yellow leaves with black spots
 

When this condition is present in Masdevallia's what is usually the general problem? Excessive heat to much water or to much light? Reason being both the floribunda and sernae are showing this but are still spiking. Thoughts?

:bump:
sorry - I can't help - but bumping for you

I appreciate the bump. Although I really can't see the point anymore I mean all 3 Masdevallia's have lost a few leaves just by touching them. And they look like crap. The root don't look all that great either It's no one fault but my own for failing to understand the cause and the remedy. I'll probably just hang it up for a while. And maybe within a month or two start out with a different orchid that isn't so demanding. (reminds me to much of reefing)

If anyone would like to clue me in on the cause of this problem I would sure like to know.

Where'd you get your plants from?

This matters.

Just in case the thought has crossed...

No, this isn't a means for me to find out where to get rare Masdevallias. I know where to find them already.

If you have photos of them when they were still alive, are you able to post them?

How big were the pots in comparison to the plants?

What were the temperatures you put the plants in?

What was the potting media?

How often did you water?

What kind of water did you use?

How strong was the fertilizer?

Was there air movement in the growing area you had them in?

How bright was the light where they were grown?


I suspect there're multiple problems involved. One of them being disease.



Masd floribunda is an intermediate grower, not a true cool grower.

I've never grown Masd sernae. But according to the IOSPE, this is a true warm growing Masd.

And you didn't list what the 3rd Masdevallia was. I'm assuming it's another intermediate to warm grower.




I've also been in the reef hobby. Depending on which types of corals you bought, they really aren't very difficult at all.

SPS corals are definitely more difficult, but I've fragged them multiple times with pretty good success.

LPS corals such as Favia spp. or Favites spp. (Moon Corals) are awesome! Most people grow these in much dimmer light than what they can actually handle in order to thrive. They can handle up to 400 W of metal halide lighting, but they've gotta be placed on the bottom 3rd of the tank.

Bubble Corals (Plerogyra sinuosa) rock too! They can grow under 150W halides. They don't like too much water movement. These were my father's favorite to feed.

I've also found Open Brain Corals (Trachyphyllia spp.) to be quite nice to grow too. Again, they gotta be grown brighter than with PC's, kinda along the lines of 150 W halides, placed on the bottom portion of the tank.

Be aware of where the corals grow in the wild! Some don't grow on rocks! Some actually grow in crushed coral rubble. Most Caribbean Sea Fans are a great example. I used to think they grew on live rock substrates. It wasn't until I visited the Caribbean islands and went on a glass bottom boat ride, did I actually get to find out how and where they really grew!

On the flip side...

Elegance Corals (Cataphyllia spp.) are a pain to keep. Might be something to do with the way they're collected and shipped.

Saltwater fish is a whole different thing. There's a lot to know too. What you see is also, not necessarily what you'll get. Parasites and diseases are not easily detectable with the unaided and untrained eye.




Like I said, it's about what you're doing, what you know, and what you're getting (same with the orchids).

Well, I like to say that I kinda over reacted abit sorry everyone. But after a couple of days of my last post. I chatted with a friend of mine. That's also a orchid nut. I showed him the pics of what I had and more or less he said I was cooking them with 4 HO t5's and that I needed to upgrade my puny fan. So. I remedy the situation. And a few weeks everything started to perk up. New leaves started to emerge and the like.

LOL this is the only coral I had in the tank. I hung on to it for about 6-7 years til I sold it in early 08. It was a pure lime green with purple tips. It was a PITA to get it out of the tank.

Cool.

I like both the pink tipped and the purple tipped ones.

Idk, I was never able to keep this one.

Maybe it needed to be disinfected upon introduction. Don't recall if the disease that causes Elegance Corals to turn to mush is caused by a species of bacteria or if it's a protozoan infection.

Oh well, at this point, it'd be just talk. I don't do saltwater anymore. The upkeep is too time consuming and too expensive for me right now. Perhaps later I'd consider doing a tank with just a few handful of species (no more than 5 - like how a real miniature portion of the reef is arranged) rather than a jumble of many species.

I just kept my elegance in slightly dirty water with a couple of yellow tailed damsels. Ofcoarse the elegance would catch one for dinner sometimes. I couldn't deal with sps that was way out of my league. Did you get caught up in the skimmer wars a few years back between standard skimmers and cone's? LOL I just went with a Tunze and said the heck with it.

Aside from that I'll share a pic or two of my little orchid enclosure when the lights come on later today.

Hope everyone enjoys the pics the 1st is self explanatory the 2nd is a M. sernae

http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/w...hpQgtwzIAM.jpg
http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/w...hpfaw6JdAM.jpg

Nah, I didn't even really know which skimmers to use best. I just used whatever I thought worked and stuck with it.

There'd always be an issue with the skimmer anyways, like how it needed to constantly be adjusted to foam correctly and such. It wasn't like you plug the sucker in and forget about it forever.



As far as the orchid setup, yeah, that'd be cool to see. I grow Masdevallias outdoors here.

I had to restart the Masdevallias from scratch cause of some personal issues I had to work out a few years back (led to a major loss in stock).

The new ones are just starting to adjust, or they just got disinfected for disease, so they aren't gorgeous or anything.

I should post pics of them once they start really looking like they're supposed to. Shouldn't take more than a year or two for some of them...(I hope).

air movement