Mushroom cluster buried under live rock

[ClaptonsGhost]

Sorry, I'm not a reefer so I have no idea what category mushrooms fall under, so I'm putting this here. The guy from my LFS came by this morning and removed a particularly aggressive Queen Angel from my tank. In the process he did quite a number on my aquascaping. He put most of it back in place in an acceptable manner, but I noticed just now that one of my fuzzy mushroom clusters is missing.

Since he didn't bury it under my substrate I can only assume it's under a pile of live rock somewhere. I know mushrooms will pulsate until they dig themselves out of substrate. If heavy rock is sitting on top of them can they survive and eventually make themselves escape and anchor elsewhere? Or are they doomed to Davy Jones' Locker?

Wow, that creative writing class is really paying dividends ;-)

 

[Bryce E]

haha.. well mushrooms are very tough. It surely could survive but personally I wouldn't leave it and wait to see if it's lucky enough to make an appearance again. As much as it sucks... I'd pull out each rock and find try to find it and put it back where I wanted it and hope for a good recovery if that is indeed what happened. See it as an opportunity to spring clean your tank or to redo your aqua-scaping and make it even better.

Good luck!

 

[pegasus]

If it's pinched and/or trapped under a heavy rock, it might not survive too many days without food or photosynthesis. I noticed your fuzzy shrooms in another post, and I thought they looked really cool. Please save it...

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

haha.. well mushrooms are very tough. It surely could survive but personally I wouldn't leave it and wait to see if it's lucky enough to make an appearance again. As much as it sucks... I'd pull out each rock and find try to find it and put it back where I wanted it and hope for a good recovery if that is indeed what happened. See it as an opportunity to spring clean your tank or to redo your aqua-scaping and make it even better.

Good luck!

Actually I just tore down and redid my aquascaping and spring cleaned last week. Today's tear down by the LFS guy was twice now. I really don't want to put my fish through another catastrophic disruption. I can basically see inside both rock formations and I don't see it anywhere and there's no way it could be buried beneath the substrate. Aggravating...

Pegasus, thanks for the compliment. Ironically enough the HUGE fuzzy mushroom cluster I had on the right side of the tank DIED on Sunday for no reason. All my other mushrooms and my anemone were fine. I woke up Sunday and it was dead. I know how hard it is to kill a mushroom so I'm stumped on that one.

 

[pegasus]

Wow... sorry to hear that. It always sucks to lose anything. Fortunately, I've never lost a shroom or ric to mysterious causes. I lost all three of my super green shrooms (freshly fragged), and my favorite ric to a chocolate chip sea star. I know, I should have researched before buying it. It was one of my early (and costly) "spur-of-the-moment" decisions. Lesson learned. Did you know that a chocolate chip sea star flies like a Frisbee... when you toss it like a Frisbee? It's true!!! They're obviously pretty tough, too. My wife recovered it from the kitchen sink where it landed, and put it in the QT until we took it and donated it to the local LFS. Sayanora!!!

You don't, by chance, own a chocolate chip sea star?

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

No. I have a love-hate relationship with my LFS. Sometimes they do right by me, sometimes they really try to screw me, but they're the only game in town. One of the nice things they did was to tell me that a chocolate chip star would kill my mushrooms. One of the f'd up things they've tried to do was charge me $40 bucks to remove the Queen AFTER telling me specifically no charge plus a $20 credit (for a fish I bought from them for $120!!!) and which has proven to be nearly indestructible.

No, I have no idea why my huge fuzzy mushrooms (3 shrooms 6" across when open) would go from vibrant health to death in one night.

 

[pegasus]

I feel you. I'm limited to one local LFS... and it's a 70 mile round trip.

It's extremely aggravating trying to figure out what causes sudden death(s), and not come up with answers. That doesn't give you much to work with in trying to prevent it from happening again. That's when I come up with some off-the-wall excuse, like... "bad sushi". I know, that's lame, but at least I put a label on it. Then I can sleep...

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

Oh, I sleep just fine. They're only mushrooms!

