Blue Mushrooms

[mad_dog]

I've got several speices of mushroom colonies within my reef, most are doing realy well and multipling as would be expected. However my blue mushrooms have shriveled up to nothing about two weeks ago and seem to be about to become extinct. Is is true that the darker colored corals should be placed lower in the tank because they have a greater ability to absorb more light ? All water conditions good, weekly 10% water changes have made no difference.

 

[uel]

I was told the opposite by my LFS yesterday. The lighter the color the better the coral is at absorbing light.

 

[teetee]

Mad Dog,
What sort of lighting do you have? Do you supplement with iodine? I too would like to know the light requirements of shrooms based on coloration.

 

[mad_dog]

teetee,
150 watts combination vho's with 1/2 50/50 and actinic 03s for the 50 gallons. Not great lighting but within the 3-5 watts per gallon recommendations and within my price range.

 

[iceburg98]

I've heard the darker the shroom, the less light it needs. I would try moving the blues to a spot of lower light and see how they do (if you can)
I have a blue that i tried placing in higher light, and it broke itself off and floated away. the next time i saw it, it was doing great and had grown a great deal inside a cave that it landed in. So, just from this experience i would say that they like less light.

 

[burnnspy]

Your lighting is okay for mushrooms, I recommend testing the alkalinity.
BurnNSpy

 

[piscesblue]

My blue mushrooms are on the bottom and have doubled in size in 2 months. I have PC's and NO's providing the light and all mushrooms are doing great. Dark on the bottom, brighter ones in the middle, none on top. Just move them around and wait for a week, if they don't look happier, move them again. Shrooms also hate anything but slow water movement. Fast moving water can tear them, so they won't open up if put in that situation. Look at my pics and you'll get an idea. My blue's are in the middle in these pics, but have since moved to the bottom where the are flourishing.

 

[mad_dog]

rblehm,
excellent suggestion pertaining to water flow very much appreciated, just added a new power head previous to this problem to accomodate polyups. Still the question posed pertaining to color and light absorbtion ability remains. Is there a possiblity of too much light for a coral - sunburn so to speak but realisticaly ??

 

[fat_ed]

Yes, absolutely. Shrooms will wither under strong MH lighting. However, yr lighting is unlikely to cause shrooms to sunburn unless you stuck them directly under the lights near the surfac of the water. Middle to bottom portion of yr tank should be fine. I would look elsewhere for the problem -- test alkalinity as Burn suggested, and correct if necessary using an alk buffer. Also consider adding iodine (no more than half the recommended dosage to start). My shrooms seem to appreciate the addition of iodine.

 

[six line wrasse]

My local fish guy was telling me about the shroom care. He said the lighter blues, and some reds like less light than the green and brighter color ones. I have some green shrooms that have white lines running from the center to the tips. I've moved them around my tank and found they do best slightly higher than the bottom. Again, this maybe due to the brighter colors. Also they have really started to grow great since I started using TECH-1 by Kent Marine.
Shrroms like the iodine. Also try and start out at the bottom and move them around slowly until they seem comfortable to the light changes. Good luck....
Andy