Please Help! First time reef aquarist here and my Green Hairy Mushroom is shrinking!

Max19 · May 31, 2024

Hey everyone I’m new to this forum and seeking some guidance and second opinions. So I got this Mushroom about 2 weeks ago and it looked great, I slowly acclimated it and the other soft coral I got to the lights and all was well. It was big and puffy and healthy. Suddenly 4-5 days ago I wake up to find it’s shrunk extremely and is curling in. Today I found that it moved on the rock a little down from where it was.

Here’s what I think could be happening and I need all your help determining:

A) Too much light
B) Hermit crabs agitated it
C) It’s splitting
D) Toxin from toadstool corals in tank are causing it to retract
E) Not enough nutrients
F) Too much flow

Here’s some photos of before and after:

I’ve done a 10% water change weekly and have been frequently testing, I feed more corals one a week and have 2 clowns, some snails and some blue dwarf hermit crabs.

Here are my current parameters:
Temp: 78 F
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5
PH: 8
Alkalinity: 6.5
Calcium: 400
Phosphate: 0
Salinity: 35

I’ve lowered the light to 80% of what it was before but I just don’t know what to do with this or if it’ll make it. There isn’t any aptasia underneath and I made sure to dip all new corals so I hope someone will be able to help guide me through this

Also I put in some carbon for a day but it had no effect that I could see

SaltySqueeble · Jun 1, 2024

Max19 said:
Hey everyone I’m new to this forum and seeking some guidance and second opinions. So I got this Mushroom about 2 weeks ago and it looked great, I slowly acclimated it and the other soft coral I got to the lights and all was well. It was big and puffy and healthy. Suddenly 4-5 days ago I wake up to find it’s shrunk extremely and is curling in. Today I found that it moved on the rock a little down from where it was.

Here’s what I think could be happening and I need all your help determining:

A) Too much light
B) Hermit crabs agitated it
C) It’s splitting
D) Toxin from toadstool corals in tank are causing it to retract
E) Not enough nutrients
F) Too much flow

Here’s some photos of before and after:

I’ve done a 10% water change weekly and have been frequently testing, I feed more corals one a week and have 2 clowns, some snails and some blue dwarf hermit crabs.

Here are my current parameters:
Temp: 78 F
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5
PH: 8
Alkalinity: 6.5
Calcium: 400
Phosphate: 0
Salinity: 35

I’ve lowered the light to 80% of what it was before but I just don’t know what to do with this or if it’ll make it. There isn’t any aptasia underneath and I made sure to dip all new corals so I hope someone will be able to help guide me through this

Also I put in some carbon for a day but it had no effect that I could see

They do like some nutrients to thrive. If phosphate is zero, your corals will close up and starve. You’ll need to bump that up slowly. Plus, a bit more CA and alk would also be good.

Max19 · Jun 1, 2024

SaltySqueeble said:
They do like some nutrients to thrive. If phosphate is zero, your corals will close up and starve. You’ll need to bump that up slowly. Plus, a bit more CA and alk would also be good.

Thanks for the response. I realized I was being a bit too attentive to cleaning so I’m swapping to water changes every two weeks instead of every week and trying to feed a little more. I’ve never seen a hungry coral before so thanks for the input.
I’ll try and raise it asap and see if it helps. Thanks again for your comment!

Mr. Mojo Rising · Jun 1, 2024

When did you build your tank, it tanks looks brand new, and the nitrate/phosphate is very low, I would say the nutrients are too low.

Max19 · Jun 3, 2024

Mr. Mojo Rising said:
When did you build your tank, it tanks looks brand new, and the nitrate/phosphate is very low, I would say the nutrients are too low.

I got fish in a month ago, I thought since my parameters were good it wouldn’t be a stretch to put in the easiest to keep coral. Clearly I overlooked just how clean my water was and how much the coral eat from the water. I bought some Brightwell phosphate and nitrate additives and dosed the appropriate amount for 0.02 phos for my tank size and I’m hoping this will help. I’ve been feeding much more also

AquaLogic · Jun 3, 2024

Max19 said:
I got fish in a month ago, I thought since my parameters were good it wouldn’t be a stretch to put in the easiest to keep coral. Clearly I overlooked just how clean my water was and how much the coral eat from the water. I bought some Brightwell phosphate and nitrate additives and dosed the appropriate amount for 0.02 phos for my tank size and I’m hoping this will help. I’ve been feeding much more also

For bringing back corals that are struggling or lacking nutrition, I've recently found the Red Sea Reef Energy AB+ to work well. I used to use Reef Roids, but they are so dirty and spiked my phosphates out of control, even with recommended dosing. I also found many of my corals react very poorly to being direct fed with Reef Roids the way they instruct. The Reef Energy seems much cleaner and also seems to impact the corals better in my experience. It also wouldn't hurt to does some live Phytoplankton. Something I also vastly prefer over reef roids.

bryanfuel1 · Jun 3, 2024

For what it’s worth, I have mostly mushrooms in my tank and I do a water change like every 6 months. Started with 1 bounce mushroom a few years ago and now have 35 last I counted.