center "melted" out of my mushroom

[Elysia]

Question: I have several mushrooms in different tanks, and for the most part they are all doing well. The second one I ever purchased languished for a while, then allowed itself to be blown away one time too many (I replaced it numerous times, but then I guess it blew to a dark area in the tank, and finally, quietly passed. Another time a new purchase fairly rapidly turned into goo while the 'shroom it was purchased with continues to prosper.

The mushroom my question is about has been in the tank for a month or two, came attached to a shell, and was doing well until I assume it was injured in a live rock collapse. For perhaps three days I did witness some goo at one side, which I removed with a small pipet because I figured the goo would likely harbor bacteria. And this was goo, wasn't the 'shrooms mesenterial filaments. And the mushroom itself looked solid.

Now I've been in bed for two days with a migraine, get up, and (if I am able to post my photo) what remains of this 'shroom is its completely normal feeling oral disc, but its mouth, column, and petal disc are gone. So instead of being a mushroom, it is a donut! It is still somehow barely attached to its shell, and its "flesh" is still firm. Is there any way to salvage life out of this mushroom? Has anyone else ever seen this?

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/517/168303_hole_2.jpg

[dustin Combs]

Elysia,

Sorry to give you the bad news but your shroom is dying or dead. Usually the oral disc will go then a few days later your mushroom will loose it's zooxanthellae and it will start to slime away. Wish I had a better answer. Good luck with the others.

[KellyPug]

This happened to my rhodactis shroom too where a third of it in the center melted away after being squished into a crevice in my rockwork. Mine has recovered from this incident though - I'm not sure if that's a rare case or not. I just left it in a low flow area on the sandbed, a little bit in the shade. I thought maybe it would split into two separate shrooms at that point since the rest of the two-thirds are very thinly attached together. It took awhile for it to recover and regenerate the missing part but it is one whole shroom again, granted not as large as it was originally.

I was thinking, maybe also remove some of the algae that's on it? It may irritate the shroom too I think.