First coral (mushrooms) what do I do?

[Kaos]

A friend just gave me a rock w/ 4 shrooms on it (his tank was overrun w/ them). This is my first coral and I want to do it right. My param's are good, except I have 20ppm trates and some PO4. My tank is a 55 FOWLR w/ a DSB and has a CB shrimp, and an Ocellaris. I have a Remora, AC 110, and 2 MJ 1200's on a wavestrip on each end and has been set up over 2 months. My lights are 4x40 NO flourescents w/ 3 URI Actinic Whites and a Phillips actinic. Right now I only dose Purple Up.

Should I be feeding them? If so what? Does everything look good? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Sk8r]

OW---on the 'trates. Do a partial water change, and that will help. I'd stop the Purple-up for a while until youg et those 'trates down, just in case that's contributing. You don't have a filter going, do you? That's a nitrate source----but if you do have, don't stop it cold turkey! Filter media has to be withdrawn slowly.

The mushrooms will suck nutrients out of the water, and the less you feed the fish right now, the safer they all are. Cut back on the fish feeding until the nitrates sink, and it will be good for your fish, too. You want the nitrate reading to be as close to 0 as you can possibly manage. Salinity 1.024 or thereabouts, temp about 79 to 80.

Fish will tolerate a lot more nitrate and ammonia than corals, but fish are happiest if their water is zero nitrate, zero ammonia. Run a 10 percent water change every few days until you can get that level down. That will go a long way to help your mushrooms thrive.

 

[Kaos]

My trates never really fell off after the LR addition. My tank was up and running for about a month before I added the LR. Some of the water in this tank came from an established FO (about 2 years old) and the LR had been at the LFS for over a month so it was pretty well cured. I wasn't really looking for corals yet but this was a "strike while the irons hot" deal and couldn't pass it up. While this is my first coral I have been researching and reading for a few years on reef tanks. I knew this was about as hardy of a coral as they come so I figured it would be a good one to cut my teeth on. I've got an AC 110 on the tank thats been running since the begining. I'm not sure if I should stop it or not, or just take the sponge out of it. I only feed the one fish a little Brine Shrimp Plus once a day. The Ocellaris anialates the stuff so there is very little left over. What is left over the CB shrimp and Nassarius snails take care of. My main concern is if my lighting will be enough and if my flow is too much (AC 110 @ 400 gph, MJ 1200's @ 295 gph X 2). Right now my lights have just come on and my ph's are off and the mushrooms are opening some. I'm hoping this is a good sign since they were just put in last night around 9 pm (my lights are on from 5:00pm to 3:00am).

 

[brettandlyndi]

You might consider taking the sponge out of the AC110, sponges are nitrate factories.

 

[dvarner32]

Check your tap water. I was struggling with nitrates for the first year. My nitrates out of the tap were 20.

 

[Kaos]

I took the sponge out of the AC 110. I will test tomarrow and see if it has made any difference. Thanks everyone who responded. The mushrooms are fully extended tonight along w/ the free Xenia frag I got from the LFS today.