Mushroom and fish only tank, a few questions.

[SeeCrabRun]

I have a fish only tank currently. It is going on 10 months old. I don't want to put any corals in it, except some mushrooms. I'd really like to add a little color and texture to the rocks, but I am not interested in all the other coral types. At least not in this tank.

My questions are as follows:

I'm trying to pick out an actual lighting fixture. The tank is a standard 29 gallon. Would a freshwater light work, or do they need some added blues?

I QT everything before it goes in my tank, what is the proper QT for mushrooms? Can they be dipped and if so, what in?

And then can you clear up some advice I've been given. Are these true or not?
Mushrooms don't need to be fed in an established tank.
They don't need any supplements/additives.
They like "dirty water".

Thanks in advance!

 

[cubsFAN]

I'd go with a light with some blue in it. It's especially nice if you can get one with the blue and white lights on seperate switches so you can see your mushrooms in a different light. Ricordia and a few other shrooms look especially nice under blue lighting.

You can dip your shrooms in something like coralRX. There are several options.

Shrooms don't need supplements or to be fed. They just need proper lighting and flow. I've heard of "dirty water" before, but I'm not one to measure how "dirty" the water can be. That being said, I've kept shrooms successfully in a low nutrient sps bare bottom tank with success and in a softy tank that rarely had water changes. Results were close, but I'd say they grew better in the Softy tank that also had lower lighting and less flow than the sps tank.

 

[organism]

I have a fish only tank currently. It is going on 10 months old. I don't want to put any corals in it, except some mushrooms. I'd really like to add a little color and texture to the rocks, but I am not interested in all the other coral types. At least not in this tank.

My questions are as follows:

I'm trying to pick out an actual lighting fixture. The tank is a standard 29 gallon. Would a freshwater light work, or do they need some added blues?

I QT everything before it goes in my tank, what is the proper QT for mushrooms? Can they be dipped and if so, what in?

If you're doing a mushrooms-only tank then you don't need to quarantine. There's a very tiny chance that there could be pests for other corals on mushroom rocks, but since you have no other corals you don't need to qt. Personally I've never quarantined mushroom rocks no matter what tank they were going in...

And then can you clear up some advice I've been given. Are these true or not?
Mushrooms don't need to be fed in an established tank.

True, actually no photosynthetic coral needs to be fed in any tank with adequate lighting, established or not.

They don't need any supplements/additives.

None, but I'd dose a tablespoon of kalk per three gallons in the top-off water to keep the alkalinity stable since that'll keep your mushrooms happy and healthy.

They like "dirty water".

Huge myth, they do great in any nutrient level tank. The reason this saying got so popular is because in nutrient-heavy tanks most other corals look terrible but mushrooms look great, so people took that to mean that they prefer those conditions instead of thinking about it a little more and realizing that they're just hardier and more adaptive.

 

[SeeCrabRun]

Thank you.

 

[SeeCrabRun]

Well I got a light and they are NOT happy! No where I put them were they relaxed. They seem to be reaching for light to the point of barely holding on. That was both on the substrate and the highest rock.

Can anyone tell me what spectrum they actually like? What color temperature?

 

[organism]

It sounds lack of intensity of the light is the problem, what are you using? I hadn't seen your other question above, but a freshwater fixture won't work for saltwater corals.

 

[SeeCrabRun]

It's a marineland LED.

 

[organism]

That's not a coral light unfortunately, it's more for fish-only type setups.

 

[Sk8r]

Go to your hardware and buy a 6500 k CFL daylight Flood and a socket for it that you can hang. That may keep them alive until you can do something about the lighting. I use such a light to grow cheato algae, and shrooms would prefer 10000 k, but that might be enough. Two of those might be enough light to satisfy them longterm. I have never tested these with corals. But at least this is something you can lay hands on for cheap.

 

[SeeCrabRun]

I went to Petco and got the coralife T5 light with the white/blue bulbs they make. I'll see how they do under that. Supposedly the right thing, though maybe upgrade to a different brand of bulbs?

 

[organism]

How many bulbs does it have?

 

[SeeCrabRun]

2

I'm not going to keep it. I think it needs 4.

 

[organism]

I'd recommend not buying anything else until you know exactly what you need to get... Your mushrooms can easily go for more than a week with no light at all, take your time to do some research and find the best solution for your tank. You may also want to consider if mushrooms are the only thing you'll ever want to keep in there, because for not much more money you can get lights that are good for lots of corals.

 

[SeeCrabRun]

Yes I only ever want mushrooms in this tank. It contains fish that are considered not reef safe, but they seem to leave the mushrooms alone and I want to add a little color and texture to the rocks.