My red mushrooms overgrew the paly they were next too and have taken over quite a bit of space. They are a normally fast growing mushroom.

What are the conditions of flow and light in that part of the tank?

What are your tank specs?

 

The tanks a 38g Innovative Marine with a protein skimmer and a 92w LED tablet light. The rock the shrooms are situated on is at the bottom of the tank very close to the middle so it gets good light and the area is probably one of the lower flow areas of the tank given the rock formations around it and where my power heads are situated. Parameters are fairly good across the board:
77-78F,
1.025,
0 Ammo, Nitrite and Phosphate,
10 Nitrate (before water change this weekend),
480ish Calcium (a bit high but getting decent growth on my duncan so maybe this'll go down),
1600ish Mag (again a bit high but I switched from natural sea water to a salt mix recently so it should be going down),
8.5ish dKH (need to raise this just a smidge again hoping the salt mix will help).

 

The nitrates can be an issue. While many mushrooms do fine with them the red mushrooms come from deeper waters and don't like them. That would be my number one guess based on the info above.

 

I wonder if Paul B has red mushrooms. His tank has 40ppm nitrate and all his corals grow like nuts. I've read and heard that soft corals like more nutrient rich water. I guess there's a difference between nutrient rich and high nitrate though.....

 

I guess there's a difference between nutrient rich and high nitrate though.....

Deffinately.

Soft corals do pretty well with some nitrates but there is a line. Xenia is a great example. It grows well with some nitrates but it will melt away with too many.

In my tank I have zero detectable nitrates...my red mushrooms grow well...too well as they are spreading all over. But by rics are slow growing. So one is getting what it needs and the other isn't quite.

 

are you spot feeding? I have several that I feed Mysis to, turn off your powerheads and any flow and gently blow sme shrimp on them with a turkey baster or small syringe they should purse up around the food and eat it

 

Don't know if you are talking to me or the OP so I'll answer. No. I have never spot fed mushrooms. They just do their own thing.

 

can you have a high nutrient system that ends up with low nitrates*? how would that be accomplished? (is this why we are still not keeping carnation corals en masse in captivity?)

(*without a denitrator)

 

exactly

 

Through consumption. I know many people who use xenia in a refugium in masse to take up the nitrates since they seem to do that pretty well.

It's one of the difficulties of a mixed reef. Keeping xenia/mushrooms with acropora is complex to say the least. They have opposing needs.

 

Im trying to upload photos but we're having storms. click on my avatar the tank in the pics is high nutrient for suns and soft corals some shrooms are 6" across

 

What kind are they?

 

The one's in the pics are green hairy's I also have targets,reds,blues,and purples also the green striped are receptive to spot feeding

 

Pretty much what I have with the addition of St. Thomas, R. florida and R. Yuma

 

I have purple/blue mushrooms. It took mine a good nine months before it decided to spread. I now have three, it is a slow start, but it is a start.

 

ynot, please tell us about your setup and how you do high nutrient, what your feeding and maintenance is and your nitrates. Would love to hear about details! (I'm starting a softy tank)

 

My tank was very basic, standered 55gal tank, a 4 bulb 48"compact flourscent light (2-65watt 10000k daylight and 2-65watt actinic blue460nm),2 550 Hydor Korilla powerheads, approx. 50lbs LR,1 1/2 sand bottom. My corals inc. shrooms, a large finger coral, ora mushroom, several feather dusters, sun corals both black and yellow,kenya trees, 1 welso, a purple montipora, a red montipora, and the CUC.
The CUC consisted of approx. 30 very small blue legged hermits(pencil eraser size or smaller) so they could access tiny areas in and around the live rock, a dozen bumble bee snails,15 med. sized turbo snails, and as many or more cirth and nassauros snails.
The clean up crew I believe helps in cleaning up excess food from the suns and mushrooms as well as some epic sized bristle worms.
I spot feed my suns every evening a mixture of Mysis and cyclopeze with a small syringe from my grandchildrens cough syrup, feeding each polyp. I also feed a blender mush in the morning of 4 live clams (shelled),6 jumbo shrimp from the fish market,1 piece of white fish, some squid heads approx. 6, and Garlic Guard . The morning feeding is mostly for the fish but the green hairy mushrooms love the chunks.
The filtration was a HOB emperor dual wheel filter. I removed the bio-wheels and ran carbon in the drop-in filters The other 2 drop-ins are from the factory with a small amount of carbon and filter cloth on them.
Cleaning was done once a week with blowing off the rocks with a turkey baster, ,siphoning low flow areas and glass cleaning. and rinseing filters. Every 3-4 weeks replacing the filters with new ones.
The system had a lot of pods that lived in and about the hair algae and rock work, yes hair algae!!! When you feed a lot the tank becomes a haven for H.A. and has happily also become a home for my mandarin and lawm mower bleenie. (both fat).
Along with the hair algae I also had halmedia or chain of coins algae.
The tank is a balance of nutrients both excess and waste so upkeep is not the typical sanitary look of a lot of the SPS tanks. The nitrates ran in the mid 30's most of the time. I also did 20% water changes when ever I replaced the drop in filters.
I think keeping a small (in size) clean up crew is critical as a hermit the size of a golfball really can't reach any of the things that need processed. I just take them back to the LFS and exchange them for smaller ones.
Also added to the system was Phyto plankton,Fuel by 2littlefishes,and occasionaly live brine shrimp.
I have since added a skimmer(ReefOctopus HOB Bh1000) and most of the hair algae is gone and so are my pods. I now purchase them from Reefs2go. I also have noticed a slowing in the overall growth of a lot of the soft corals. I also now run MH lighting but my photo period is much shorter overall and I have used limo tint to shade areas for my low light corals. Please feel free to check out my albums in my site. The tank in the photos is 1 1/2 years old and I am now working on a new 150 gal true mixed reef with dark areas on the sides specifically for low light and MH lighting in the center for sps,clams ect.

 

The updated pic in the original post is from a couple of months ago and I have since went on vacation. Oddly enough when I was on vacation the red mushrooms decided to grow like crazy and spawn a couple of smaller ones (all on the same rock still) and my ricordea started to split and has now almost completed the split and grown a new mouth. Only real change in the rank when I went on vacation was that I turned the skimmer off so it wouldn't overflow. I guess they just didn't like being watched. I'll try to get a pic of them fully expanded this evening. I don't target feed the mushrooms as every time I have tried they have not responded but I do occasionally target feed the ricordea which absolutely loves to eat.

 

Sounds like they liked the extra nutrients the skimmer being turned off left behind.

Mushrooms get a great deal of their non-light nutrition through absorption like zoos and paly do. Having those dissolved organics to feast on probably did them good.

 

thanks so much ynot wonderful writeup, and JoeT! I have a cpr bak pak skimmer, which is hopefully inefficient enough to let me do some nice softies in my tank! LOL

 

:wavey:You're welcome, have fun with them, soft corals set a tone in your tank with their gentle movements and awesome colors. Keep me posted on your progress I'm excited for you.

 

If you want, subscribe to this thread! You can see it started as a 30 gallon fish only, and then I upgraded. I'm setting up a 30 gallon to stock with soft corals (and qt them!) and then eventually will put them in the 55.

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f7/erins-55-gallon-206299.html