Wombat's 4G Shroom Room

[MortalWombat]

Hello! After a short hiatus I'm getting back to keeping a reef tank. This is a 10"x10" cube which I estimate holds about 4 gallons or less. I have kept a number of tanks in the past, both nano and macro (including a 300 gallon mixed LPS reef I maintained for a client for several years). I'm looking forward to dipping my toes back into the hobby. 

 

The goal of this aquarium is to house some designer soft corals and a modest clean up crew. It's not likely I will add any fish, but never say never. The idea is a low-light, low-flow, low-maintenance tank with a mature bio-filter. I am going bare bottom in this one and maximizing live rock in the back chambers. I might switch to smaller chunks inside of media bags. As coralline develops I may add kalk to the top-off reservoir, but in general I will try and avoid stocking calcifying organisms to the system.

 

The main tonga branch is siliconed and glued to the back panel, everything else is just loose pukani chunk so I can farm or rearrange as desired. The tank was just filled today with RS blue bucket mixed at 1.024 and a capful of Dr. Tims. The light I ordered is a "Lominie" LED gooseneck. Once the light arrives I will add some dried coralline I have saved to seed the rock work. 

 

I'm going fishless and sandless in this build which is out of the ordinary for me. Instead of feeding pellet or meaty foods to the tank, I want to focus exclusively on planktonic foods in order to establish a lot of filter feeders in the rockwork, and of course, grow some healthy shrooms! 

 

 

[Tired]

Interesting scape, with the rock sticking out of the water like that. I'll be curious to see if the algae gets above the waterline at all, since the rock will probably be wet past the waterline slightly. 

 

Didn't know dry coraline works to seed a tank. I guess that'd be the spores. How long does it last out of the water? 

[ReefTaco]

I'm follow this cause I LOVE shrooms 🍄

[MortalWombat]

14 hours ago, Tired said:

Interesting scape, with the rock sticking out of the water like that. I'll be curious to see if the algae gets above the waterline at all, since the rock will probably be wet past the waterline slightly. 

 

Didn't know dry coraline works to seed a tank. I guess that'd be the spores. How long does it last out of the water? 

Thanks. Algal spores remaining dormant during unfavorable conditions is a well-known process. As for the longevity of the spores that come from the various species of coralline algae, you will need a scientist to answer that one. These scrapings have been dry for less than 2 years. It would be neat if the coralline grew all the way up the tonga branch, I guess we will see what happens. 

 

13 hours ago, Instant_taco said:

I'm follow this cause I LOVE shrooms 🍄

Welcome my mycelial bredren! 

[banasophia]

Cool… looking forward to watching your tank come together… awesome scape!

[MortalWombat]

On 10/2/2021 at 1:05 PM, banasophia said:

Cool… looking forward to watching your tank come together… awesome scape!

Thanks! I'm excited to see how it develops as well. Progress will probably fairly slow in this build as I'm not looking to add a lot of livestock from the jump. I also need to figure out how to get my hands on a bounce shroom or two without selling any of my organs to science... 

[MortalWombat]

 

The light arrived. For $60 I'm really impressed. Affordable LED fixtures have improved lightyears since I was last in the market. I killed the pump and added the coralline flakes to the tank. I'm going to leave the pump off for a few days to (hopefully) give the spores a chance to do their thing. 

 

[kimdawg]

I love your concept and I can't wait to see it evolve,

[MortalWombat]

11 hours ago, kimdawg said:

I love your concept and I can't wait to see it evolve,

Thanks Kimdawg, in the meantime I will give some background on this aquarium. It is a "micro-reefs llc" acrylic tank I picked up several years back. It spent most of its life as a home for my red mangrove, which was transitioned to freshwater shortly after being planted in the new tank. 

 

 

 

 

The mangrove did really well and has since been transplanted up twice. It's my favorite pet (don't tell my cat). This is a picture of it from last week: 

 

 

[MortalWombat]

I did some random work on the tank today including chunking the rock in the back chamber and placing it into a media bag to keep things tidy.

 

 

I also cut a neoprene leveling mat to go beneath the tank and performed a 50% water change. Afterwards I dosed a few ml's of Dr. Tim's. 

 

 

I found these tiny little media bags at my LFS today while picking up supplies for a paludarium build. These are the PERFECT size for pico and nano use in my opinion! I will be running GAC in this tank.  

