I have tried countless things to try and save them with absolute zero results, but one yuma I am healing back from the grip of death.

I know since I switched to Red Sea Pro salt I have had less issues with yumas then I did previously with Reef Crystals. Is there an issue? Not sure but I won't tempt fate by switching back since rics of both varieties are my favorite corals.....

 

[madadi]

mine too and its frustrating to see them die. especially that the awesome color morphs are so hard to find and expensive only to die in our tanks!

i use reef crystals for a long time but i been doing half and half with oceanic for the past few water changes and i don't really see an improvement. i haven't really had horrible luck with yumas. they do good in my tank. i just bought one a few months ago and it melted in a few weeks. the store owner told me there were close to 10 yumas on the wrong. all melted. only one left, but when i bought it it looked great! maybe in reality it was barely holding on surviving the longest out of the 10. the move to my tank must have did it in though.

if anyone else has anything that they tried and noticed an improvement in the health of their yumas speak up. ive only lost one yuma so far but id hate to loose another since i really would like to expand my collection!

 

[madadi]

how do you acclimate them azurel?
i have some in my frag tank with 6 T6s and it seems a bit bright. i thought that would be fine considering i have 400w MH bulbs in the main tank in lumenbright reflectors. i would never imagine it could survive in there unless its under a rock!

what about flow?

 

[Azurel]

If its local I drip, if it's over night and from online I just temp acclimate. Since I started doing that I have not lost one from a OFS to my tank. The pink that I am saving now was my fault I got cocky do to all the success I was having and forgot my own rules of yuma engagement.....

I have read alot on line over the last few years about ammonia burning where the ammonia in the water is suppressed due to water temp and sealed bag and once you start to drip acclimate the ammonia goes back into solution and causes a bunch of health issues.....

Not sure if it true or not but since I quite doing that with Yumas that have shipped over night I haven't lost one.

If they are local then I don't take as long with photo acclimation due to the fact I know what they have on their tanks at the LFS's.
If they come from on-line no matter what color they are I always photo acclimate over a month or so to get them out into the open.

As far as flow goes I have mine in what I would call med-med/high flow. I can see the edges of the polyps move slightly to the pulse of my Vortec. The pink one I posted in the other thread is easily 4'' across and I have a few white and green ones that are almost 3'' across.
I have to say as well my Florida ricordea are in even higher flow then the Yumas and they love it as well.....

 

[madadi]

so if its an LFS you drip acclimate? if its an online store you just temp acclimate by floating the bag and release?

so the pink one was local and you just released it without drip acclimating?

im trying to photo acclimate one now for a long time.
i put it in too much light at first and its not too happy. looks kind of stressed like yours. its really orange with blue speckles and i like it a lot. i put it under a ledge with minimal lighting but its not getting much flow either. ill probably try to find another spot with more flow and see if that helps.

 

[Azurel]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14446529#post14446529 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by madadi
so if its an LFS you drip acclimate? if its an online store you just temp acclimate by floating the bag and release?

so the pink one was local and you just released it without drip acclimating?

im trying to photo acclimate one now for a long time.
i put it in too much light at first and its not too happy. looks kind of stressed like yours. its really orange with blue speckles and i like it a lot. i put it under a ledge with minimal lighting but its not getting much flow either. ill probably try to find another spot with more flow and see if that helps.

Yea if it's a LFS I drip acclimate, online shop I just temp acclimate and release. I photo acclimate all of them to some point, if they are locally purchased I tend not to photo acclimate as long because I know what they have on their tanks and what lighting conditions the Yumas were under.
Not to mention those pinks and crazy Yumas will most likely be purchased on-line since no LFS here could get some of that stuff...

No the pink one was a on-line shop I didn't photo acclimate that one I sat that one out into the direct MH light right from the beginning.....About a week later it started showing signs of problems.

 

[madadi]

ya it took about a week for mine to shrivel up and look stressed under the bright light as well. im hoping that if its under the ledge now it will recover and ill keep it there for as long as it wants to. im feeding it phytoplankton and zoaplankton a few times a week and i hope that will give it some extra energy since its in partial shade.

thanks for all the tips. we yumanuts need to stick together!!! i hope to fill my 40gallon breeder tank with only rics and some nice zoa too!

