Injured sunkist bounce mushroom color morph

michaelmessinaglass · Mar 18, 2021

Has anyone out there ever seen a mushroom morph their colors after being injured?? I have a sunkist mushroom that had about 10 orange bounces when I got it. It did great for weeks and then mysteriously starting suffering and shrinking to almost nothing. I wasn’t sure if it was my parameters or my filefish so I sequestered the mushroom in some plexi glass and sure enough it started to improve. So Ive moved the filefish to a new home and the mushroom has been recovering quite well. However, now its only got 4 orange bounces and a lot more but smaller green bounces. Its almost back to the original size that it was when I got it so its clearly still recovering, but I found the color change super interesting! Here are some pictures of when it was sequestered and what it looks like today, both with and without an orange filter.

fishguy242 · Mar 19, 2021

hi, @LRT @MERKEY ...

MERKEY · Mar 19, 2021

Colors on shrooms change a lot. Granted established bubbles don't usually change but after a filefish was munching on them I wouldn't be surprised that the tissue regenerated a little lighter in color.

Super cool shroom !!

michaelmessinaglass · Mar 19, 2021

Thanks for the response! I cant wait to see this grow out now, I wouldn’t mind if it does end up keeping some green bounces!

michaelmessinaglass · Mar 25, 2021

Im going to try and update this thread weekly with progress pictures so we can all track the healing process with this mushroom. One week later and I think it looks like the greenish bubbles are going back to orange what do you think? First two photos without orange lens and second two are with an orange lens

BloopFish · Mar 25, 2021

That is quite amazing. It does appear to be getting less green since the initial pictures. Would you say it has more bubbles now than before (counting both colors)? I think people have always thought the bubbles had something to do with a stress response (to light), so this is interesting.

michaelmessinaglass · Mar 25, 2021

BloopFish said:
That is quite amazing. It does appear to be getting less green since the initial pictures. Would you say it has more bubbles now than before (counting both colors)? I think people have always thought the bubbles had something to do with a stress response (to light), so this is interesting.

Im pretty intrigued too, I didnt think it would change so quickly. I still think it had more bubbles before the injury and if iirc I think they were more centered than they are now. It seems like the all of the small bumps are turning back into bounces though.