Why are my mushrooms now funnel shaped?

[Just John]

My Rhodactis and Ricordea Florida are all in the same places they have been for months. There has been no change in lighting. But over the last week or two they have begun to spend their days in this funnel shape. About 2/3 of them now look like this. I had slowed down on feeding, but when I feed them they go right back to this shape. Nitrates have been a little low, but it has happened before with no negative effects. They don't appear to be dying or shrinking. Any ideas?

Sal. - 1.026
pH - 8.1
Nitrate - 4
Phos. - .01
Alk - 7.3

 

[Goaway]

but when I feed them they go right back to this shape

It seems, mine do that as well during feeding times. Perhaps to direct food to their mouths?

Edit: Also curious as to what others think.

 

[LRT]

Most of mine do this everytime I feed.
It may be possible that they are cupping for more light considering you stopped feeding them regularly.
Id say your flirting with disaster running at .01 phosphates. Maybe even with Alk at 7.3 your not giving yourself much room for error. Id try and get that up to at least nsw levels but 8-8.5 is where I try to keep mine.
Any idea what par is?

 

[Just John]

It seems, mine do that as well during feeding times. Perhaps to direct food to their mouths?

Edit: Also curious as to what others think.

I thought the same. I always feed directly and they always eat a lot. Doesn't seem to make any difference though.

 

[LRT]

I do have a few shrooms that will lose color with super low phosphates...

 

[Just John]

Most of mine do this everytime I feed.
It may be possible that they are cupping for more light considering you stopped feeding them regularly.
Id say your flirting with disaster running at .01 phosphates. Maybe even with Alk at 7.3 your not giving yourself much room for error. Id try and get that up to at least nsw levels but 8-8.5 is where I try to keep mine.
Any idea what par is?

No idea about the par, but it's not fabulous. I have an OK light, but probably not something that would grow sps. Whenever they get shaded by something growing from above, they just move though.

 

[LRT]

No idea about the par, but it's not fabulous. I have an OK light, but probably not something that would grow sps. Whenever they get shaded by something growing from above, they just move though.

You could try bumping your blues up a
a few % and see if they lay down.
One of my yuma stays in cup mode idk why nothing I can do about it ive tried everything.
Your rhodactis is whats a little concerning. Mine lay flat out basking in the sun when they are happy.
They will cup and stretch in not enough light.
Maybe fix alk.
Maybe feed a little more and get phosphates up.

 

[Dkmoo]

Looks like its reaching for more light? Maybe bc you stopped feeding it needs more energy from photosynthesis so trying to compensate. Esp with nutrient in water no3 and po4 also appear to be on the low end.

Alk should be OK, softies have no bones, shouldn't be as sensitive to the lack of carbonates, esp since ph at 8.1 is pretty good.

 

[LRT]

Looks like its reaching for more light? Maybe bc you stopped feeding it needs more energy from photosynthesis so trying to compensate. Esp with nutrient in water no3 and po4 also appear to be on the low end.

Alk should be OK, softies have no bones, shouldn't be as sensitive to the lack of carbonates, esp since ph at 8.1 is pretty good.

+1
I cant explain why but I do have a few shrooms that are sensitive to alk changes. Especially to the low side. It may have everything to do with low alk is just not clicking with the rest of my params be locked in. Idk

 

[Just John]

I guess I'll try feeding every day. I don't have any fish right now, but for a while I fed a lot of Reef Roids to my tank every day and the phosphates were always low. I now dose nitrates to keep them above 1. I will crank up the blues as recommended.

 

[Dkmoo]

+1
I cant explain why but I do have a few shrooms that are sensitive to alk changes. Especially to the low side. It may have everything to do with low alk is just not clicking with the rest of my params be locked in. Idk

Thats interesting. They shouldn't care how much the carbonate concentration is in water but maybe some other biological causes and effect here. Maybe have something to do with the buffering and its pH micro swings since pH does impact much more biological processes.

Maybe I shouldn't say low alk is OK, but more that that raising it a bit higher can't hurt just to rule out all possibilities. Just monitor pH to make sure it doesn't change too much or get too high.

