Need advice with mushrooms

[mdb_talon]

So hoping to get some advice. Been in hobby a couple decades and grow out a ton of coral of just about all types...usually successfully. For whatever reason i usually struggle with most any mushrooms in any tank I have. I know we got some mushroom freaks here and hoping maybe someone has some advice.

As an example of my issues. With discosoma usually they stay extremely small. I out one in a tank about 4 months ago. It is now 4 or 5 mushrooms, but none of them ever gets bigger than maybe a nickel. Have tried moving to various light intensity and flow nothing seems to help.

Another example is a few rocks full of rhodactis i got shipped to me recently. They came in and had great color and size, but in the past few weeks have turned pretty much a solid orange and shrunk a lot in size(example pic below came from supplier...this is what they came in like though..now just shriveled up and not nearly as good color)


I have many tanks and pretty much same result in all of them. I have put them in lots of different par light and not seen much difference other than at really high the results were worse than normal. I feed a ton of frozen and powder(reed roids and similar). However i have very high export and my nutrients are normally pretty low(nitrates 0-5 and phosphates usually .03-.1). Do they just need dirtier water? Any other suggestions i should try?

 

[Spare time]

Any idea what kind of par value they are receiving? What test kit do you use for nitrate and phosphate.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

IME, discos like low light, low flow, and higher nutrients than what you posted.

 

[mdb_talon]

Thanks for replies!

Any idea what kind of par value they are receiving? What test kit do you use for nitrate and phosphate.

I have tried as low as 50 and as high as 300. I use hanna for both nitrate and phosphate

IME, discos like low light, low flow, and higher nutrients than what you posted.

Thanks. I do wonder if it is just low nutrients as most all my tanks generally stay very low.

 

[Spare time]

If you think it might be a nitrate issue, try dosing amino acids. You can even mix this with reef roids

 

[NanoJHB]

I do agree it's likely the lower nutrients. I have them at various pars and flows but all grow well and get large with "dirtier" water, got a few 5 inchs +