Are my mushrooms ok?

[sogreene]

My lfs gave me a deal on a large rock he had. He was rearranging a tank, and he knew I wanted mushrooms, so he gave me this 3lb live rock (about 7x3x4ish) with 5 mushrooms and 12-15 sponges for 20 bucks!! I was very carefull to keep it in water due to the sponges, and slowly scrubbed what algae that was on it off. I acclimated it for a little over one hour, and put it in the tank. He mentioned that the mushrooms would "prune up" when they were aggrevated, and sure enough, they did. My question is when should they "unprune"? I have 3 new "baby" mushrooms on pieces of rock that were already in my tank, so they are spreading, but are the big ones ok? How will I know if they have bit the dust? Is there anything I can do to help de-stress them? Thanks!

 

[Devilishturtles]

No they'll be stressed out for a little while but mushrooms are pretty resilient and should bounce back with no problem. You'll know that they've bitten the dust when they start to disintegrate.

If you know what lighting they were in and its vastly different from yours, try and account for that by either increasing the light exposure or decreasing it.

HTH

 

[Ziggy953]

I agree with Lindsay. It may take a day or two for them to open back up but they will. They are very tough corals.

 

[melosu58]

I agree also. BTW have you done some water tests to rule out water problems.

 

[sogreene]

Yep---water is still what it's been all along...ph 8.3-4, sg 1.026, nitrIte 0, amm 0, nitrAte is now 5...lfs water test said phosphate was 0, and the other tests agreed with mine. He and I both use the API master kit, and he has the extra-curricular tests ; ) My calcium level is 380, and his tank was 400, so there is a slight difference there. The lighting he has on that tank is T5's, which I think is quite different from the pc's on the biocube. The biggest difference is his sg~he keeps his reef tanks at 1.031. We are slowly increasing ours (it was at 1.018 when we first started the tank in June), but I don't want it to go too high, as we do have a few fish. Can it take a week or so for them to open back up? Thanks everybody!

 

[melosu58]

I would not move it out to 1.031. I would leave it where it is and maybe come down to 1.024 or 25. Dont go any higher than it is now.