 

[pegasus]

Oh, I sleep just fine. They're only mushrooms!

LOL! I know... but the mysterious cause is what bothers me. If I lose some livestock, I want to know why. I'm kind of anal when it comes to things like that...

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

Your sphincter would have sealed shut after what happened to my tank a few months ago. I had it stocked exactly how I wanted it. Everything was great. Then suddenly they started dying one and two at a time, almost always overnight. Going from perfectly healthy, eating and swimming, to dead. The cause?

When I first purchased this tank 10 years ago, it came with three glass covers that, when closed, sealed shut. No one told me that keeping them closed would prevent oxygen from getting in or carbon dioxide (monoxide?) from getting out. Because of my bad back I had the LFS I currently deal with, the guys who like to help one day, f with me the next, install the new plumbing. It was them that placed the covers on and closed them when they were done. They said nothing about leaving the covers open. AFTER I'd lost all my fish except for the Queen I just had removed and two yellow tangs, THEN they ask me all innocent like "Do you keep your covers open? You have to, in order for oxygen to get into the tank."

I've got Milk of Magnesia if you need it ;-)

 

[pegasus]

Actually, I think my sphincter would have flown open and I would have crapped my pants! I think I would have gone ballistic at that point, and probably told them a few things I possibly could have regretted later.

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

Oh I've already been banned once. Unfortunately for them, it was still during my 30 day return period so I told them fine, get over here and rip this crap out right now and give me my money back. That changed their tune. But what happened Monday has me thisclose to really blowing my top.

I'll put this as briefly as possible. They knew I was sick of the Queen's aggressiveness. Kid #1, a good kid, offered to come get the Queen out of my tank, in exchange for keeping the fish. I was counting on store credit so I said no. When I got home the Queen was tearing my Blue Face apart so I'd had enough. I texted the kid that if he could get it out without disrupting the tank he could keep it. Turned out he was only kidding about keeping the fish. He said he'd be by Monday morning. On Sunday I go to the store and he said he'd ask the store owner, also a good guy, how much store credit he'd give me. $20.00 was fair considering I was expecting nothing. So to sum up, he was coming Monday, no charge, and a $20 store credit. This was all theirs. I did not haggle about anything.

The kid comes, totally destroys my rock work, buries the mushroom cluster, and finally gets the Queen out with a HUGE assist from me. Later on I go to the store, we're joking around, I'm looking for a fish to replace the Queen, and guy #3, the guy who's always a bit snarky to me, says to me "Hey, John, you know (kid #1's) time is not free. I'm gonna have to charge you for the service call". I'm starting to steam. "What are you kidding? YOU guys came up with the free service call and $20 store credit. Now you're gonna try and charge me AFTER the fact? What are you crazy?"

"Come on, John. $40. ok? Just give Kid #1 $40 bucks." I told him he'd better go finish up with his other customer and then we were going to, uh, talk, for lack of a better term. Kid #1 rings me up for the fish and says "Don't worry John. I told (Guy #3) that you paid me. Just drop it."

I left, but what freakin' nerve, right? Now he thinks I paid $40 bucks for the service call so the next time I go there I'm gonna tell him about the buried mushroom and if he's gonna replace it. If you see fireworks coming from somewhere in the South Eastern United States night sky, you can guess where they're coming from.

 

[pegasus]

OMG, I can't even imagine what my response would have been if I'd been in that position. For some reason, I can envision blue lights, handcuffs, and bars. Not sure what all that means, but I would have flipped the #*@! out. I'm usually very easy going, until someone pushes the wrong button. Guy #3 would have been that someone. I'm glad you held it together... it must have been extremely difficult. Any particular date you'll be going back about the mushroom? Just want to get an idea of when to look to the SE...

