What is the best way to kill green stripped mushrooms?

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

Thought I would jump in with an example of the hostile power of green striped shrooms. I made the mistake of adding these almost 8 years and wish I had not.

If you look at the base of the birdnest you will see numerous mushrooms that are destroying the healthy tissue.

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Urology Forum

 

[Anonymous]

Personally, I think they are the worst thing you can put in a sps tank. With aiptasia at least you can get peppermint shrimp or berghia, but nothing I know of eats these guys and they are deadly to practically anything else.

Aside: hey Paul, where did you get that cool sarcophyton?

 

[brandon4291]

Hey Wrassman don't let us prevent you from posting in the future, it sounds like your experience has alot to offer Reefs dot Org. Hey when people disagree with me I just argue nicely with them until they are on my side. If they don't convert, I pretend we never had the discussion in the first place! whatever it takes to exist in my little world of denial. Do whatever it takes to rebutt the dissenters but stay on the board for goodness sakes'!

these boyz just like to test each others' resolve. Point-counterpoint is a great way to check our own schemes and see what needs modifying, if anything.

Brandon


ps Paul, if that nest of acropora ever gets too much for you I will lighten the burden for you by putting that fine specimen in one of my tanks. Just an offer...

 

[Anonymous]

Well said, Brandon

 

[beerbaron]

yeah paul that birdsnest is getting in the way of those mushrooms. get them outa there and give em to me so the mushrooms have room :wink:.

 

[Anonymous]

I think a blow-torch will work, make sure you have good ventilation...

Nice GARF job on the above photo.

 

[Anonymous]

I think a blow-torch will work, make sure you have good ventilation...

Nice GARF job on the above photo.

 

[ChrisRD]

Any ideas on how to get rid of them?

Nuclear weapons maybe... :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Wow! Now we can have the shroom police too! Wrassman, you can be the chief! :wink:

Anyway, if you didn't notice my original post stated that those few remaining shrooms are on my baserock. This rock weighs 25 pounds or more and cannot be removed from the tank without disrupting the sandbed and everthing else in the tank. I'm not going to risk that! No way!

If anyone knows a way to remove the shrooms w/o killing them, I certainly would like to hear it as I get know joy from killing them. I understand that they sting SPS corals and I'm not about to leave them at risk.

Wrasseman, please don't hold back. We don't care of this post turns into a 100 page debate, as long as it remains civil the thread will not be closed and we all may learn something in the end.

Louey

 

[Len]

Nothing can be more constructive then differences of opinion discussed civilly (and as far as I'm concerned, everyone has been more then civil thus far). I hope I wasn't offensive to you, Wrassman; it surely wasn't my intention. I tried to extend my rationale to you, and would love to continue this dialogue if you're willing to entertain me No reprisal, I promise

Let me ask you a pragmatic question: If we have a mixed coral community and one species is clearly outpacing the others and killing everything in its path, do we not do what we can to stem the aggressor from killing everything else in the aquarium? Mushrooms easily fall under this category, much like aiptasia (only that mushrooms are aesthetically desirable, whereas aiptasias are not). I personally don't see a difference.

Killing is not a good thing, but sometimes a necessary thing to insure the survival of others (please don't make any polictical inferences )

 

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

Aside: hey Paul, where did you get that cool sarcophyton?

If you are talking about the gold crowned/long polyp toadstool I received it from IPSF about 18mths ago. They are starting to drop babies so I have started to thin them out. Looking for takers!

ps Paul, if that nest of acropora ever gets too much for you I will lighten the burden for you by putting that fine specimen in one of my tanks. Just an offer...

If you are talking about the purple robusta, frags are available soon! Just waiting for them to encrust a bit in my prop tank.

yeah paul that birdsnest is getting in the way of those mushrooms. get them outa there and give em to me so the mushrooms have room

Die mushrooms die! I am debating dipping the base of the coral into a warm kalk solution to rid the piece of the aggressors...

Nice GARF job on the above photo.

Poor GARF, getting bashed in a thread that has nothing to do with them. Actually on my monitor at work the colors look very true, but at home they appear too red and/or pink. Darren (www.palmettoreefs.com) took the pic and more are available there at his site. I will allow him to share his photgraphic tehniques if he chooses to....

Paul
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[hfmann]

FWIW Louey...

Unforutnately, I let the 'shrooms' take over my previous reef until I couldn't stand it anymore. They were everywhere. Note I said "previous" reef. I think my mushroom eradication treatment helped fuel an algae bloom from which I never recovered. Here's what I did and won't do again...

One by one, I took out 1/2 my live rock and peeled the mushrooms and remnants off with a very good sharp tweezers and magnifying glass, swished the rock in a bucket of tank water, and then replaced the rock in the tank. About two weeks later I did the same thing to the other half of the reef. I'm rather certain this radical and massive approach generated some "mushroom toxin" and dieoff that started the tank on a very quick downward spiral. The fish gradually became "nervous" and algae started to grow uncontrollably. Other than that there was nothing different from the previous 5 years of successful reefkeeping, so my unscientific conclusion is that my blitzkrieg approach caused a very undesirable result.

In hindsight and with more experience now, I probably would have been very cautious and more patient in my approach. I wish I had done smaller sections at a time, run some sort of canister filter with lots of carbon, and done some large water changes immediately upon removal of the mushrooms.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it....unless of course someone else can convince me otherwise. :wink:

Take care,
Hal
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[Anonymous]

>However, I will limit my posts from now on, and will definitely kepp my opinions to myself.

please dont, the boards always need more morals, I know quite a few people who have stopped reefkeeping because of moral issues, I feel the boards are lacking in this area, even though it may hurt peoples feelings, you shouldnt feel bad about it, within reason of course, flamefests are never a good thing.

Personally I would do everything possible to eliminate them by removing them, or the rocks. I used a forcepts to remove them from the rocks, all survived (put them in a frybox with some rubble to attach too). And the littel bit of tissue that was left on the rocks, I spread some kalkwasser onto, to ensure none would grow back.

 

[brandon4291]

seven that is an innovative idea, never thought of that! Thats a fine alternate approach to spearing them with hemostats!

Brandon

 

[Anonymous]

I'm quite suprised how many reefers keep forcepts. :lol: Are you guys all DR.'s? Where can I buy forcepts? I think I'll try the Bradon/Megadeth method.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

radio shack sells them, cheap though, they will rust

 

[Anonymous]

Wrassman wrote:

I have been in this hobby for longer than most of you have been walking.

now i'm actually just plain curious, how long is that?

 

[fishfarmer]

Three days of 95 degree temps....that will get rid of those pesky shrooms....didn't get rid of the button polyps though :roll: . :wink:

I used to use tweezers as well to remove encroaching mushrooms. It would leave a stump which would eventually grow back, but would keep them in check.

 

[Anonymous]

Whatever you do, don't ask one of your stuntmen to bump them off for you. That's been tried, poorly tried......

 

[shalegac]

Has anyone ever stepped on a bug?