 

[Azurel]

I hear ya.....I honestly have the biggest issues with Yumas, I have gotten some SPS, LPS etc...That are "supposed to hard to keep and it has been a breeze. But these Yumas seem to throw you a curve ball for absolutely no reason what so ever.

 

[spanishmack]

from the people i have spoken to over here they seem to be a delicate shipper when freshly collected and the first 3 months is the hard part, after that they become pretty much bulletproof.

i have bleached one of mine after giving the tank too much flow, but i have found that particular variety to be very tempremental even after the 3 months.

i agree on the light issue. as much as yumas can be acclimated to bright light, to start with they definately need to be in the dark. my rics get between 20-85 PAR in my prop tank so i dont have any light acclimation issues, and if they are looking stressed they get put out of the light.

i ended up melting a pink/red yuma after cutting it in half, it was a slow melt though and after a week i pulled it out of the prop tank and put it in my high flow display tank and it ended up stopping melting after a week so i put it back into the prop tank, now there is 2 of them growing back.

i have just started to dose korallen zucht amino acids so will be interesting to see how the tank changes with those additions. not sure on viatmin c yet, will have to some further research on that. i also dose iodine, why i dont know? many swear by it others say its of no use.

i also now use red sea coral pro and RO/DI for my water changes, i live near the ocean in a city of 1 million+ people so i'm worried i may introduce a bad batch of water one day. pollution can be a nasty thing to add to a ric tank and once bacterial infection sets in its devastating, although the chances are slim its one thing i cannot afford to happen. i know that no nitrate/phosphate will be added to my tank atleast.

 

[Tallinu]

I love my Yumas, I have 18 or so atm and will continue to collect any that strike my fancy. A Yuma garden in progress. The only thing I have to say here is do not add vitamins and additives. Feed them constantly. It makes them bulletproof almost right away. If you feed them good food. They will get all the vitamins and amino acids they need on a regular basis. If I could reverse a meltdown from a new addition, I'd be home free with any Yuma. At the moment I have four neon pink rainbows and five crazy orange with some pink and they are voracious eaters. I can almost feed my largest pink Yuma an entire cube of mysis shrimp in one go. I mix up the feedings with other stuff to get maximum nutrition. I'm currently playing with feeding any small baby types every other day to see if I can get them to grow fast. I need some good photo's. Azurel come take pics. I love this thread. I love picking through the stories for hints of info. Would be fun to buy a baby or so from some of you in the future.

 

[madadi]

thanks for the tips guys. i hope the info helps someone save a yuma somewhere. keep the tips coming.

spanishmack, let us know if the amino acids help out or not.

i need to take all shrimps and crabs out of my yuma tank so i can feed like Tallinu!

 

[Tallinu]

Lol, I have a large stainless steel ruler I use to keep them at bay. And alot of swearing about them getting away from there. Fish toom are big poachers. You can squirt some toward whoever to try to make them happy but it's just not the same as poaching from your Yumas.

 

[madadi]

spanishmack what kind of lights do you use in your prop tank.
how long do you keep them in the dark? total darkness?

tallimu
i took out all the shrimps, crabs and brittle stars out of the yuma tank. let the fattening begin. i take a squirt bottle with some phyto and coral frenzy and squirt them every day. ill also try to give them some frozen mysid shrimp.

 

[spanishmack]

madadi, i use t5's.

i just put them in the shaded area of the tank which gets 20 PAR. they still need light but not lots of it

i've started to feed twice weekly with frozen mysids(washed in RO), frozen rotifers(washed in RO) and freeze dried cyclopeeze using a 20mL(3/4 oz) syringe and airline to direct where the food goes. pumps off for 15 or so minutes till most of the food gets eaten. skimmer cup gets cleaned at the same time.

 

[madadi]

oh ok so they are never in full darkness. i have a stressed one now under a rock ledge so its getting minimal light. hope it pulls through.

i use T5s as well. 6 bulbs

 

[Azurel]

I used to feed on a regular basis, but my cleaner shrimp would steal it out of the mouths.....My clowns killed him off so now I just have my fire shrimp and he plays by the rules.....So I have started to feed again.....They do like it and seem much fuller after a good feeding, but I still dose the tank with AAs....