Your Help is Needed.. ANY feedback is appreciated.

[dnorton1978]

Alright please bare with me for this is my first post. The norm is to start with my specs, i guess.

I have a 55 gallon that has been established for 8 months.
Lighting is 2(T5) 54 watt blue and 2(T5) 54 watt white total 216watts
I have a sea clone 100 protien skimmer
a fluval 404 rated for upt to 100 gallons
An over the back filter rated 30 - 60 gallon
2 maxi jet 900 power heads
About 50lbs of live rock
Substrate is about 40lbs or so of carib sea sand.

Water temp is 79 - 80
Ph is 8.2
Salinity is 1.24 - 1.25
Nitrite is 0
Calcuim is 450 - 460

Honestly that is about all i check because everything i read gives a huge list, and it seam like overkill. All my fish have thrived since the beginning and i have never suffered a loss. I have had a fish get sick before, but i put him in my qt tank and he survived.

For fish i have:
Flame angel, sailfin tang, fox face, coral beauty, 2 small blue damsels, and a watchman goby.

I have 3 cleaner shrimp
10 margerita snails( i think thats the name)
40 sand sifting snails
about 25 algae eating hermit crabs(some blue legged also)
sand sifting star fish
coral banded shrimp
For corals I have a few stalks of xenia, a small green star polyp, a galaxia,and a green hairy mushroom.

Back to my question/ problem...
Yesterday, early evening one of my green hairy mushrooms was closed up very tight. I did not think much about it, but this morning my green starfish was on top of that peice of mushroom. I removed him and it was just a little peice of mush left. I have had the mushroom for about 3 weeks now, and never saw the starfish near it before. Well later today another piece of the mushroom decided to close up as well. So now i am even more concerned. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening.
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[dnorton1978]

I do weekly water changes of about 5 - 8 gallons. I also run active carbon in my fluval. It is of good quality and claims to be good for 6 months, but i change it every 3 months..

 

[Anonymous]

Are the mushrooms getting too much light or too much flow?

You mentioned they are new (3 weeks). Maybe they just didn't adjust well to your tank parameters, including light and flow.

As for the starfish, it's possible that it was just cleaning up an already-decaying mushroom. It may have had nothing to do with the death.

 

[dnorton1978]

Well after a full day in my tank they opened up beautifully. They were perfectly fine the entire time. Then what appeared to be out of the blue one closed up. The second one that closed up did not turn to mush, but it still remains closed. Could it be dividing? (fingers crossed). I am very new to the corals, but 3 weeks seems like a good amount of time to me. I would expect a problem to occur within a week. Thanks again.

 

[Mihai]

I remember that my first mushrooms were open and closed lots of times during the first month or so until they adjusted. Probably yours (like mine) came from a higher light tank and it took a while to get used to 160W (in my case) of NO lights. I also think that the starfish was cleaning the rotting leftovers of the mushroom, not eating it.

I think that you shouldn't do anything - they'll adjust and be fine. They don't close to divide - the start moving and leave a piece of the foot behind. Or they stretch the foot in one direction and then break off the tip. Of course, all this very slowly, maybe 3-5 days.

M.

 

[dnorton1978]

I just wanted to thank you for your input. I will follow that advice and hope for the best. Thanks again.

 

[SnowManSnow]

i think youll be fine.. shrooms are almost impossible to kill. Very hard to get rid of!

B

 

[dnorton1978]

I hope your right.

 

[dnorton1978]

My mushroom is open again!!!!

 

[Mihai]

I agree that they are *very* hard to kill after they get used to the tank. Probably the hardest thing to kill in a reef tank (short of aptasia and xenia).


Mihai

 

[dnorton1978]

the piece that died appears to have some new growth.. Is that possible?

 

[Anonymous]

the piece that died appears to have some new growth.. Is that possible?

Yes. Mushrooms and leathers can come back from almost nothing.

Good luck!

 

[dnorton1978]

even if it was down to just a white fleshy looking piece?? that is good news..

 

[dnorton1978]

hey i also want to put this question out there to the crowd...

Based on the above information on my tank does it appear to have sufficent lighting, filtration, etc for the existing live stock??????????????????

 

[Mihai]

The skimmer is a (sad) joke. It's almost like not having it. Almost.
The light is OK for softies. Maybe even a hardy LPS in all the way to the top.
Live rock is on the light side and the fish are too many (and too big).

However, if you do lots of regular water changes (say 10% weekly) you
should be OK with the setup. If you don't, it will slowly but surely get over its limits and things will start to die.

M.

 

[Anonymous]

Get rid of that skimmer for sure. They don't call it a "sea clown" for nothing. Get an AquaC Remora.....I've always heard great feedback on it.