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My brain hurts I feel like a moron!


Sancho

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Ok so I am starting to lose my shrooms. Not the cheap ones just the ones I paid $50+++ for each. I have had some of these for a year plus but some are new within the last three months. Today I pulled 5 out of the tank that were just melting away. My Yuma's are fine, my rics are fine I am just losing Rhodactis that I spent what i consider to be a good amount of money on. I have had shrooms melt away in the past but is has always started at the mouth. These seem to be bleaching than shriveling up into little piles of iridescence goo. So I am thinking my water is out of whack.

temp 74

salinity .026

mg 1200 ppm

alk 10.1 dkh

Ca. 290 ppm

ph. 8.2

amonia 0ppm

nitrate 0ppm

nitrite 0ppm

phosphate 0ppm

All of these levels seem acceptable for a LPS shroom tank. I am at a loss.

So my question is, my Alk. and CA are a tad low would that affect the shrooms?

If so I would like to raise them. I really have never dosed this tank.

I use the aquavitro products on my 34 but cant quite remember how to do math. Is there a dosing calculator out there that I can use for aquavitro on a 8 gallon tank?

should i be dosing iodine?

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Nano sapiens

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

1. Best to maintain typical sea water Ca, Alk and Mg. All the organisms are naturally adapted to it.

 

2. If you don't have an algae rich tank, feed more since your phos and trate is not registering. Rics can get by in very clean water, Rhodactis need more nutrients to be happy campers.

 

3. I use a few drops Iodine (Kent's Concentrated) per 10g water volume. Seems to help and doesn't hurt if not over-dosed.

 

Good luck!

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No idea what's causing the Shroom to melt away. :(. Maybe your tank is too clean. I always thought mushies like a lil dirtier water. I can't keep Ricordias at all, they always seem to melt away on me. I do however have one in my tank that's over a year old, but it has not grow any and looks the same as the day I bought it. Wish it would split or lay an egg or something.

 

I keep my alk at 8.0 and try to maintain it there through out the week, I do get a lil spike for a day after water changes but I deal with it, lol. I can see why keeping alk around 10 would be ideal esp with water changes and the salts that are avail. I mix my own using rscp, do you use scripts water? Have you ever tested the parameters if you do?

Your CA seems low to me, I like mine between 420 and 450. I would definitely bump that up to at least 400.

Not sure if ca or alk would affect the mushies to badly. I'm sure they consume some ca and alk but not like sps.

Iodine, not to sure. A long time ago I used to dose 1-2 drops of lugols once a month in a softy tank, seemed to help things out, I had some xenia and Shroom as well as gsp. All seemed to like it but I didn't really know much back then and just dosed it cause a friend told me to. I know you can od the tank quickly if you use to much. Some people swear by it but I have choose to not to dose anything I can't test for. Testing for iodine in the reef can be a lil tricky. I believe the natural levels of iodine are like .02-.04, hard to maintain those levels without over doing it.

Hows the flow in the tank? Maybe they are getting to much flow. Have you seen any weird bugs near them? I have heard of ric's being eaten from the center out due to some kinda bugs or worm. Skimmer, have you made any skimmer changes lately. I've also heard of some who ran skimmerless for a while and then decide they want to run a skimmer, shortly after having the skimmer up and running, things start melting away.

 

If the Shroom are starting to melt, I would remove them immediately as well as any residue left behind. If you are trying to save them, maybe stick them in quarantine and do several small water changes over several days and see if you see any improvement.

I say remove the melt ers immediately cause I have also seen where it will spread to the next closest, then the nxt closest until they are all infected and melt away.

 

I'm no expert here, just sharing what I have heard and seen and read in the past, hope you can figure things out. Hopefully other can chime in and help trouble shoot this problem.

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http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

1. Best to maintain typical sea water Ca, Alk and Mg. All the organisms are naturally adapted to it.

 

2. If you don't have an algae rich tank, feed more since your phos and trate is not registering. Rics can get by in very clean water, Rhodactis need more nutrients to be happy campers.

 

3. I use a few drops Iodine (Kent's Concentrated) per 10g water volume. Seems to help and doesn't hurt if not over-dosed.

 

Good luck!

I use NSW with regular water changes. That is why I'm am puzzled, my gut reaction is too much light but I am using the stock cad lights led it only puts out 6.5 watts and is on a 8 hour timer. Could hitchhikers cause this? I have a healthy family of bristol worms and noticed a few asternia stars in the tank. But nothing else is suffering.
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Nano sapiens

NSW has a Ca of around 380-400, Alk of around 7.5 at 1.025 SG. However, your Ca and Alk is quite far off, so something is unusual there so you'll need to figure out what's going on.

 

Unlikely that you have a predator of Rhodactis since they are melting on you, not being shredded or consumed outright.

 

Work on correct and stable water chemistry. Gradually build nutrients until you just get a reading of nitrates and phosphates with the test kits...then keep it there for a few months and see how everything does.

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I assume you meant 1.026 for the SG

Try less water changes?

Try cutting the light back more or raising them?

I doubt dosing would matter for mushrooms

How are you measuring your SG? If your using a floating device stop and buy a refractometer.

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