Mushrooms in a blender

[a1rabbit]

What does the mushroom slurry smell like? When I propagate my rhodactis mushrooms the old fashion way (cutting manually into tiny pieces) it smells like strawberries .

 

Damn, I love strawberries, I'd want to eat the ric!

 

I can't really explain the smell, mine was not horrid, but it left an odour in the food chopper I used. Sorta musty with a hint of low tide?

 

I feel like this just turned into a cooking thread.

Host

So how do you prepare your mushrooms for chopping? Do you wash them with warm or cool water?

 

Us

Wash? I just take them out of my tank, add 1 cup of salt water and blend for 3 seconds or until pieces of 1/4" are formed.

 

Host

And then you fry them?

 

Us

What? no, I dump them back into my tank to grow out, what the hell would I fry them for?

Host

To eat...

 

Us

Crap, this is cooking with Jean, not sea life with Dean, I'm on the wrong set, gotta run!

[thecowkid]

Well I just spotted 2 mushrooms, 1 red and 1 green one. They are 1/8" dia. I am having a problem with brown algae on the substrate. I am not feeding anything and all of the parms are at 0.00. Do you have andy ideas to what could be causing this?

[a1rabbit]

Well I just spotted 2 mushrooms, 1 red and 1 green one. They are 1/8" dia. I am having a problem with brown algae on the substrate. I am not feeding anything and all of the parms are at 0.00. Do you have andy ideas to what could be causing this?

 

 

Diatoms?

 

If so I had that in my tank, I had this 3g tank setup for about a month with nothing in it, the water levels read normal from day one since the rock was cured. After about the 3rd to 4th week I got pretty bad diatoms and I think it was from lack of movement, it's a low flow tank and there was no life to move the gravel or clean the glass or rock. I put in 2 snails and two hermits and it's pretty much clean now.

 

If it's other algae, not sure.

[thecowkid]

Okay, I was told to remove the crab but I didn't yet. So for the snails what type? I have nasarius and astrea. I am a little worried that any of them would crawl out because there is no lid or rim. What do you think. I just turned up the flow to may.

[a1rabbit]

I used two 3/4" or so (a little smaller maybe) Banded Trochus Snails. I love those guys, they move like crazy and can right themselves if they flip.

 

I have a feeling my tank won't show many mushrooms because of how it's setup. I think most will end up in the back or something. Guess We'll see.

[Juanhunglo69]

I have a large green and purple/reddish mushroom. My friend in NC called them watermelons. It is 4-6 inches round. It decided to detach itself and move the other day. I guess to let the 4 or more babies that were under it grow out. It may have sealed it's fate and get some razor blade treatment. I'm thinking about 40 or more shrooms out of this one and that is with me cutting it up. A friend of mine has just let his 10 gallon cycle through and I think that he needs a few shrooms grown in there. Do you think that he would be pi$$ed if he got 40 or so? I am tempted to try the blender but this one is plenty big enough to cut up by hand I will continue to read this one and if I do chop mine up I guess this is a good place to share pics and such.

[reefer4sho]

so i got excited because one of my frillies detached itself from the rock it was on, and i decided to cut it in half and stick it in a low flow area in my fuge. I noticed that my purple tang is looking a little faded in his lower section (becoming lighter) was this a bad idea to try and split shrooms in a tank that is attached to my main tank?

[sambo123]

so i got excited because one of my frillies detached itself from the rock it was on, and i decided to cut it in half and stick it in a low flow area in my fuge. I noticed that my purple tang is looking a little faded in his lower section (becoming lighter) was this a bad idea to try and split shrooms in a tank that is attached to my main tank?

 

I dont think it would do anything except increase nutrient levels.

 

anybody got pics of the tanks now, can you see any shrooms forming?

[a1rabbit]

I dont think it would do anything except increase nutrient levels.

 

anybody got pics of the tanks now, can you see any shrooms forming?

 

 

I don't have pics, I feel like crap at the moment (flu or something) but I'll get some.

 

I don't see any new ones forming yet, but I see pieces of the old ones that are doing fantastic. I see a total of 3 bright green ones, well 2 but ones is pretty much split in half so I count it as 2 separate ones. I actually moved them today to places i thought they might sit if they don't get knocked down.

 

I see one piece of the dark red shroom that's a decent size, 1/4" maybe. The greens are a bit bigger.

 

There's also one piece of a foot off a mushroom from my main tank that I had to cut off of it, it's doing well... well it's alive anyway.

 

On the sand I've seen small bits of mushroom that I'm hoping will grow out but I'm uncertain if they will or not considering that the sugar sized substrate sorta sucks for this.

 

Now, I know what I'm seeing is not new growth, it's just chunks of the the ones I blended. However, considering how small the shrooms were when I put them through the chopper I'm quite pleased to know how well they handled it and how many pieces I already have. If the mushrooms had been larger, let's say 1" to 1.5" on the foot or somewhere around 3-5 inches when open, my guess is I would be seeing way more, especially if the tank I used was ONLY for shrooms with no live rock at all and very little flow.

