Beaux Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Sorry if this is in the wrong place. But i am in shock over my mushrooms. My 20L nano is almost 9 months old now, and i am starting in on stocking my larger 40 breeder tank. All the research about this isnt adding up. My mushrooms are naturally propagating on their own. At an alarming rate to boot. Only 2 of the originals are anchored, on thier own, but all the others just roam. My favorite one, pic attached, is splitting again on its on for the 3rd time this month. I see the extra foot and mouth already present. This is the first one that has done this in the open. The others hide, next thing I know it resurfaces with a new friend. This is way cool to watch. My concerns are now, overpopulation, any natural ways to slow it down? Second is this one mushroom is dangerously close to one of my torches, which is not mounted. Would it be best to just move the torch to a safer distance as to not interfere with the mushroom while it is splitting? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 Seems to me if you want to slow them down then you need to feed them less? I'm not a big mushroom keeper, but it seems logical ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beaux Posted January 11, 2018 Author Share Posted January 11, 2018 Hahaha, you mean I am supposed to be feeding them??? Just spoke with another member about it as well. I do not feed them directly, they just catch leftovers. Seems I am just lucky and keeping my water quality at it's best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mFrame Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 Mushrooms are very resilient and pretty much bullet proof. I've actually heard of people dicing them up and pouring the pieces into a tank where they want mushrooms, and have heard each piece can grow a new one. (I do not advise this). I know that my superman rodactis started as 1 and now I have about 30. I personally like them, so no issue. The good news is that you are successfully growing corals! Congratulations! Even 10 years ago this was a big achievement to be celebrated. Now I would advise you learn to harvest them. You can go about it by using a credit card or dull razor blade to detach the foot OR you can do what I prefer which is to surround your existing mushrooms with rubble. When new ones grow on the rubble you remove them and replace the rubble so that the next new ones continue the cycle. It makes it easy to remove the mushroom as well as makes it easier for whomever gets it since it is already attached. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beaux Posted January 12, 2018 Author Share Posted January 12, 2018 Thanks for the great advice mFrame. This is all new for me and exciting as well. Any tips for grouping them? Out of all the 20+ I now have, only two have latched onto a frag chip and one to the live rock. All the others just roam about my tank. I tried gluing one to a frag disc and it detached itself, left part of the foot behind and went back to roaming. I tried the toothpick method too, but the mushroom just split in two and went back to roaming as well. They are not new to the tank, roughly 8 or 9 months, I would have figured they would have found a sweet spot and attached to something by now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 When they're happy they're happy! Yours looks like one of the Discsoma species which can have several budding off their foot at any given time. Most I've seen is one creating a colony of 17 in one year. One thing you can do to help get them to stick to gravel or sand is make a shallow cut with an exacto or safety razor blade and set them in a bowl or shallow container with sand. And if it helps your success super glueing them is as good as mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RicordeaFreak Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 I could be wrong, but I think this one might be Ricordea? A low flow area like a mushroom box or breeder box with loose rubble works well to get mushrooms to attach. I use a tupperwear container with a bunch of small holes drilled in it because i'm cheap haha. I find that they like to put their foot between two pieces of rubble to attach to. I usually see them attach after a couple of days in the container, then glue the rubble they attach to onto something else. If you have extra ricordea mushrooms I'd be willing to help with that overpopulation issue . That's awesome that they are splitting so much for you, they must really like what you're doing. Congrats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beaux Posted January 12, 2018 Author Share Posted January 12, 2018 The one in the photo, well this will be it's 3rd split in a month now. It's a roamer too. I do like it most so I have not really tried to glue it down. The "superman", orange, Brown's, reds and even the purple one I have tried all the methods mentioned so far. The mushrooms just won' stay put. I get them to attach to the substrate just fine. It is when I try and glue down to a frag disc or the live rock is when I have the problems. I have seen the foot part broken off and they are off again. Maybe I just might move my more "aggressive" corals to my larger tank, and let the mushrooms do their own thing. The water quality has always been on par and its reduced flow. More low than medium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 If they are splitting and not budding from the foot then they are going to be Ricordia or Rhodactis and not Discsoma. (There's a lot of coraline algae in the way but it looks like a Discsoma spp. to me.) I don't really see reproduction as a problem but if you really want to slow them down then after moving your other corals you could reduce the light and or phosphates so thier zooxanthellae population drops and they don't have as much sugars for them to use for growth. Keep in mind phosphate limitation and reducing zooxanthellae reduces the animals mucus production which is an essential component of their immune system and phosphate limitation will also make them far more sensitive to changes in temperature and light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sascha D. Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 This sounds like normal mushroom behavior to me. They're known to spread quickly by propagating themselves and/or budding. They're also known to colonize new areas of the tank by detaching and allowing the current to carry them to a new area. Yellow Polyps, Button Polyps, Xenia and most leathers are also known to colonize new areas by detaching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murftoo Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 I think you brought me some mushroom luck, Beaux! I've had one of these for a while and I go look at my tank after we talked about Mushroom proliferation on the phone yesterday and... Bang! Two Mushrooms! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RicordeaFreak Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 19 hours ago, Beaux said: The one in the photo, well this will be it's 3rd split in a month now. It's a roamer too. I do like it most so I have not really tried to glue it down. The "superman", orange, Brown's, reds and even the purple one I have tried all the methods mentioned so far. The mushrooms just won' stay put. I get them to attach to the substrate just fine. It is when I try and glue down to a frag disc or the live rock is when I have the problems. I have seen the foot part broken off and they are off again. Maybe I just might move my more "aggressive" corals to my larger tank, and let the mushrooms do their own thing. The water quality has always been on par and its reduced flow. More low than medium. The ricordea can pack a punch, one of mine decided to get loose and found its way next to acan lords. it put up a pretty good fight and melted the crap out of a couple polyps with minimal damage to the ricordea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beaux Posted January 13, 2018 Author Share Posted January 13, 2018 Sorry to hear about the loss there. TBH I had to look up acan lords. They look incredible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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