 

 

Still no livestock to speak of. Hopefully the coralline spores are busy growing... Only time will tell. Happy Saturday : ) 

[debbeach13]

Great find on the small media bags. I have not seen any lately just huge ones. 

[gena]

Nice!  I love a good shroom tank!  We need more of them 😄 .

[Chris's Fishes]

Following! I really do need to get one of the micro-reefs tanks whenever I have the room... they look so nice! I almost broke down and bought one of the 5 gallons they had on sale!

[MortalWombat]

4 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Great find on the small media bags. I have not seen any lately just huge ones. 

It comes in a 4 pack, so my plan is to prep and rinse all of them and store them in a ziplock, that way I always have a backup on hand for my viv and reef tank. 

 

51 minutes ago, gena said:

Nice!  I love a good shroom tank!  We need more of them 😄 .

Thanks Gena, I've seen your work over the years and I'm a fan! I was initially considering rockflower nems for this build, but I think a designer shroom farm will be a lot of fun. The plan as of now is to buy just a single polyp of something fancy, grow it out and trade for other specimens. I'm thinking 3 or 4 types of rhodactis bounce shrooms would really tie the room together...

 

31 minutes ago, Chris's Fishes said:

Following! I really do need to get one of the micro-reefs tanks whenever I have the room... they look so nice! I almost broke down and bought one of the 5 gallons they had on sale!

I almost bought one of those as well, at under $100 that's an amazing deal. I noticed he was running bigger return pumps on those tanks, which was the main attraction for me. My tank has an 80gph return, I like the flow rate it creates through the back compartment, but the display is on the low end of low-flow. It's likely I will end up adding a small PH because the return compartment is probably too small to fit anything larger. 

[MortalWombat]

This is the return compartment (fascinating, I'm sure), if anyone knows of a pump that might fit this area that is at least 100gph, drop me a line! 

 

 

And on a slightly unrelated note, this is where I'm at with my paludarium build: 

 

 

[MortalWombat]

 

I finally got around to ordering some livestock for the room, including our first shroom citizen (just a ric. florida, but still exciting!). I also ordered pods, 2 crabs and a snail. I will be feeding very light in the beginning, keeping up on water changes and of course dosing more bacteria to account for the sudden increase in bio-load. 

[MortalWombat]

I just snagged the first bounce shroom from one of the site sponsors, Cultivated Reef.

 

That will be all of the livestock for the foreseeable future. Going forward I would like to do direct trades with hobbyists for other mushroom specimens. A St. Thomas and more bounce varieties are on my collection list. I have contingency plans for the crabs if they start causing a ruckus. This is meant to be a coral-first kind of tank, though I do enjoy crustaceans! 

[ReefTaco]

List looks good so far. I think I can say I'm growing a mushroom garden my self I got 9 different shrooms in my 5 gallon so far and I want more!!! I'm afraid so get a bounce or a jawbreaker as this is my first pico tank and those are some pricey shrooms. I'm afraid I might kill them so I'm wait till my tank is mature before I spend 100+ on a single coral.

 

What's your favorite species of shroom? I think rhodactis is my fav

[MortalWombat]

11 minutes ago, Instant_taco said:

List looks good so far. I think I can say I'm growing a mushroom garden my self I got 9 different shrooms in my 5 gallon so far and I want more!!! I'm afraid so get a bounce or a jawbreaker as this is my first pico tank and those are some pricey shrooms. I'm afraid I might kill them so I'm wait till my tank is mature before I spend 100+ on a single coral.

 

What's your favorite species of shroom? I think rhodactis is my fav

Mushrooms are great! Rhodactis is probably my favorite genus of soft coral. I have a soft spot for Caribbean reefs (gorgs, elkhorns etc.) and would like to build a biotope someday. LPS might be my favorite category overall though. I have always adored fungia plates, scolys, blastos and acans/micromussa. It's hard to pick one species overall!

 

Even though I think the prices some bounce shrooms are fetching is a little ridiculous, I must admit it's very cool to finally see a lowly mushroom coral pulling some weight in the hobby. 

[ReefTaco]

6 hours ago, MortalWombat said:

Mushrooms are great! Rhodactis is probably my favorite genus of soft coral. I have a soft spot for Caribbean reefs (gorgs, elkhorns etc.) and would like to build a biotope someday. LPS might be my favorite category overall though. I have always adored fungia plates, scolys, blastos and acans/micromussa. It's hard to pick one species overall!

