I have a long term population of two types of mushrooms, reds and green striped. For me detachment is usually small baby mushrooms, budding off from a dense population.
Even when a larger mushroom detaches it always leaves a bit of tissue behind which starts another mushroom.
I have added more light to my tank recently and is does seem to keep the green mushrooms smaller and flatter, usually at the end of the day. One interesting thing I've notice is most of my bottom rock work which is shaded, tends to get colonized and they start the vertical colonization, except in one spot. I have this old piece of palm sized rock which does have mushrooms attached at the sand level, but have yet to colonize the top of the rock. It has been years like this. The rock seems to get a blast of light. I'm tempted to attach a different coral to see how the mushrooms respond. I tried something similar on a much higher platform and the mushrooms took over.
I've been blasting the higher platform to see if the mushrooms would detach, not much to report. They just lay small and flat.
