mushroom deaths

[omayra]

Hello people.

I'm hoping someone can give some thoughts to what I'm missing that keeps killing off my beloved mushrooms. I'm running a 20g high with a converted skilter/fuge and an aqua c remora skimmer with a 3inch sand bed. It currently has 96watts and will shorty be at 168 or 8.5 watts per gallon. I have had a number of mushrooms for several months that seemed to be thriving with one of them having a baby. About 1 month ago, I noticed that things weren't opening up fully and that the mushrooms seemed to be unhappy. Next thing is 2 of them started to spit out those curly ribbon looking insides and shriveled up. I did an emergency water change. I waited a couple days and one more mushrooms shriveled up and I did another water change. Everything else, hammer, candy cane, star polyps, zoos, looked fine. So now I've lost 3 mushrooms and have 2 more that look unhappy. My water tests great (ammonia, nitrates, nitrites), my calcium was a little high so I haven't dosed. I don't know of anything in there that would be attacking the 'shrooms. I do have them in a low flow area that I need to increase flow to becuase I'm starting to get some red algae on the surface of my sand bed. Could it be that they're in stagnant water? What am I missing? Should I start testing for other things now that I'm working on a reef tank. Should I add stronium? I'm truly bummed my mushroom collection has been crushed. Help?

[finnegan]

Omayra,

 

I had same exact problem. I was able to find 3 things contributing:

 

1. My salinity had crept up to 1.028.

2. My calcium was around 500 due to using straight Kalkwasser for top off.

3. I had an old bag of chemi-pure in the sump.

 

1. I corrected the salinity to 1.024 and have begun using a refractometer to measure salinity.

 

2. I started diluting my kalkwasser (25% full strength Kallwasser 75% R/O). My tank evaporates 2 gallons of water per week so I end up dosing 2 quarts Kalkwasser a week with the top off water and my calcium is staying steady around 400-420 and alkalinity is hovering around 11-12 dkh (somehow without the addition of buffer-I think it's the 2" live sand bottom breaking down?).

 

3. Also I scrapped the chemi-pure and began using a 1/2 cup of Kent Marine Reef Carbon in a mesh bag just hanging in sump and change it once a week.

 

Another thing that my mushrooms seem to appreciate is the regular additon of Iodine and Iron. I use Natureef products at the labeled rate of 1 drop per gallon weekly. I split the dosing up daily (2.5 drops/day) to try and make sure both are constantly available due to the regular use of carbon.

 

After correcting all of these factors my mushrooms are beautiful and are reproducing rapidly!

 

Good Luck.

[omayra]

Ya know. I reminded me of something. About that same time as all this started, my friend started his saltwater. I helped with the set-up and he bought his own equipment shortly after. His refractor read salinity higher than what mine was. I took it to a LFS and tested it and it seemed that it was on target with theirs but maybe that was a fluke. I'm going to test it again and see if that's an issue. Thanks for the thoughts.

[omayra]

hah, I meant to say "...YOU reminded me of something"