To dip or not to dip (jawbreaker, coral rx)

[Chrisv.]

I just bought a rock with several OG jawbreakers on it from a local reefer. I'm hesitant to dip the whole rock, even with a rinse. I could try to cut them off, but also not ideal. The guy I bought it from has insanely nice tanks that look healthy and he claims to have no pests.

I could chisel them off. The only dip I have on hand is coral rx.

Is there a specific pest I should look for on mushrooms? How important is this?

 

[Saltyreef]

More so pests would be on the live rock.
And it depends on your QT protocol.
If you have a pristine strict quarantined tank dont do it...
If you dont really quarantine....i wouldnt hesitate to toss it in the tank without a dip.

I would vigeriously shake it off in a bucket of tank water though myself...

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

I agree with what was said above and will add that I would not under any circumstances chisel off those jawbreakers. They are in my opinion the most difficult mushroom to get to attach and they detach from stress quite easily. I've had two melt after months of them not being willing to attach to anything for longer than a day.

 

[Chrisv.]

Thanks for the feedback! This is my first foray into high end mushrooms. Come to think of it, the last time I had mushrooms in a tank was >10 yrs ago, and they were free because mushrooms were not considered cool back then. To be fair, they were nothing special.

As of right now, my tank is clean. However, the jawbreaker rock cost more than all other corals in the tank combined.

 

[Chrisv.]

I ended up cutting the proverbial baby in half: I used a Dremel to reduce the size of the rock, preserving the area within an in or so of the shrooms. Then I carefully cleaned the remaining exposed rock. Hopefully I didn't tick them off too much.

 

[Chrisv.]

Shrooms!