 

Also, doing this does not really promote "new" growth as far as I know (though I am interested about what was brought up earlier with the mucus helping to form new growth), you're just hoping that as many small fragments as possible take hold and grow.

 

If/when I do this again I'm going to buy the smalled HoB power filter I can find and put it into a small 1-2g tank with Crushed Coral substrate and a few small pieces of rock rubble.

 

The HOB filter will have the intake pipe cut very close to the top of the tank as to ingest as few fragments as possible.

 

I'd blend the mushroom bits to about 1/4" or larger, though 1/8" would work fine too. I find that whatever size they look like when you are done blending/chopping is about half the size they will be once they relax and open back up when inside the tank, maybe a little less than half.

[simbio]

I have propagated mushroom corals for quite some time now and the “blender method,” wouldn’t be my method of choice. First, there is no real control over the end result. Obtaining 6-8, or even 10 pieces of mushrooms is not something to write home about. One can have the same result, and even better, with regular cutting method. Getting a bunch of very small pieces from a mushroom polyp is no guarantee for a large harvest. For me it was an interesting experiment, but I would not employ this method to propagate mushroom corals on a regular basis. Maybe others have different thoughts on this, different experiences. It would be nice to hear about it. However, to keep this discussion informative, please talk from your own experience, not just what you’ve heard from others.

[thecowkid]

start a tank and tag along.

[dshnarw]

Maybe there should be a race: 2 identical setups, same number and variety/size mushrooms. One bucket gets shrooms from the blender, the other one gets pizza slices. Chop them up as often as seems necessary (maybe every time they got to a certain size), then keep track of how many you ended up with from both methods, and which ones seem healthier.

 

Would do it myself if I weren't at college.

[simbio]

start a tank and tag along.

 

I did start one - that is why I expressed my opinion on the matter: It works OK, but so far I’m not very impressed with the result. One has to take in consideration not only the number of small pieces resulted in the process, but how many of this pieces actually turned into full grown mushrooms, and how long did it take, compare to the cutting method. Others may try it, and see what they get.

[ccaragol]

Good propogation method or not, I'm excited to see what happens. I just wish we could shoot some gamma rays or something into the tank to speed this up. But perhaps then all the mushrooms would be green and angry.

[proraptor2]

This is interesting....But you have to remember all shrooms arent hardy....My rainbow yumas, superman shroom are such a pain in the butt....

[thecowkid]

Cool. I just thought the tinker factor was too good for me to pass up. I have no news on my tank. I am fighting a brown slimy algae on the tank though. Anyone have any ideas what that could be?

[willyboy]

Any updates people?

[simbio]

Any updates people?

 

willyboy, I really admire your optimism. On the other hand, the pessimist is only an informed optimist. So, there you have it : Mushrooms in a blender - Smoothie anyone?

 

... No hundreds of mini-shrooms yet.

[The Propagator]

EEEEEWWWwwwww !!

You realize that you will be lucky to see three mushrooms form out of what ever you just blended up right?

The slime factor will probably take them out in the long run.

[simbio]

EEEEEWWWwwwww !!

You realize that you will be lucky to see three mushrooms form out of what ever you just blended up right?

The slime factor will probably take them out in the long run.

 

 

The small tank was immediately placed into a large, 100 gallon prop tank. Heh! I'll be lucky if I see one. That’s why I mentioned the lack of complete control over the process. My hands do not tremble when I cut my yumas or other corals. With this method, it’s almost like playing dice - the luck of the draw. However, it is the kind of skill that can be learned quite easy, with short practice. The second time may be just fine, but I am very pleased with 8 to16 (or even more) sure frags from a mushroom, obtained via “hand-cut” method. No reason to get greedy.

[The Propagator]

LOL!!! Gotcha'

[toxik]

Man, I've got all the needed supplies.

Extra sand, extra tanks, extra lights, extra water, extra pumps, extra rocks to crush, disposable shrooms, and way too much time. Just need a blender.

[Maco]

A man i realy wan't to start this experiment to. I do have a old blender but no money.

 

-Mac

[raleej337]

I've just read this thread today and got excited. I wanna join this experiment. Not being greedy or what but just wanted to see if this will work for me. If yes then its good to have extra shrooms out of few, if not then at least I've tried and found out from my own experience what its like to do this.

[a1rabbit]

Update:

 

2 Green mushrooms, one about 1-1.5" wide, the other is about .5", should be three. The one I swore was going to split did not, it just grew funny. Still one red (or whatever the heck color it is). I see dots on the sand that I think are very small mushrooms, but I'm not sure. I'm fairly positive my rock "ate" up most of the shrooms as I put it into a non dedicated tank to see what would happen.

 

I'd still not call this experiment over for at least 6 months.