Lost three mushrooms

[Scoot]

Over the last 4 days, I've lost three mushrooms (they died, I didn't "lose" them).

The 3nd is now a pile of pink jelly I need to siphon out.

Two were both green flourescent shrooms. The first one was a reddish-brown, normal kind, nothing special.

These have been excelling for months - nothing has changed, if anything, water quality has improved.

They're at the bottom of the tank, under 2x175w 14K MH + 2x65W PC.

The lost shrooms are on the same rock. There's one remaining green flourescent on there who seems to be okay.

There's another rock, with more shrooms, but the green bumpy/pimply kind, right next to this one.

Is it possible the jelly goo from the first one hurt the two next to it and killed them off?

Strangely, one of the green shrooms just split, the split/child/whatever is still fine.

Do mushrooms have a set life span?

The only change is two weeks ago I started using Reef Crystals instead of Instant Ocean.

Everything else is doing fine *except* a frogspawn that has 3 heads - one of the heads has been deflated for two days. The other 2 heads look great.

All of my params are very stable:
Ammonia/Nitrite: 0 (has been for a long time)
Nitrate: 10ppm - fluctuates from 4ppm to 12ppm or so with PWC's.
SG: 1.023 (stable)
Temp: 82F (max range from 81.0 to 82.5F)
pH: 8.24 (swings from 8.1 in morning to 8.3 late evening)
dKh: 9.15 (very stable)
Ca: 360 (declines to 320 prior to PWC)

I've been doing no dosing or additives since moving to reef crystals. RO/DI water with TDS of 0PPM.

 

[roka64]

Scoot, I'm not a reefer, but I'm going to move this to sick fish/corals, where more folks can help.

 

[Scoot]

I believe this is more a chemistry issue.

I don't have sick shrooms - they've already died

Yeah, I think I've heard they can split when sick - just like anemone's, but these looks great last week - bigger than ever, great color. It's just wierd, considering everything looks good.

I *DID* have minor emergency room work done on a finger last week, and had been putting neosporin on the cut/stitches (I slice part of my knuckle off with a santoku chef's knife, and they sewed it back on). I don't think I had my hands in the water after using any (within several hours), but I might have.

I'd think that would have affected the biological filter, but I'm not seeing any symptoms of that.

 

[melosu58]

As you can see I have alot of mushrooms and I`ve never seen any of them split. They seem to give off a jelly that runs down the rock and a new one comes up there. I have the blue or purple ones and red ones. As I said I`ve never seen one split before. Maybe others do. All these mushrooms came from one.

 

[Scoot]

Maybe "split" wasn't the right word.

Well, yeah, it is. They pinched up in the middle, and sort of slowly became two - over a period of months. I'm not sure when the actual, final split happened - it was very, very gradual. I couldn't tell there were two (where the was one) until they shrunk down one night and were quite disctinctly separate.

The jelly you mention - I have that where one seemed to have died - running down the rock - looks like Jello brand gelatin. Its gross. But i've never seen them do it before now.

 

[melosu58]

On mine that jelly would give off a small mushroom that would grow and give off its own jelly and start a new one. Dont know about yours but no splitting here.

 

[Scoot]

I could swear this jelly-like stuff has moved - now its surrounding the 3rd (and last) green shroom on that rock. Its wierd.

 

[roka64]

I could swear this jelly-like stuff has moved - now its surrounding the 3rd (and last) green shroom on that rock. Its wierd.

You sure it isn't some sort of flat worms?

 

[Scoot]

Pretty sure.

Here. This was last night. Now the stuff is surrounding the mushroom on the left (whereas in the photo it was just to the right of it.) That shroom was perfect yesterday - nice a full, wrapping around about 1/4 of that rock.

 

[Devilishturtles]

That's weird. How close is your torch coral to the mushrooms?

I was thinking brown jelly disease, but it usually infects damaged corals (maybe, your torch) but can spread.

Due you have access to some Lugols Iodine? I would consider doing an Iodine Dip on the rock incase that is some sort of infection that will spread.

 

[Scoot]

I have iodine, not Lugols. Is that an aquarium-specific treatment?

The torch isn't that close - a foot or so.

 

[Fluff]

Looks like brown jelly disease. It may well be a chemical problem in your water. I've never seen shrooms in this advanced decay, make a recovery. Something is definately bothering them. Are the corals in your "myinfo" box current? Do you run carbon at all? Everyone else is looking fine? How is the frog spawn doing? Still one head drawn in?

 

[Scoot]

Treatment suggestion?

 

[Fluff]

Are the corals in your "myinfo" box current? Do you run carbon at all? Everyone else is looking fine? How is the frog spawn doing? Still one head drawn in?

?


Treatment would be to improve tank conditions. Something in the tank is irritating them, causing them to fail. Need to find out the cause before more corals are effected. Brown jelly is fast spreading disease. Usual course of treatment to save any part of the coral is to fragging. Watch your frogspawn and be prepared to remove the infected head if necessary.

 

[Scoot]

Fluff, you know I'm not a n00b, and my tank is going on 9 months old. That doesn't make me a veteran by any means, but I understand water quality quite well.

AFAIK, my tanks conditions are excellent. I religiously perform PWC, and all critical params have been stable for over 6 months.

I've had these shrooms for 5 months or so, and they've excelled up until the last 2 weeks (when I switched to Reef Crystals salt). Otherwise, no changes, aside from steady *improvement* in water quality.

I have zoos, xenias, a condy, a BTA, galaxea, 5 GSP colonies, (in addition to the fish) all doing very, very well, and all growing.

I don't see any evidence of the jelly stuff on the frogspawn, but I still dipped it in the lugols iodine treatment as per instructions. I also dipped the rock the shrooms were on (where some jelly stuff still remained). The jelly appears to be isolated to that rock, and its been treated.

I believe, honestly, that I didn't lose anything aside from 1 mushroom. I've since found 4 of them scattered in other parts of the tank. Something (the jelly?) was irritating them and they moved.

I'm still pointing my finger at the salt mix change. That's the biggest suspect right now.

 

[Fluff]

It could be, that's why I agreed with you it could be chemical. Just offering suggestions. Good luck.

 

[Scoot]

Fluff, I appreciate the inputm, as always. You were the first person to reply to my first post here back in February, when I had these strange worms coming out at night (bristle womrs).

I'll always appreciate that, and remember you for that.

But when you say I "need to improve water quality", that was kinda like telling a mechanic who's car has broken down to use better oil. (Best analogy I could come up with.)

As everyone else here, I'm always trying to provide the best water quality.

I needed to know, once it was ID'd, how to deal with brown jelly problems, and a generic response like that was a little insulting

 

[Hara]

no, actually it was spot on, not insulting at all. You need to improve the water quality to help prevent it from spreading, you also need to trim the head to keep it from spreading. Lugols will just aggravate the situation.

 

[Fluff]

By improving, I didn't suggest your water parameters are off or that your maintenance is not up to where it should be, it's that your water may be "off". Rather it be from the change of salts or chemical warefare, I have no way of knowing but the best defense will be/is to try and fix the water issue. You will also want to remove the infected corals to keep it from spreading.

 

[Scoot]

Hara - aMy frogspawn isn't showing any symptoms of brown jelly - just the shrooms. I treated it anyway (as per suggestion above and from reputable LFS).

So - you and Fluff are saying poor water quality causes brown jelly? After some research tonight I don't think that's the case, but that's still a pretty vague statement.

I'm looking for help with dealing with this stuff, and that's just not helpful. Do you mean dissolved organics? Nitrates? Redox? Water turnover? Trace elements?