Mushroom Eggs?

[vikinglord13]

So I was hacking away at a piece of liverock my new corals came on and I noticed weird blue beads/balls coming out from underneath some shrooms. Are these eggs? Guts? Anyone know?

Also, I noticed some had some purple bubbles coming out from their mouths or pieces of their foot. I've never seen this before and wasn't sure if it's from damage during shipment. Any thoughts?

 

[vikinglord13]

So... any ideas?

 

[eastlake]

Seeing as mushroom corals are in fact disc anemones it's entirely possible that what you're seeing are eggs though I would think that the eggs would be a lot smaller and even more likely unable to be seen by the naked eye, but I've done zero research on mushroom reproduction outside of fragmentation. The stuff coming out of the mouths are the mushrooms expelling their guts, not uncommon when they're unhappy it's just a stress response. If there's pedal laceration the purple stuff is probably innards poking out of the wound. It might not hurt to give the shrooms a quick bath in in coral RX to prevent any kind of infection from setting in. What was left on the rock I'm guessing is pieces and parts from the parents. Shrooms are pretty resilient so where there is tissue you should see some babies popping up.

 

[vikinglord13]

Yah it was a liveaauaria shipment. I wasn't fond of how it was shipped at all, the rock was just rolling around in the bag. Fortunately there were a couple that didn't really have damage

 

[eastlake]

Hopefully they all turn out ok for you, like I said most shrooms are super resilient. There are even stories of people seeding their tanks by throwing one or two in a blender, dumping the mush in the tank, and watching the mushrooms grow rampant. Personally I'd never try that but if there is any truth to that urban legend it speaks to the toughness of a mushroom.

 

[sh4rkbyt3]

Mushrooms usually disect? I've never seen eggs for mushrooms.

 

[Opcn]

Mushrooms, like all other cnidarians, have exactly one opening in their body. All food goes in the one end, and all eggs and poo come out that same opening. Many can and do bud from the foot, but those aren't eggs that they bud off.

 

[Sk8r]

Looks like valonia, bubble algae. Mushroom reproduce by fission---they form a figure 8 and divide down the waist.

 

[vikinglord13]

Well they were coming out of the mushrooms and are blue, can bubble algae form underneat/inside shrooms?

 

[Sk8r]

Underneath, yes. And what color a thing looks may be due to your lighting spectrum. Valonia is very dark green to lighter green.

 

[vikinglord13]

It was a yellow light I was looking at it from.

Regardless, the corals are healed now and I see no sign of these mysterious blue spheres anymore.