Yuma Mushroom Has Enlarged Mouth

AshenEmberose · Nov 9, 2021

i bought a ricordea yuma mushroom coral on October 31st along with a firework clove and green star polyp frag. The firework clove died in the bag i brought it home in it seems because the employee ripped it off of the display it had already partially overgrown onto and then put it in a bag of water barely bigger than the frag was. Anyways that crashed my 10gallon nano tank and they sold me premixed saltwater after i brought the coral back and got my water retested and told me the water was “reef ready” and i didnt even need to test anything itd be perfect to add in. One employee even ENCOURAGED ME to do a 100% water change and shock my system and switch to their premixed water entirely. I didnt do that. I did a 10% water change before bed though and in the morning my mushroom began acting funky. Draping itself over the rock and constantly opening and closing and now the mouth is big and puffy and i think the stinger tentacles are out. Turns out the salinity of the water they sold me is in the 1.030-1.036 range! My water went from 1.024 to 1.030 and my nitrates are still elevated due to me only being able to take out around 20% total so far but no detectable nitrites. Alkalinity has been high because i used kalkwasser a long time ago to stabilize my pH. Phosphate is 3.3 as of November 2nd, alk was 375 but i have since added an indian almond leaf to lower alkalinity. (Im getting new lighting soon, i want to know more about the behavior with the water quality. The new light is on its way)
Salinity now: 1.024
pH: 8.1
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: estimated 160-180 high (my testing thing isnt precise, but the store tested them at 187 on November 2nd and have since done 20% total water change)
Nov 2nd phosphate: 3.3 high
Nov 2nd alkalinity: 375
Nov 2nd Calcium: 389 low
Nov 2nd Magnesium: 1464 high

blaxsun · Nov 9, 2021

I'd focus on getting your nitrates down. Anything over 50 is way, way too high.

AshenEmberose · Nov 9, 2021

blaxsun said:
I'd focus on getting your nitrates down. Anything over 50 is way, way too high.

Yea I’m trying to get them down as quickly and safely as possible. I have a chemi-pure pouch in one of my filters and im about to do another 20% water change. I’m so heart broken over my tank having nitrates in only the 0-5 range before all of this and now its insanely high.