Why do mushrooms feel unconfortable in my tank?

[LongshotLegendUK]

Hi All,

It's my first post so sorry if I've missed any rules or anything!

Can anyone shed some insights into why mushrooms seem to partially retract (permanently) in my tank? they were all like 3 x the size when purchase over 6 months ago. LPS seem to love it in there, but softies in general...not so much!

Attached are some images, including one of my parameter spreadsheets.

It's a 9-month-old 10g nano mixed reef, running small amounts of carbon and GFO in an internal filter - occasional broadcast of AB+ and Reef Roids, frozen cubes x1 per day.

Any help is appreciated!

(Oh, and the Rhodactis ones seem to be better for longer...)

 

[Jason_MrFrags]

Nitrates look a little low for lps tank, 5-10, and your Phosphates look high 0.10 is what I try for so there isn't unwanted algae growth.

 

[Reefbeast]

How do you keep your nitrates so low? I have trouble keeping mine under 25PPM on my 20 gallon AIO but, I do have some mushrooms and they seem to like it. Jason is probably right just feed a little more try to increase your Nitrates.

 

[EricR]

No answer here but how's the flow around the problem ones?
*upper left one looks like it might be lifting but may just be the way I'm seeing the picture

Only mushrooms I have are ricordea and they tend to wander if I blast them too much.

 

[LongshotLegendUK]

Nitrates look a little low for lps tank, 5-10, and your Phosphates look high 0.10 is what I try for so there isn't unwanted algae growth.

Thanks, was thinking of upping GFO amount slightly to lower phosphates a little, doesn't even read on UL Hanna Checker as its too high so that's useless!

However, LPS are doing great, its softies that are struggling

 

[LongshotLegendUK]

How do you keep your nitrates so low? I have trouble keeping mine under 25PPM on my 20 gallon AIO but, I do have some mushrooms and they seem to like it. Jason is probably right just feed a little more try to increase your Nitrates.

Honestly, I have no idea, nitrates are not something I've ever tried to control. I used "colony" bacteria to start the tank off in the cycle, maybe they have a good culture of bacteria?

In fairness, if my nitrates are low, then yeah, Jason probably is right that I need to feed more. I only have 1 Clown, 1 Royal Gramma, and 1 Yellow Clown Goby though and I feel that 1 cube a day is probably enough. I add parts of that cube 3 times between 5 PM and 9 PM...

 

[LongshotLegendUK]

No answer here but how's the flow around the problem ones?
*upper left one looks like it might be lifting but may just be the way I'm seeing the picture

Only mushrooms I have are ricordea and they tend to wander if I blast them too much.

Yeah, this was one of my thoughts as well, I think flow may well be a factor as it's very fast from left to right around the front of the rockface. See the green mushrooms not circled on the right, they're open and seem healthy and the flow is much slower there.... its kinda a dead spot...could that be it?

 

[EricR]

Yeah, this was one of my thoughts as well, I think flow may well be a factor as it's very fast from left to right around the front of the rockface. See the green mushrooms not circled on the right, they're open and seem healthy and the flow is much slower there.... its kinda a dead spot...could that be it?

I'll defer to mushroom experts here but it's definitely something to consider.
*as mentioned, my only shrooms are ricordea and while I've never seen them retract/shrink, mine definitely slowly wander away from too much flow if I overdo it