Mushroom coral fading

[MrsPeet15]

Hi guys I've been radio silent for a while as I work in road transport and Christmas and new year is hellishly busy. I've also had some sad times with my tank recently which I will explain in a moment....

My main issue is with my lovely green mushroom coral. This thing has been like a cockroach, two nitrate spikes, minimum water changes, crap lighting, you name it, it's survived it. Recently it's started to fade in colour and looks almost like it is turning transparent rather than white. So for those of you who want to know:

 

Salinity 1.025

Temp 73f

Nitrite 0

Ammonia < 0.15

Nitrate 10 - all tested with salifert have never gotten the nitrates lower than this without faffing about with vodka dosing which I stopped as soon as I began

1x weekly water changes of 5l

Tank size 15l

Lighting TMC nano V2 Ilumen air

Running a skimmer and no other filter media

1x green clown goby - healthy and colourful and plump

2x sexy shrimp - 1 more to come next week

Millions of fan worms

Millions of spionid worms

Millions of brown brittle stars - the worms and stars are hitchikers

 

So here are the things I think *might* have bothered it

 

Heater broke last week and tank temp dropped to 70 degrees which was a bit scary because everything including my clown goby went sluggish and weired, thanksfully all of the live stock has recovered with the installation of a new heater.

 

I installed my light recently. It came with the tank, and I couldn't see any branding or product name on it so I took it off and replaced it with a light that turned out to be a cheap piece of crap with no beneficial out put at all. When I accidentally found the brand and name on the light I researched it and found that the light is actually pretty decent - I am wondering if maybe the switch to powerful lighting might have caused this but the light went back on around 1 1/2 months ago and it started looking ropey last week.....I'm thinking the temp did it?

 

It's still eating happily but my mithrax crab has turned out to be the spawn of satan and occasionally climbs inside it to steal food when it is eating. I am feeding ultra seafan feed particles mixed with reef roids once every two months which I originally bought to feed my goniopora which leads me to.....

 

I can't gauge health on my other corals as my mithrax destroyed them. He tore my Xenia to pieces and it died about 2 months ago. He didn't even eat it, just ripped it to bits and threw it all over the tank. He also killed my goniopora by repeatedly picking it up and throwing it face down on the substrate during the night. Unfortunately the tissue damage this caused killed it and now it is a coral skeleton in my friends tank waiting to pick up some Xenia. I'm taking him back to the LFS at the weekend as despite regular feeding he is destructive, has wrecked my corals and keeps rearranging my tank. He also murdered my snail. But that is a different story.

 

Sorry for the long post, I figured I best update as to the general health of my tank as it's been so long since I posted. Does anyone have any ideas what this could be? I'm assuming it's the temp drop since it's looked poor since then, but if it is the light, I have a crevice he could go into to shade him a bit, how would I go about moving it? Would it not have moved itself if the light was upsetting it?

 

As always, critique, advice and just general chit chat welcome

[MrsPeet15]

Anybody? ?

[Clown79]

A mushroom going white or see through would indicate most likely too much light. Most mushrooms don't like a lot of light.

[MrsPeet15]

A mushroom going white or see through would indicate most likely too much light. Most mushrooms don't like a lot of light.

Oh that's a shame, maybe the new light has done it then ? Do you know if they're easy to move clown? There is a shady spot at the front of the tank?

[Clown79]

Whats it attached to?

 

What is your lighting?

[MrsPeet15]

Whats it attached to?

 

What is your lighting?

 

It's attached direct to the LR. It moved itself there when we first dropped it in and hasn't moved since. I've read online about fragging then and peeling off and moving around but I'm not too convinced I should be doing that whilst it looks so ropey?

 

This is a link to my light:

 

http://www.swelluk.com/tmc-v2ilumenair-nano-led-lights/?gclid=CjwKEAiAlZDFBRCKncm67qihiHwSJABtoNIgKjca-O2rjvkskZZaFYMosY0-DMJ5VdvVbW3WF5SuvhoC7bDw_wcB

 

I have the marine white one. Let me know what you think!

[MrsPeet15]

This is when I got it

 

 

And this is now

 

[Clown79]

The light doesn't seem that powerful. 3 watts is pretty low if that's the correct info.

[MrsPeet15]

So it could be that it isn't bleaching then?

[markalot]

It's still big and fluffy, just a little bleached.  Raise the light, or reduce the time it's on, and make sure the water is not too clean.  How long is your light on?

 

Shrooms can be odd.  They do well in my SPS take with low measurable nutrients but in newer tanks, even with higher PO4 and NO3 they can struggle.

[MrsPeet15]

On 17/02/2017 at 1:15 PM, markalot said:

It's still big and fluffy, just a little bleached.  Raise the light, or reduce the time it's on, and make sure the water is not too clean.  How long is your light on?

 

Shrooms can be odd.  They do well in my SPS take with low measurable nutrients but in newer tanks, even with higher PO4 and NO3 they can struggle.

Hey Markalot thanks for your reply. They were on for 8 hours, but now ive reduced this to 7 incase it was bleaching. Aside from the colour it does seem healthy, do you think it might recover its colour? My Nitrates are hovering between 5-10 at the moment so I wouldn't say my water is particularly 'clean' if this is what you mean?

[markalot]

1 hour ago, MrsPeet15 said:

Hey Markalot thanks for your reply. They were on for 8 hours, but now ive reduced this to 7 incase it was bleaching. Aside from the colour it does seem healthy, do you think it might recover its colour? My Nitrates are hovering between 5-10 at the moment so I wouldn't say my water is particularly 'clean' if this is what you mean?

 

I think it will slowly recover color.  When I have shrooms die they shrivel up to nothing and melt away.  I suspect the light, many fixed LED fixtures have too much white light compared to the blue.  Cutting to 7 hours might work, or raising the fixture or somehow shading to reduce the light a bit.   

[RayWhisperer]

Im known for going against the grain. Here, I will continue this grand tradition.

 

considering this occurred when the heater broke. As well as you keeping the current temp at a chilly 73. I'm saying it's most likely temp related. Slowly raising the temp to 79/80 will help immensely. 

 

Corals are known to bleach not just from high temps, but low temps, as well.

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html

[J-Ranko]

Bleaching is a response to stress, which can be induced by many factors other than lighting (such as temperature). If it was otherwise doing fine until the heater malfunction, I'd say it's more likely because of the heater. However, given that the light fixture is new and was introduced around the same time as the heater malfunction, it's also likely affecting it.  

 

Raise the temperature gradually, and acclimate it to the new light. It should be fine.

[MrsPeet15]

Hey guys the bank so much for the replies.

 

i have steadily increased the temp in the tank and the mushroom appears to be recovering some of its flourescent colour, fingers crossed he's on the mend!