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

I was actually there today (it's only a 15 minute drive, I'm there almost every day since my son and I walk the entire shopping complex) but he wasn't there. I'll be back tomorrow. Believe me when I tell you, when I'm wronged I just go nuts. But if I get banned again I have no place else to go for RO/DI or salt or food or anything, so I'll have to be a bit creative. If he treated everybody like he treats me they'd be out of business in a week. I spend every spare dollar I have in that store. I've seen him patiently talk to a customer for over a half hour, only to have that customer buy a freakin' damsel!!!

 

[pegasus]

Yeah, it makes you wonder what his priorities are, doesn't it? Sorry you don't have any other place to shop. Oh wait... there's always internet. I seldom buy from my nearest LFS, as they usually don't have much that interests me. I buy 95% of my stuff online. I get great deals, and I don't have to drive anywhere. The down side is... when there's a problem. I only deal with people that I know will bend over backwards to fix any situation that's not satisfactory to me. I've done it for years, and so far, so good.

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

Remember I said they go from great to f'd up? Well, I gotta admit they have great prices. Better than online. I ran into most of my problems by assuming they're the "experts". Once I stopped asking them for advice and stuck to my instincts I did a lot better. For instance when they talked me into buying a 14" long Engineer Gobi, which ended up destroying my tank and water clarity with its constant digging, grrrrr.... My common sense told me gobi's dig, but I listened to them telling me it was a great tank mate. Then they wanted $100 to come get it out of my tank (my Queen Angel actually ended up killing it, that's how crazy he was).

Anyway, I'm not comfortable buying fish online. Isn't that a hassle returning it if it dies?

 

[pegasus]

I've never had to return a dead fish (or coral). They normally want a picture of the DOA, and then give me a store credit to use on my next purchase. Of course, I have to pay for shipping on the next order, so I wait until I find several things that I was going to buy anyway, then use my store credit for whatever I want. One site says to cover the fish with salt and freeze it in case they want you to ship it back, but they have not once asked me to send anything back, so it works out pretty good. Some sites have WYSIWYG fish and corals, and I really like those as there are no surprises when it arrives.

PS: They didn't lie about the Engineer Goby. They're wonderful tank mates. They're just terrible tank occupants...

 

[honu808]

Haha. My E.G. Dug for about a week or so when i put him in. He is now close to 6" and love him. I anticipate his arrival at feeding time. Shoots up to the top and grabs food then puts it in reverse and heads backward to where he came from. Since i cant have an eel, he is the next best thing lol.

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

They didn't lie but they deceived me. They know full well that I'm a maniac when it comes to water clarity. I had just gotten my tank perfect when they talked me into introducing this thing into my tank. When they did the install they didn't rinse the substrate at all. Every little thing would turn the tank into milk. It took me forever to vacuum all that dust out, then the Engineer Goby proceeded to dig out all the stuff under the rocks I couldn't get to with the vacuum. The sand sifting goby did the rest.

Here's another one. This is what got me banned from the store. When I went to buy the gravel vacuum, they sold me one that was obviously used. It was all slimy to the touch and the tubing was cloudy. When I returned it I told them I appreciated the store but they really piss me off when they try to push used stuff off on me. Instead of admitting I was right they banned me. I explained previously how I got unbanned.

I can't buy fish online. I have to see it in the store and want it. I will buy stuff online, but not fish.

EDIT: Just to clarify I bought the gravel vacuum a few weeks after the tank was set up, not after the Engineer Goby started messing things up.

 

[pegasus]

I can see how you'd have a love/hate relationship with these guys. I understand how you feel about buying fish "blind". It can be a crap shoot, depending on who you deal with.

Honu, my EG's meet me at the tank when I feed, too. They swim up and take food out of my hand. Yet, I'd like to know how you got yours to stop digging after a week or so. Mine started out about 2" long, and are now 9" and growing. The digging is non-stop, and getting worse. It's not like they're digging tunnels to hide in anymore. They dig out the corners of the tank, the middle of the tank, or anywhere in the tank that hasn't been dug in a day or two. The tiny diamond goby mounds look like ant hills at the foot of Mt. Everest. Some days... I regret buying Fiji pink sand. All the other days... I regret buying two engineer gobies. Are you interested in a pair???