What is my mushroom trying to tell me.....?

[gilman]

I took some pictures of the mushroom we put in the tank a couple days ago. It doesn't stay wide open for long periods of time, and seems to always be moving. I figure something must be wrong with the water quality or with the location of this new creature. I took some pictures of the mushroom in different states of open/closing.

The Candy Coral seems fine, but who am I to say. :D
The Percula, Snails, crabs, and featherdusters are all doing their thing, nothing unusual.

There is also some algae growing on the substrate today. It is able to be seen in some of the pictures, and it is only showing up in one part of the tank.

And the photos....



http://www.oc-creative.com/reef/photos/062002mushroom.jpg

http://www.oc-creative.com/reef/photos/062002mushroom1.jpg

http://www.oc-creative.com/reef/photos/062002mushroom2.jpg

http://www.oc-creative.com/reef/photos/062002mushroom3.jpg

http://www.oc-creative.com/reef/photos/062002rock.jpg

http://www.oc-creative.com/reef/photos/062002candy.jpg

Thanks in advance for thoughts on my mushroom....

Gil

[lizbeth]

Mine seems to take a couple of days to settle in and "fluff up". You might want to try a different area. Mine seem to like lower flow and pretty good light.

[Avi]

Not really sure about whats its telling u, but thats 1 heck of a mushroom, looks real nice.

[absolutc]

What is the tank temprature at ? Also , how is the flow in that area?

[gilman]

Thanks for the replies,

Tank temp has been running very stable at 78-80 during the day and 78 at night. The flow where it was located was fairly low, but I just moved it to see if it would like it better in a lower flow, higher light location and so far it seems thoroughly po'd and is really scrunched up.

<b>Water Quality:</b>
According to our newly purchased Salifert tests, the KH/ALK was a little high (9.3dKH/3.31meq/L), and calcium was a little low (340ppm) so I started bringing up the calcium yesterday morning. I added another 5ml of calcium this morning and now the calcium is up to 400ppm. Am I wrong to assume that the KH/ALK will go down because I am adding calcium? If so, how should I be getting the KH/ALK down? I haven't tested the KH/ALK yet today.

I thought that I should mention that the mushroom was getting freaky before I started messing with the calcium.

Thanks in advance,

Gil

[absolutc]

This is what I have found from my mushrooms. They would never open and were always scrunched. This is what I did.

My temprature was usually around 76-78. I raised it to a constant 80-82 degrees.

The flow is rather smooth/slow around them.

After raising the temprature, the mushrooms were HUGE. They had fully opened up and were this way for several weeks. Now they are back to being smaller. I beleive because I have not done a water change yet. Usually after a change, they get huge again.

I am also thinking of raising my salinity to 35ppm and see how that goes. Slowly of course :)

[Guy]

:D

Run some carbon for 12 hours.... they'll open back up ;)

It looks like you have some type of contaminant in the water. Nothing serious, just enough to PO the 'shrooms.

After 12 hours on the carbon pull it out and throw it away.

Guy

[gilman]

Great!
All suggestions easy enough to try......

One question......
Will the regular type Whisper carbon filter that came with the HOB filter be alright to use (12hours)?

Thanks again, :D

Gil

[absolutc]

Yes.

[gilman]

w00h00! :thumbsup:

Gil

[tstone]

Hey gilman

Did the carbon work? How are they doin?

[gilman]

tstone,

The Mushroom that was not staying open is still not staying as open as it was at the LFS when I got it. In fact, it has officially come off of its rock and is now on the sand. The Mushroom took itself off of the rock. No help from me. It is not opening and closing as much now as it was when it was on the rock.

At the LFS where I got my mushroom, I purchased another from the same tank as a test of sorts a couple days ago. The new one that I purchased did not come to us on a rock. Just a lone Mushroom ($1.99). The new Mushroom has stayed open since it has been in the tank.

The LFS has a sign on the tank that the Mushrooms came from about sticking these Mushrooms to your Live Rock with Zap Gel. I am now wondering if the Mushroom that I purchased in the first place had been glued to the rock that it was on. Would it be possible if it had been glued, for it to get itself off of the rock it was on without really hurting itself?

I will post some pictures of our newest Mushroom later on today.

Gil

[scd]

So many possibilities... So let me add one more. My mushrooms used to be HUGE -- maybe 4 inches across for big ones -- and stay fully expanded all day.... Until I changed to more powerful lighting. Under 30W NO flourecence, they seemed to be in heaven, reproducing like crazy and growing very large... I then added a PC hood (2x55W).

NOTE: I did acclimate slowly, used only 55w for a while and on a shorter lighting period, after a couple weeks I moved up to 110w and a shorter light period... Then over several months I moved the lighting period back to about 9 hours.

Anyway, the mushrooms were never the same after I added the PC lights. They would stay shrunk, and reproduction basically stopped... Several did detach themselves from the rock in an attemp to move to lower light areas, as you are describing.

Recently, I did purchase new mushrooms (red, which I never had before) that the LFS was keeping under PC lighting and they were expanding under that light... In my tank they also expand under the PC light... So it could just be the individual corals light preference. I must say that these new red mushrooms get to be no where near the size of my previous shrooms under NO lights (and I had probably 5-6 different color/patterns of mushrooms).

What kind of lighting do you have? What kind of lighting were they under at the store? Where they fully expanded at the store?

Did you acclimate the mushroom slowly to your tank water?