mushroom shrinking?

[arcab4]

hey guys,

so i have this mushroom coral in my tank. for the first couple of weeks, it started to expand like crazy..but suddenly it started to shrink and producing these weird pale looking things on itself. any ideas? there is enough light..about 3.6watts/gallon..water salinity is fine...and i add a daily supplment thing for the corals once a week.

thanks!

johnny ;D

[clothahump]

Have you done a water change recently?
All corals are susceptable to metal poisoning, could be excess copper coming through your pipes.
Try and get a good flow of water onto the coral and see if that wakes it up.
What is your feeding regime?

[arcab4]

this is my sw tank..

10gallon running off an eclipse twin lamp (one atinic one daylight for about 3.6watts/gallon)

10lbs of live rock
1 clownfish
1 bicolor blenny
1 cleaner shrimp
1 tiny boxfish
2 hermit crabs

1 regular polyp
2 mushrooms
1 hawaiian featherduster

filtration is just the live rock plus a piece of sponge that i wash once a week for the debris. my light is only on at night for about 5 hours. i chose all hardy fish/coral.

i feed sparingly..about twice a day. once when the lights comes on..and again when the light goes off. i'm very careful with what how much i feed because it is such a small tank and i don't want to disturb the balance.

even tho it's a very small tank, i don't really have any problems with algae or fish stress. it's great to see the clownfish,bi-color blenny AND the cleanershrimp fight for the food. all the corals seem to be healthy..except for that ONE. it's a regular mushroom and it's actually closer to the light..so maybe there is too much light? the other mushroom is one of those "hairy ones" and it's sorta not in direct light and it's doing great. it wasn't doing so well when i had it directly under the light.

oh. since there's alot of light and it's a small tank, i get alot of evaporation in the tank. i use filtered water to refill the tank. never use regular tap water. too many impurities. salinity is normal also.

thanks,

johnny

[dattack]

Mushrooms do react differently to lighting and current.  Too much of it, they tend to shrink.  I don't think your lighting should be a problem but never know.  I have a 250 W metal halide under a 30 gallon and my mushrooms are doing fine.  I think if lighting is a concern, put them at the bottom of your tank.  I think mushrooms don't like high currents either.  You can change the directions of powerheads in your tank or cut down the current going to the mushrooms.

Oh BTW, do you know what your water parameters are?  That might give you a clue on the cause also.  Also mushrooms do shrink when the lights are off.  Mine does that but do expand when the lights are on.

[clothahump]

I read last night that some corals actually shrink back and shed the outer skin, they then bloom again as if nothing had happened.
Maybe this is what is happening. 8)

[arcab4]

haha. yea. that's what i figured since the mushroom grew like crazy at first. so maybe it's somehow multiplying. i was going to move it but it looks pretty attached to the rock.

[clothahump]

Watch out for dark patches appearing, if spotted the coral is probably dying.
Will keep my fingers crossed for you.

[arcab4]

got it. i'll pay attention to that. all i see now is some sort of weird rubbery thing that it's producing. some kind of enyzme or something.