Raise alk with bicarbonate instead of carbonates will minimize pH impact.

 

[Uzidaisies]

I have no idea, but my first thought was stretching towards light. Don’t have any shrooms yet, but I’d like to get some.

 

[Just John]

Thats interesting. They shouldn't care how much the carbonate concentration is in water but maybe some other biological causes and effect here. Maybe have something to do with the buffering and its pH micro swings since pH does impact much more biological processes.

Maybe I shouldn't say low alk is OK, but more that that raising it a bit higher can't hurt just to rule out all possibilities. Just monitor pH to make sure it doesn't change too much or get too high.

Raise alk with bicarbonate instead of carbonates will minimize pH impact.

I imagine the effect would be immediate with bicarbonate. Is that something that I will just do at every water change?

 

[LRT]

I have no idea, but my first thought was stretching towards light. Don’t have any shrooms yet, but I’d like to get some.

Just noticed your handle. Its funny because shrooms will cup in low light pretty much exactly how a flower will extend its leaves and thats exactly what it reminds me of.

 

[James_O]

My guess would be either you just fed them, or the flow is off, most likely the latter. My big ricordea did this after the first few days I had it, because the flow was way too strong.

This might not be it, but it’s a guess.

 

[Dkmoo]

I imagine the effect would be immediate with bicarbonate. Is that something that I will just do at every water change?

Whats the alk of your salt mix? I gotta imagine that they are higher than 7.3 so something in your tank is sucking the alk down - is this a softie tank or you got LPS too?

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, I'm assuming your tank in the beginning must have had a higher ALK from the salt mix (bc you filled the full tank with it), and it slowly settled at the 7.3 equilibrium as a function of how much your alk is being consumed and how frequent you WC. So, just WC now isn't going to permanently raise it unless you either increase the frequency or increase the %.

Otherwise you'll need to supplement with dosing alk. If going down this route I'll spread the change to .2dkh per day so you spread it over approx 1 week.

 

[Just John]

I never thought about that. It's 8.2. My tank only has softies and one small lps. I change water regularly. I guess I need to make some kind of increase in %.

 

[Goaway]

Looks like its reaching for more light? Maybe bc you stopped feeding it needs more energy from photosynthesis so trying to compensate. Esp with nutrient in water no3 and po4 also appear to be on the low end.

Alk should be OK, softies have no bones, shouldn't be as sensitive to the lack of carbonates, esp since ph at 8.1 is pretty good.

I should have taken a picture of my yumas asking for more light. I could move one back to a lower setting, they inflate very large and look rather transparent.

The cupping thing, could be a hunger response. I keep my phosphates or try too around .1. Hangs in at .05

Just noticed your handle. Its funny because shrooms will cup in low light pretty much exactly how a flower will extend its leaves and thats exactly what it reminds me of.

I still don't know for sure.

 

[LRT]

Looks like its reaching for more light? Maybe bc you stopped feeding it needs more energy from photosynthesis so trying to compensate. Esp with nutrient in water no3 and po4 also appear to be on the low end.

Alk should be OK, softies have no bones, shouldn't be as sensitive to the lack of carbonates, esp since ph at 8.1 is pretty good.

I think you pretty much nailed this one.
Shrooms where getting nutrients from food. He stop feeding and they are cupping using energy from light.
I've been flirting with low phosphates in a new tank transfer. Even bottomed out once or twice. Some of my shrooms response where to immediately cup as soon as they smelt chun in the water because they where hungry and ulns wasn't providing enough.
I do think alk is concern. Randy made pretty good point to me that yes my ahroomz aren't using cal and alk as much but all my shelled critters and coraline are. So I quit arguing haha
Regular feeding will most likely fix this for sure.

 

[LRT]

I should have taken a picture of my yumas asking for more light. I could move one back to a lower setting, they inflate very large and look rather transparent.

The cupping thing, could be a hunger response. I keep my phosphates or try too around .1. Hangs in at .05

I still don't know for sure.

There are exception shroom to the low light/cup rule but a vast majority of mine will do it when not getting enough.
Having said that i have some that will do exact same thing in too much light