Green hairy mushroom suddenly dying!!! Help!!

[Karlos Joya]

Hi folks! I've experienced one of the strangest things in this hobby..my colony of hairy mushroom all of a sudden started dying, looks to me that something has been grabing a bite out of them during the night. Does any fish do this at all? Maybe a shrimp? Here are some pic of what I've found this happened in a period of 2 weeks from full healthy mushrooms to basically none. If anyome has experinced this in the past please advise! Thank you all in advance.

 

[Formulator]

Lots of fish and invertebrates will eat soft corals. What do you have in there?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi folks! I've experienced one of the strangest things in this hobby..my colony of hairy mushroom all of a sudden started dying, looks to me that something has been grabing a bite out of them during the night. Does any fish do this at all? Maybe a shrimp? Here are some pic of what I've found this happened in a period of 2 weeks from full healthy mushrooms to basically none. If anyome has experinced this in the past please advise! Thank you all in advance.

They are capable of literally melting away when Phosphate is high, too much light and/or flow, lack of feeding and elevated salinity or temperature ( a few things to check)

 

[Karlos Joya]

Lots of fish and invertebrates will eat soft corals. What do you have in there?

Lots of fish and invertebrates will eat soft corals. What do you have in there?

Fish:
- Tangs: Naso, Orange Shoulder, Yellow , Dory/Blue & Vlammingi.
- Tomato Clownnfish (Who used to host them) & 3 Clown Fish
- 11 Green Chromis & 1 Blue Yellow Tail Damsel.
- 1 Lownma Blenie
- 1 Bangai Cardenal

Shrimp:
- 1 Cleaner
- 1 Scarlet Cleaner
- 2 Boxer / banded
- Peppermint Shrimp (Wich I already removed)

Snails:
Cerith
Nerith
Nassarius

Crabs:
Gorilla Crab (Wich I found roaming around and think got in as a hichiker, has been removed as well)
Blue legged hermits
Red Scarlet Hermits

In thinl that all

 

[Formulator]

I don’t see anything in there that would eat coral, except what you already removed.

 

[Karlos Joya]

They are capable of literally melting away when Phosphate is high, too much light and/or flow, lack of feeding and elevated salinity or temperature ( a few things to check)

Thank you for your input, checked my salinity and phosphates, little did I knew my salt creeped up to 1.037 sg and my phosphates were at .90 ppm, slowly but surely brought them down over the course of a week or so, the culprit? My digital salinity checker giving me wrong readings and overfeeding my tank, oddly enough the only coral that melted away were those hairy mushrooms. Lots to learn and work on...Thanks again!

They are capable of literally melting away when Phosphate is high, too much light and/or flow, lack of feeding and elevated salinity or temperature ( a few things to check)

Thank you for your input, checked my salinity and phosphates, little did I knew my salt creeped up to 1.037 ppt and my phosphates were at .90 , slowly but surely brought it down over the course of a week, the culprit? My dogital salinity checker giving me bad lecture and my overfeeding schedule. Oddly enough the only coral that melted away were those hairy mushrooms. Thanks again!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thank you for your input, checked my salinity and phosphates, little did I knew my salt creeped up to 1.037 sg and my phosphates were at .90 ppm, slowly but surely brought them down over the course of a week or so, the culprit? My digital salinity checker giving me wrong readings and overfeeding my tank, oddly enough the only coral that melted away were those hairy mushrooms. Lots to learn and work on...Thanks again!

Thank you for your input, checked my salinity and phosphates, little did I knew my salt creeped up to 1.037 ppt and my phosphates were at .90 , slowly but surely brought it down over the course of a week, the culprit? My dogital salinity checker giving me bad lecture and my overfeeding schedule. Oddly enough the only coral that melted away were those hairy mushrooms. Thanks again!

That'll sure do it and do calibrate salt tester periodically

 

[Formulator]

my salt creeped up to 1.037 sg

Wow, incredible this only affected your mushrooms. Is that really 1.037 or did you mean 1.027?

 

[Karlos Joya]

Wow, incredible this only affected your mushrooms. Is that really 1.037 or did you mean 1.027?

Literally 1.037 ( One point O three seven) lol crazy huh? I mean it did affect other corals but did not killed them like it killed those mushroom, I guess it has to do with the fact that the salinity creep up slowly over the course of a couple months.

 

[Formulator]

Literally 1.037 ( One point O three seven) lol crazy huh? I mean it did affect other corals but did not killed them like it killed those mushroom, I guess it has to do with the fact that the salinity creep up slowly over the course of a couple months.

That is impressive. Now the question is why did it creep up? I know you had a measurement error, but that doesn't really explain how it rose… Are you topping off with fresh water to account for evaporation?

 

[Karlos Joya]

That is impressive. Now the question is why did it creep up? I know you had a measurement error, but that doesn't really explain how it rose… Are you topping off with fresh water to account for evaporation?

It did because I was using a regular refractometer before to check my salinity then decided to try the digital one since they are supposed to be more accurate, basically wanted to have perfect salinity so decided to buy one and when I calibrated it with the solution it came with and checked my tanks salinity it read " 1.020 " so I rose my salinity with water changes (more salt) slowly trying to reach 1.026 cause I thought it was low based on the reading, never thought the digital refractomer was completely off giving me a wrong lecture even tho they are supposed to be more reliable / accurate..this is the one I purchased.. lesson learned.