My mushroom ate my fish (pic)

[crawdads57]

I knew this could happen, but I was a little surprised to witness it. The mushroom is not enormous. It's a Discosoma neglecta or "umbrella mushroom" - from Haiti I was told. I have 3. The fish is (was) a green banded goby - I have had two of them in the tank for about 4 months. The one that got "ate" was slightly larger than the other. I did see him perch on the mushrooms from time to time, but only these D. neglecta - never my St. Thomas mushrooms.

 

Anyways, I got home and did my first feeding and did not see both green bandeds. That's somewhat unusual. Then I noticed a very misshapen mushroom and got a bad feeling. Yep, within 20 minutes the mushroom spit out what you see in the picture below. Like a mucous pod containing the remnants of my fish.

 

 

I could remove the mushrooms much more easily than the fish I suspect. I'm moving in about a month, so I have to tear it all down at that time anyways. I'll think about it a little while I guess.

 

 

[Friendly]

makes me think of the man eating mushrooms off 'Mom & Dad Save The World'.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKiWzvKGUFs

[metrokat]

Could you post a picture of this mushroom?

[crawdads57]

Yep, its not a great pic but they are the green and pink guys on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a better pic, though these are obviously not mine. Mine are very similar.

 

 

 

 

makes me think of the man eating mushrooms off 'Mom & Dad Save The World'.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKiWzvKGUFs

Lol - that's exactly how I imagine it happened.

[Cintax]

Was your Green Band healthy? I have had the same thing occur with a BTA but the fish wasn't healthy.

[crawdads57]

I would say he was very healthy. They tended to chase each other around a little, but nothing out of the ordinary. They both ate well and were both in a constant state of "perch then scurry to the next object" all the time when the lights were on.

[Cintax]

Well that does sound like standard goby shenanigans to me. I'm sorry to hear about your fish, those green bands are hella cool. As an aside, I love your YWG mean muggin' while photobombing. I guess that is pretty standard goby behaviour too.

[crawdads57]

Thanks man. Ha, yeah - my YWG likes to get his picture taken for sure.

 

The green bandeds are cool - and not cheap for their size... I don't think I'll be replacing him, but maybe. Actually, I'm pretty certain they were both females. Maybe I can get a special order on a male - I believe they can be sexed by their dorsal fin length once they're big enough.

Actually, I just noticed that you can barely see one of the green bands in that picture with the YWG. If you look in that cave area between the Grandis you can barely see him. Its like the YWG is pointing right at him lol

[Clown79]

I got rid of a mushroom when I found out they could eat fish, particularly perching fish or unhealthy fish.

 

There are a lot of videos out there with mushrooms eating larger fish.

 

I'm sorry for your loss

[crawdads57]

Thanks - I do miss the little guy, they are very comical.

 

On one hand I guess I should have known these particular mushrooms were capable of that, but on the other hand it was always the really large "Elephant Ear" or "Hairy" mushrooms that I heard about eating fish. These D. neglecta mushrooms are about 3" in diameter when fully open (a little less probably). I know they do get bigger, and that should have also been a signal to me that they are capable of eating bigger prey. Of course this fish was extremely small, but its not like he couldn't have escaped the "bubble" this mushroom makes when it grabs something to eat. Its very weird, it looks like a green tomato when it closes, it looks very inflated. I've never had a mushroom quite like these - they are very "muscular", but they close fairly slowly.

 

I'm sure it happened in the middle of the night while the fish was resting right on it.

 

This is a pic of when I first got them and tried to mount them on my rock. The flow was too high, but my glue job was pretty good, so they formed themselves like a cup and let the current help pull them off the rock. I have really fought these guys to find a place in my tank with low enough flow that they stay put.