Bacteria Infection Melting Mushrooms

[Abrfrie88]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been having a major issue with my mushroom corals over the past four months and can’t figure out what’s going on. I’ve collected mushrooms for a while and had built up a pretty large collection. Then, out of nowhere, a few started to shrivel and melt. Over the course of a few weeks more followed. Eventually, I lost over 40 mushrooms.

At that point, I moved the survivors to a friend’s tank. He treated them with some medications (not sure exactly what) and kept them in his system. The ones that were already looking bad didn’t make it, and several more melted even after the move — he even lost a couple in his own tank afterward.

I ran multiple ICP tests throughout this ordeal, and all results came back normal. The only thing that stood out was that my phosphate-to-nitrate ratio wasn’t ideal (phosphate was high at ~0.3 ppm and nitrate around 10 ppm). I’ve since adjusted to bring phosphates down to 0.1–0.2 ppm and raise nitrates to about 20 ppm. My system has always had high phosphates and a lot of these mushrooms were in the tank for months when the phosphates were over 0.5 so I don’t think the higher phosphates are the issue.

Once things stabilized, I figured it was safe to reintroduce them. I moved them back into my system and started restocking some of the mushrooms I’d lost, but within a few weeks, the same thing happened again. One by one they started to shrivel and melt. I’ve since removed all the mushrooms again to my friend’s tank until I can figure out the root cause.

Another ICP test is on the way, but I don’t think it will show anything new since all previous ones were normal. At this point, I’m wondering if the issue could be bacterial. Every other coral in my tank is doing great, it’s only the mushrooms that are affected.

Lighting is kept on the lower side (max PAR around 125), and I’ve had mushrooms melt in both high- and low-light spots, high- and low-flow areas, and in random spots throughout my three frag tanks. That makes me think it’s something in the water column itself.

Could this be bacterial, and if so, is there a broad-spectrum, coral-safe antibiotic I could use as a blanket treatment? Any suggestions for what else I could test or try before attempting to reintroduce them again?

Thanks in advance for any advice or idea!I’m open to all possibilities at this point. Please let me know. Thanks!

 

[BryanM]

I'd post current parameters and last ICP test so other knowledgable folks can chime in.

Shrooms thusfar thrive in my tank, they seem somewhat hardy to me.

Also what kind of shrooms?

 

[JumboShrimp]

This is a depressing story-- so sorry to see you lose such a fine collection. I hope things turn around for you!

 

[Abrfrie88]

I'd post current parameters and last ICP test so other knowledgable folks can chime in.

Shrooms thusfar thrive in my tank, they seem somewhat hardy to me.

Also what kind of shrooms?

I’m still waiting on the results of my most recent icp, but I’ll post it once I get it back. These are the results from my Hanna checkers:
Alk 8.8
Mg 1400
Phosphate 0.1
Nitrate 18.2
Calcium 446

It seems to target discosomas more than other types of mushrooms. I lost all of my jawbreakers and eclectus mushrooms, but it still spread to other types of mushrooms as well. I lost a bunch of different bounce mushrooms as well. There were some mushrooms that made it through the first die off and died during the second. Some of them will be doing great, but then if I would move them to a different part of the tank that isn’t that far they will start to shrivel and melt. It seems that any minor changes will cause them to start the melting process.

 

[EnterName]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been having a major issue with my mushroom corals over the past four months and can’t figure out what’s going on. I’ve collected mushrooms for a while and had built up a pretty large collection. Then, out of nowhere, a few started to shrivel and melt. Over the course of a few weeks more followed. Eventually, I lost over 40 mushrooms.

At that point, I moved the survivors to a friend’s tank. He treated them with some medications (not sure exactly what) and kept them in his system. The ones that were already looking bad didn’t make it, and several more melted even after the move — he even lost a couple in his own tank afterward.

I ran multiple ICP tests throughout this ordeal, and all results came back normal. The only thing that stood out was that my phosphate-to-nitrate ratio wasn’t ideal (phosphate was high at ~0.3 ppm and nitrate around 10 ppm). I’ve since adjusted to bring phosphates down to 0.1–0.2 ppm and raise nitrates to about 20 ppm. My system has always had high phosphates and a lot of these mushrooms were in the tank for months when the phosphates were over 0.5 so I don’t think the higher phosphates are the issue.

Once things stabilized, I figured it was safe to reintroduce them. I moved them back into my system and started restocking some of the mushrooms I’d lost, but within a few weeks, the same thing happened again. One by one they started to shrivel and melt. I’ve since removed all the mushrooms again to my friend’s tank until I can figure out the root cause.

Another ICP test is on the way, but I don’t think it will show anything new since all previous ones were normal. At this point, I’m wondering if the issue could be bacterial. Every other coral in my tank is doing great, it’s only the mushrooms that are affected.

Lighting is kept on the lower side (max PAR around 125), and I’ve had mushrooms melt in both high- and low-light spots, high- and low-flow areas, and in random spots throughout my three frag tanks. That makes me think it’s something in the water column itself.

Could this be bacterial, and if so, is there a broad-spectrum, coral-safe antibiotic I could use as a blanket treatment? Any suggestions for what else I could test or try before attempting to reintroduce them again?

Thanks in advance for any advice or idea!I’m open to all possibilities at this point. Please let me know. Thanks!

Maybe I'm a bit late, but if you can get your hands on a microscope, it would be really interesting to see if there is something out of the ordinary going on with the melting tissue.

You won't be able to see most bacteria with a light microscope very well (if at all), but maybe other critters like a ciliates or protozoans
are causing trouble.

Of course everything you see might be a symptom rather than the underlying cause of the problem, but it still might help the community to learn something, and maybe someone can even identify the issue.