melting mushroom

I need some help... I have these mushrooms in my tank.



This is what they looked like about a week after I bought them. I have had them about 4 or 5 months. Over the past month they have sort of melted. Now they are almost white and they appear droopy. They are very closed up. They always pushed their innards (sp?) out after water changes so I was careful not to poor new water directly over them. There are/were three of them. The two big ones are the 'melted' ones and the littlest one is perfect as can be. It is open and nicely colored and never pushes it's insides out. All are on the same small piece of rock. I tried moving them to a less light area, didn't improve so I put them back where they were thriving.

Any one have any ideas? Or should I just pull out the two melted ones before they pollute the tank?

your shrooms are Bleaching and dying.........
prolly cuz your water is outta wack or they didnt get enough light!
when you do watter changes dont pour the water into the tank .
try and get a bucket,set it higher than you tanks and syphon the new water into the tank! that way the sand and rock arent blown all over the place

how are your water params?
your using compact lights right?

I am using T5 lights...not sure if that means compact or not. Don't get me wrong...I don't just dump water in to my tank. I slowly add it by pouring from a gallon jug. I do it so gently that my aragonite does not even get a dip in it where I do it.

My params are all good. I will check them later & post exactly but every time that I check them I have 8.2-8.4 pH, 0 nitrite, 5-10 nitrate, 1.024 salinity.

The third shroom is on the same rock and is perfect and it is the same variety. Can you think of anything else?

I would be more worried about my dKH (Alk.).

what do you feed em
do you dose the tank with anything?

also yes check your ALKALINITY!

I guess I need to get an alkalinity test.

No, I don't use any additives except the Instant Ocean (orange bag) salt mix. And I was told that they are corals that don't require feeding directly.

One more questions....would my other corals be showing signs or symptoms if my alkalinity was off? The rest of them are fine & growing beautifully.

yes. Also you have it near another Coral? I don't think there's very much out there that can win against a shroom but good info to know.

If i were you i would take a sample of water to a good Fish Store and get their input. If everything is good and nothing is bothering it (other corals or Pests) i would leave it alone. The worst thing you can do it move it around and stress it out more.

agreed!
if the other smaller mushroom is doin fine and nothing is wrong with you water it might just be natural causes! i wouldnt worry about it! shrroms frow like weeds and are impossible to get rid of! you can cut it all you want but it will grow back every time! and in greater numbers! lol
joe could be right with his guess too!!
if you have a coral too close to another it will sprout tentales and fight with it! although shrooms are pretty tough and can handle most corals lol the point is
CORALS KILL EACHOTHER!!!!! so be carefull when placing them in your tank! make sure theirs a good space between em!
and yea go get your water tested by an LFS and see whats up.........

I tried to reply to this over the weekend but my phone was doing weird things and it wouldn't post...

When I did move it to try and get it to keep it's insides where they belong (on the inside :) ) I didn't notice that it was too near a very large green/purple striped mushroom. This big mushroom has killed a colony of pulsing xenia before I knew about the danger of placing them near each other. I thought nothing of two different mushrooms though. Duh! Lesson learned I guess. They are far away now and I am going to let them alone and maybe they will return. I do still have the one that is fine. The reason it is fine is probably because it was furthest from the striped shroom.

The striped shroom is pretty cool in itself even if it does kill other stuff. It gets about 2-1/2 to 3" across when fully extended and has split into four babies besides the large one. I will just need to be more careful with it ( and it's offspring ). There is a zoanthid colony about 4 inches away but they have been together for 6-8 months with no problems so I'm not going to stress about them.

Thanks for the advice. Next time I hit my LFS (CoralReefKeepers) I will be sure to take a water sample along.