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I recently purchased some new nibs, among them was the Hiro 40 (one of the two nibs commonly referred to as the blue pumpkin). I had been wanting to try this nib for a while, so I was pretty happy to see its blue pumpkiny goodness and decided to use it right away. I cleaned the nib via my usual potato/toothpaste combo (a few potato stabs followed by a toothpaste scrub) and went to work. The nib performed well with various inks...until I used it with some Yasutomo Sumi ink. I noticed that after the initial dip into my sumi ink that the nib was a little gunky, so I swirled it in some water/glass cleaner combo and was about to redip when I noticed that the blue was gone from the tip half of the nib. I wasn't sure if the blue was just a pretty surface that was meant to disappear with use so I redipped and did some writing. Well, the nib acted as if it were an unprepared nib (spotty ink on the nib and poor performance on the page) and repeated dips seemed to not only prove just as disastrous, but also seemed to remove more blue from my nib. The nib also seems to perform just as poorly with other inks now. I have used this sumi ink with other nibs and had no issues. I normally use a combo of water and glass cleaner as a quick clean option while writing and have never had it negatively affect a nib. I am at a loss here. Is my new Hiro 40 dead, or just in need of a second toothpasting? Is the blue meant to come off or did something in my routine kill my nib? Is there hope or should I just play some Smashing Pumpkins while ritually sacrificing my Hiro 40 to Cthulhu? How much wood COULD a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Any assistance or advice would be greatly appreciated.