Beginner Needs Help with Mushroom

[Nroddot]

Hi,


Beginner reefer here. Tank has been running for about 50 days now. I only have two clowns and a lavender mushroom coral in the tank. I wanted to start with a relatively cheap and hardy coral to see how it does before I even consider adding additional coral. A portion of the coral looks "bleached" and dead. The coral has been in the tank for a little over a week now. I do not know how long it has been like this because I just repositioned it today and the bleached portion of the coral was not viewable prior in its old position.

I'm using the REEF LED 90 lights with Red Sea coral pro salt. Salinity is at 1.025 and temperature is 77-79 degrees F

Any ideas why this happened and can it recover? This is the first coral I've ever cared for.

My camera isn't the best quality, but you should easily still be able to see the bleached portion of coral.

 

[Terry Mattson]

I have my mushroom that looks like yours about 2/3 down from top. Using AI 26HD lights. I do feed the coral with reef roids about once a week. It also captures some fish food, baby shrimp, etc.

Couple of things

Check dkh (alkalinity), calcium, and magnesium levels. New tank could be low an alkalinity. So test and make sure your numbers are in range. Would set mushroom low in the tank.

 

[Streetlamp]

What are you running you lights at? I killed off a couple of corals initially with Reefled 90 by going too intense, also where in the tank did you have it?

 

[Nroddot]

What are you running you lights at? I killed off a couple of corals initially with Reefled 90 by going too intense, also where in the tank did you have it?

I'm running blues at 70% and whites at 30%

I chose one of the pre-set programs they had and just lowered the intensity. If I remember correctly, it originally had blues at 100% and whites at 50%

The mushroom was sitting directly on the sandbed, the picture taken yesterday was taken right after I placed it on a rock a few inches above the sandbed. I've now moved it back to its a original location to keep it as low in the tank as possible.

 

[Streetlamp]

How deep is the tank? I run blue 55% white 35% my mushrooms seem to like it. You might be a bit high. I was up there and had problems. I’m far from an expert tho still a beginner

 

[Nroddot]

It's 21 inches deep. It's a Reeer 350.

I turned the blues down to 60% and whites to 25%. Hopefully this little coral can recover.