Mushroom Help Please

[Boomstick]

Hey,
So i have a mushroom rock in my 20g Nano tank and the shrooms ain't doing so well.

My tank has been up about 5-months and the Shrooms in there around 3 months, they appear to be getting smaller over time.

My tank is a 20g tank, 9.5" High
The shrooms are on a rock, 2" off the bottom (sand) and go up as high as 6" up the tank

I have a 65W 50/50 Coralife
AquaClear 20 Filter
AquaClear20 Powerhead

NO3 <20ppm
NO2 0<=0.5ppm

Any ideas on why they are struggling? Is it too much light?

 

[dendro982]

My red mushrooms also were growing slowly, but because of low light (55W PC in ~12" above them, half actinic, half - 10,000K).
I had read somewhere on forums, that vertical mushroom, like your on the photo, is struggling for light. You may risk the one mushroom and try to place it closer to the light.
Really, I don't know why they are listed as low light corals - for MH-having people, may be. Even some LPS require less light.

NO3 in my experience was less important that the light. I have it at the same range in one of the tanks, mushrooms are open fully (where they are closer to the lights).
NO2 - you shouldn't have it at all, really, try to add more LR (or the cheaper version - Seachem Matrix bio-media, or Matrix-Pond). And remove all debris and uneaten food from the tank regularly.

You didn't mentioned alkalinity - it's important to them, IMO. The cheap and quite good kit is Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kit, Salifert is more expensive.

 

[c1truz]

ya looks like it needs more light. I had mushrooms do the same thing that were in shade.

 

[Jon Evans]

I keep my mushrooms in a 75 gallon tank with a single strip, 40 watt light over the tank and they are thriving. They sit about 10 inches under the strip light. I have low flow and only feed my fish, not the mushrooms.

 

[dendro982]

Jon Evans: What kind of mushrooms do you have? Could it depend on kind of mushrooms?
Mine are plain bright red, in ~12" right under double strip 55W 50-50 PC. In the same water they open twice larger, if the second lamp, 55W 10,000K PC is on or when there is a good sunlight, as shown below:

 

[Jon Evans]

They are green. I had some red ones before and they definitly needed more light. I know that freshwater plants that are red need more light than the green ones.