I cant keep mushrooms. Why?

[billaweed]

For some reason out of all the corals I have I cannot keep my mushrooms alive. Right now I have a couple different leathers, long tentacel anemone, Kenya tree corals, and button polyps. For some reason all my corals seem to be doing good with the exception of my mushrooms.

I've got red, purple-green, rics, green furry's, and some wierd cameleon color ones. the only ones that are doing well are the cameleon and my rics.

I've checked tank placement (perameters are fantastico) and water flow.

I'm confused. I know i've brought this up in these forums before but i'm still not fixing my problem. I'm wondering if the damage is done and I'm too late to save them.

brandon

 

[ronj]

you have to stop eating them!! J/K ...... maybe you have too much light??? what kind of lighting do you have?? i doubt the damage is done... i have slaughtered mushrooms with a knife and had them regrow without missing a beat!!

 

[billaweed]

well with results of a current thread I had we came to the conclusion that the lights where not the problem.

I have 216watt Nova Extreme t5 unit with:

2x54w actinic
2x54w 12,000k Daylights

my problem is that some (not all) appear somewhat bleached and shrivled. I've purchased different bulbs to see if the color spectrum was not sufficiant and No Dice! I did some research and found that they actually like blue light (i guess most corals do). The setup I have now appears pretty blue to me.lol

I'm just stumped. I'll take some before and after picks and show you what I mean.

 

[jeffnewt]

Even if the light was too much, they tend to move on their own to more "shady" spots.

 

[trido]

I have the same problem. I can only guess one of three things. Too much light, too much flow, too clean of water.

I think you'd be suprised what too much light for shrooms can be. 200w of T-5s over a 20" tall 55G seems good enough for SPS in some cases. Ive had my best shroom growth in my fuge under a single household 13w compact florescent and cheapo flood lamp.

 

[berlingermany]

Hi,
it's true!!! I'm totally agree with jeffnewt!!!

 

[ronj]

when i first kept mushrooms, they didn't do well and they never moved on their own.. they stayed shriveled up until i moved them under a rock ledge that kept shade on them

 

[billaweed]

I'll move them again under an even more shady area. If that dont work, then I'll toss'em in the fuge.

 

[roscoe]

Thats funny I can't seem to kill my mushrooms I keep trying and they come back.:razz::razz:

 

[billaweed]

Thats funny I can't seem to kill my mushrooms I keep trying and they come back.:razz::razz:

I'm just curious, do you run carbon in your tank? Filtration?

 

[billaweed]

I'm wondering if its my salt? I'm using OceanPure Synthetic Sea Salt and my tests for my salt come back good, but I remember keeping mushrooms very well when I used Oceanic Natural Sea Salt.

OceanPure Test Results

 

[billaweed]

test results

Well here are my test results for the tests that I have.

Calcium(Ap) = 450
Ph = 7.8 - 8.2 **kinda hard to tell on that one
Nitrate = 0ppm
Nitrite = 0ppm
Ammonia = 0ppm


Here is an attachted image of the results:

 

[Shane and John]

I believe it might be that your water is to clean..based on what has happened to me...when we were using regular Tap water,Oceanic sea salt and had a small,Hob skimmer.....Mushrooms is all we could grow....Now we use ro/di water,use Instant Ocean salt, and have a monster Octipus skimmer,it seems most of my corals are flourishing....But i have noticed our mushrooms have shriveled a bit and have lost a little color....Just what we have observed....

 

[twilliard]

Brandon what skimmer do you run and how often do you change water?

There is a point where the water is too sterile.

 

[billaweed]

I have a Prizm skimmer and its constantly running even during feeding and when I dose Iodine. I feed 1 time daily of mysis shrimp just enough for the clarkii and the two chromis' in my tank. I dose Iodine once a week.

If my water is too clean then the activated carbon I threw in my tank last night should probably come out eh? lol. I have 70 gallons total water volume including my sump and fuge. I have Cheato in my sump. WOW.. it really does sound TOO clean huh.. lol maybe I should take the carbon out?

oh.. also.. I do anywhere from 10 - 5 gallon water changes a week.

 

[twilliard]

Well... I dont know

Does the cheato grow well?

Shrooms are actualy a little hard to kill off. Kinda like xenia.
Something is off to kill them.
Also if you are keeping up on a few water changes I would watch that iodine dosing. I have read some interesting articles on that its easy to overdose and not consumed in high quantities.
I have a variety of softies with my SPS and they all grow well. BUT at the same time I end up with a little algae growth from my feeding schedule. 10Ml Rods food every other day.
My setup is
180G total volume.
40G fuge with calupra/cheato
30G sump housing a phosban reactor, carbon reactor, calcium reactor and a ATI bubble master 200
changing 30G of water every week.
No dosing of chems.

So with all this I still grow algae BUT my SPS grows and my softies dont die.

 

[billaweed]

yeah the cheato is growing fine. I've harvested 3 gallons in the last 1 1/2 months.

I'm not having a problem with them dieing. However my problem is with the mushrooms shrinking, losing color, and not blooming fully.

I dont know if its my salt or what. I've been real impressed with OceanPure synthetic so far, but this shroom thing is irritating. All my other softies are growing and multiplying except my shrooms. Ironically mushrooms are like my favorite corals and I cant grow them well at all. sux

 

[twilliard]

Gosh I know it has been covered but it sure sounds like a light issue.

Do you have a pic with the tank lights on and their location?

 

[twilliard]

Also I would liek to note- that is good growth of your cheato
If you had a severe low nutriant level it would not grow that fast.

 

[billaweed]

I have a recent pic, but I had taken the shrooms out of the display and placed them into the sump. but i'll post the full tank pic anyway so you can see the what my lights look like