 

Even though I think the prices some bounce shrooms are fetching is a little ridiculous, I must admit it's very cool to finally see a lowly mushroom coral pulling some weight in the hobby. 

I agree that it's nice to see mushrooms get the spot light for once. I remember when zoa we're the new hotness and they started importing all these crazy colors for big bucks. Funny thing the other day I was browsing YouTube and reefbuilders had a segment about this like 10k discosoma with some super crazy colors. Purple monster jawbreaker it was from 2017 I know but it seems like bounce mushrooms are the new hype right now.

[MortalWombat]

8 minutes ago, Instant_taco said:

I agree that it's nice to see mushrooms get the spot light for once. I remember when zoa we're the new hotness and they started important all these crazy colors for big bucks. Funny thing the other day I was browsing YouTube and reefbuilders had a segment about this like 10k discosoma with some super crazy colors. Purple monster jawbreaker it was from 2017 I know but it seems like bounce mushrooms are the new hype right now.

Oh wow that is crazy money : O Check out this Hallelujah Bounce if you haven't, it's pretty wild: https://reefbuilders.com/2019/07/19/hallelujah-bounce-shroom-is-a-miracle-of-colorful-bubbles/

[ReefTaco]

4 hours ago, MortalWombat said:

Oh wow that is crazy money : O Check out this Hallelujah Bounce if you haven't, it's pretty wild: https://reefbuilders.com/2019/07/19/hallelujah-bounce-shroom-is-a-miracle-of-colorful-bubbles/

Color so crazy it almost looks fake.

[Tired]

That's a pretty nice bounce you got. Color intensity clearly cranked up, but it should keep that bowling-alley-carpet look in any tank, I'd imagine. 

 

If not for the fact that I don't trust any rhodactis not to eat my very, very small fish, I'd keep an eye out for a bounce at a nice price. I'm waiting for them to get a chunk lower before I put any real effort into finding them, though- still too pricey for me. 

 

I continue to be interested to see how this grows out. Have you considered a single tall bit of livestock, like maybe some halimeda, as contrast to the mushroom shapes? 

 

You aren't in Texas by any chance, are you? I've got some rics that just do not like my tank, that I'd happily give you if you were close to me. Assuming you'd want a few very small rics. 

[MortalWombat]

4 minutes ago, Tired said:

That's a pretty nice bounce you got. Color intensity clearly cranked up, but it should keep that bowling-alley-carpet look in any tank, I'd imagine. 

 

If not for the fact that I don't trust any rhodactis not to eat my very, very small fish, I'd keep an eye out for a bounce at a nice price. I'm waiting for them to get a chunk lower before I put any real effort into finding them, though- still too pricey for me. 

 

I continue to be interested to see how this grows out. Have you considered a single tall bit of livestock, like maybe some halimeda, as contrast to the mushroom shapes? 

 

You aren't in Texas by any chance, are you? I've got some rics that just do not like my tank, that I'd happily give you if you were close to me. Assuming you'd want a few very small rics. 

 

That's very kind of you, the state where I live actually touches panhandles with yours! As for the vendor photo, I don't really know what's going on but there is also a heavy vignette filter applied which looks odd. It appears the seller was possibly keeping it on the rack with zoas, which tend to like stronger flow and light. I'm hoping that after some time in the shroom room it will look a bit more like pictures of other sunkist I have seen.

 

I think the main tonga branch coming out of the water gives the scape good contrast, but if I do actually get around to culturing my own phyto I would like to give a sponge a try. Sponges are neat. The flow in this tank is going to be a limiting factor for a lot of stuff -it's pretty calm. 

 

That being said I also am building a paludarium, culturing isopods, springtails and FW shrimp, so I need to pace myself in terms of raising invertebrates in little tubs and jars. Phyto is probably a ways off. 

[MortalWombat]

I couldn't pass up this deal on a new Micro-Reefs tank: 

 

This tank has more growing area, stronger flow, lids and a media basket, all of which are upgrades over my current tank. I was considering upgrading the shroom room as soon as it arrives, but I really like the look of the tonga branch that I have going (I might even glue a tillandsia at the tippy-top). Until further notice I will be designating the new tank as a QT, with the possibility of using it to expand my mushroom collection further down the road.