how do you know if a mushroom coral is dead

[nanokid]

hey yall i just bought a live rock with about 4 blue striped mushrooms on it and i was just wondering how do you know if they are dead???

 

[mr_bill]

They shrivel up and start falling apart. They usually stay retracted the first day.

 

[rah-rah23]

I'm sorry. I hate to sound like mother hen, but I keep seeing your posts asking about all this different stuff. Isn't your tank fairly new, like less than 3 months? Has it gone full-cycle yet? Size? Water details all ok? What fish do you have in there? I don't have a ton of experience with the corals, but I do know that the tank should be at least semi-established before you add the corals and so on, unless you're a pro.
My hubby's uncle kept putting coral after coral into his less than 6 month old tank and EVERYTHING died. He wasted mad money and killed things that didn't need to be killed. My advice is that you should wait a few more months before adding any corals, unless someone in here can direct you to different information.

 

[lbaskball]

The answer here is you need to WAIT until your tank has cycled. Buy a test kit and check your ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, and salinity level. I have a nano tank and I got it to cycle within a month or so. Make sure your not stocking up on fish and bunch of corals b efore the tank has cycled.