Mushrooms and Polyp trouble

[col]

Put some Orange button polyps and Mushrooms in my 42g tank to see how they got on. They were fine for a month or so but have been struggling lately.
Lighting is only 100W NO, 2 x 10,000k and 2 x actinic.
Ammonia, Trites - 0
Trates - 2 ish
Alk - 11.5
Calc - 420
pH - 8
Po4 - 0.25 - 0.5
Some mushrooms are doing fine and getting quite big, but most are slowly turning white. They are not shrivelling up or anything yet, some are almost transparent.
Polyps are not all opening up. Have a cluster of about8 what split off and are doing fine away from main group. Have moved both shrooms and polyps from bottom to higher up in tank.
My ph was always 7.8, but I have been slowly adding buffer to raise it.

 

[legend]

IMO i think you need more lighting over your tank. 100 watts really is'nt that much over a 42 gallon tank. I have 130 watts over a 20g and everything seems to be going strong.
Is it possible to upgrade your lighting?

 

[col]

Yeah, lighting is pretty poor I know, but is it normal for the mushrooms to go like this because of light?

 

[nerdy]

I was always under the presumption that mushrooms were a low light coral! i have seen them do well in low light conditions!!!

 

[col]

Nerdy
That's what I thought also.

 

[j21kickster]

there may be problems that im not seing here but i can tell you that your polyps are steraching for light. when mushrooms turn white that is sometimes the problem- how far are they form the lights? i have a feeling that is one of your problems

 

[marvida]

Do a quick search & try to get a feel for what others consider to be low light. IMO low light would still be about 2X what you have. With NO there are intensity issues to think about also. The first couple of years that I was in this hobby I tried NO & was never very successful.
Good luck!
Ken

 

[col]

Kent pro buffer (liquid).
If the Polyps are searching for light why are they not open? (not disagreeing with you, just curious). They were both at bottom of the tank so I have lifted them higher (1/3 way up).
There is a small group of polyps from main group that have fragged and are looking good at bottom of tank.
Also with mushrooms, if not enough light would they not be "stretching or reaching" out?
Again, I'm not disagreeing with anyone here, just wann get to the cause.

 

[overanalyzer]

what is your salinity?? Mushrooms will sometime bleach out if hte salinity is whacky. Like if you dump some salt in or a large hunk of salt creep falls off your lights and right on to your shroom .....
polyps might not be opening because they are trying to preserve themselves for better light. I'd move them up to the top. Your shrooms would be reaching hard core and stretching ....
Check your salinity and see what it is at ...

 

[col]

SG is 1.023

 

[col]

bump

 

[worldchanger]

Before upgrading my lighting just recently I had 240W VHO on my 55 gal. Never had any problem with the mushrooms but my yellow and button polyps stretched longer than any I've ever seen reaching for the light. Now I also have 350W metale halide and the polyps have actually shortened back down and are starting to spread a bit in a matter of about 3-4 weeks. I think you lights are the problem.