Mushrooms turning to jelly!!!

[kleinn]

My red mushrooms are turning into jelly and blowing away one by one! My yellow polyps are doing fine, as are my zoos, sponge, and tulip anemones. I have had them for just over a week with no problems until yesterday when this started. I did a 15% H2O change 5 days ago. I have a Coralife double strip lunar Dlx light. My water tests are as follows: SG 1.024, Ammonia 0, nitrates <20, nitrites 0, alk 140, pH 8.2, temp 76F. What the heck is going on here?! :help: :help: :help:

 

[kleinn]

Oh, and they're NOT turning white. It looks like they are just kind of liquifying. One of them has a mucous layer on top of it. They were in a relatively low/moderate-low flow area, but they are getting plenty of light. I just moved them to a higher flow area. Was that a good idea?! Anyone?! :help: :help: :help:

 

[qreef]

Did you or anyone in the house just spray some kind of insecticide. like Raid not too long ago?

 

[stanlalee]

hard to say but <20 really isn't great for corals. <5ppm is ideal, 5ppm acceptable and above that no mans land. If they arent in a low flow area that could cause problems. Personally though I would suspect something got in the water because its pretty hard to kill mushrooms. Oh have you tested for phospates? anything above 0.5ppm can be stressful or inhibit the growth of corals. If nitrates are near 20ppm there's a good chance phospates are well above acceptable.

 

[hagfish]

My dad's tank had a brief period where shrooms wouldn't last more than a week. We never really figured out why, but he just did a lot of water changes and ran lots of carbon (and changed it frequently). That's what I recommend for you.

 

[misfit]

I had a weird experiece with red mushrooms once. I got them put them in the tank and they took off everywhere. Then it was time to upgrade to a bigger tank.Got everything into new tank. Now I had red shrooms here and there and the original rock that I boght them on ,about a week after being in the new tank they started to liquify also but just on the original rock this cotinued til it was bare. All the other shrooms red and allothers were doing great. Never figured it out

In the change over everything was handled the same way,so I cant imagine that the rock had something happen to it?????

 

[uberlink]

How did you acclimate them? Did you just throw them in? Temp acclimate? Drip acclimate? I know you're supposed to be able to just temp acclimate these guys, but I generally drip them for an hour or two as an added precaution against osmotic shock.

 

[uberlink]

How did you acclimate them? Did you just throw them in? Temp acclimate? Drip acclimate? I know you're supposed to be able to just temp acclimate these guys, but I generally drip them for an hour or two as an added precaution against osmotic shock.
Your water quality looks fine to me otherwise!

 

[kleinn]

Thanks guys. Qreef: no, nothing like that is EVER used in this house. Stanlalee: <20 is the measurment I have because my only test kit right now (dip strip) shows much less color than the 20ppm measurement, but some very light color-so not 0. hagfish, misfit, uberlink: The tank is VERY young, (a week or so over a month old), and I also have had a phosphate/silicate sponge in the filter for a few days, so I hope my phosphates would be lowered by now. and they were doing great for about a week. My other corals are fine too. Uberlink: I did not drip them. The system I got them from had relatively poor water quality (high 'trates, low light) so I probably should have. Lesson learned I guess.... very strange though....

 

[uberlink]

Originally Posted by kleinn
I did not drip them. The system I got them from had relatively poor water quality (high 'trates, low light) so I probably should have. Lesson learned I guess.... very strange though....
I don't think that the low water quality in the prior system would be the problem. If there were a very large difference between the salinity in your tank and the prior tank, however, that might cause a problem. But these things are usually so hardy that even that seems unlikely. Usually its sea stars and anemones that have the big osmotic shock problems. But I guess if it were a LARGE disparity, it might be the problem.
In any event, sorry to hear you're not having luck with them. What kind of shrooms are they?

 

[joshradio]

did they come in on a rock? maybe they have something feeding off of them... starving them even?

 

[kleinn]

Uberlink: the salinity in the other system was aroud 1.020 and mine is 1.024. I'm going to drip all corals from now on! Oh, and they were just red/brown shrooms. Thanks for your sympathy!

I just want to figure out if it was just bad luck, or if I messed up. JoshRadio: Yeah, they came on a rock. I have some thread algae (mostly under control) and I get diatoms growing on my glass daily, despite my silicate/phosphate sponge. Would either of those things been able to grow on them? Thanks!
As of right now there is only one shroom left on the rock out of the five good looking ones I had yesterday!