Ailing rhodactis, thriving rhodactis

anemoneanatomy

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I have a bunch of rhodactis mushrooms near one another in my aquarium, and have for months. The longest standing additions were two green rhodactis, then two orange, one red, and now one blue. Something seems to be killing the orange rhodactis, but only the oranges -- they still have their orange bumps but their base color is going from a healthy looking orange to bleached white. All the others seem to be thriving. I'm quite puzzled because if anything, all my water parameters are both better and more stable than when I put them in the tank. I slightly increased the intensity of the lighting for the sake of other corals in my tank right around this time, and was worried it could be that, but at this point, I don't think that's the culprit, either. They are both placed about as low as possible in the aquarium, and in the past have had no issue using the outcropping of rock they are attached to for shade.

I've added some additional mushrooms to the area, including a few ricordea. Could that be the cause? If so, is there a reason it doesn't seem to be affecting the other mushrooms in the area? Is there anything else I should check?

Water Parameters:
  • Salinity: 1.025
  • Temp: 79 F
  • Phosphate: 0.11 ppm
  • Nitrate: 0 ppm
  • Alkalinity: 7.3 dKH
  • Calcium: 422 ppm
 

fishguy242

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hi, any pic's,nitrates bottomed out, my opinion alk too low.. :)
 
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anemoneanatomy

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hi, any pic's,nitrates bottomed out, my opinion alk too low.. :)
PXL_20210707_210257364.jpg

Orange mushroom on the left in the middleground, pictured with its green brethren doing just fine.

I dose Brightwell Reef Energy Plus daily but I am worried about the lack of nitrates, as well. I have NeoNitro and have been using it sparingly to try and fix the issue, but am perhaps being too conservative; I just want to avoid a huge nutrient swing.

And I can pretty easily get my alkalinity up, but this has been going on for months and was a problem even when my dKH was more in the 8-9 range.
 
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anemoneanatomy

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I would guess nitrate deficiency.

Any other trace elements low?
I will work on bringing those up over the next 10 days and report back. I don't believe any trace elements are low, but I will do a 25% water change to replenish any trace elements I may be missing.
 

LRT

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Agreed. Get Nitrates up around 5-10ppm. See what that does with Alk.
Watch Nitrate consumption and def maintain alk. Apprently shrooms don't use alk but do consume alk in form of Nitrates. Your going to want to maintain alk for better overall health of system.
 

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