Mushrooms and Ricordea in Stasis

[ChemE]

I've had my current tank set up for just over a year and during that time have had absolutely zero growth/division from both my blue mushrooms and my blue and orange ricordea florida. Lighting is 3x54 normally driven T5's with IceCap SLR's, flow is about 30 tank turnovers/hour via a Maxi-Stream. Other tank parameters include:

NH4: 0 ppm
NO2: 0 ppm
N03: 5 ppm
PO4: 0 ppm
Mg: 1320 ppm (Salifert)
Alk: 8 dKH (Salifert)
Calc: 420 ppm (Salifert)
pH: 8.08/8.2 nighttime/daytime (PinPoint)
temp: 76.2/76.6 nighttime/daytime
SG: 1.025 (refractometer)

I've hand fed the ric's mysis shrimp many dozens of times and they have an excellent feeding response. In addition the corals are fed every other night about 4 hours after lights out according to the following rotation:

night 1: Phytoplankton
night 2: Skip
night 3: Zooplankton
night 4: Skip
night 5: Cyplopeeze freezer bar
night 6: Skip

My zoo's are growing to beat the band but the shrooms and ric's refuse to divide. The mushrooms inflate during the day and are shaded by rock yet never grow or spread. I've seen many people report that mushrooms are weeds so I'm very curious as to what I might be missing.

Thanks,
ChemE

 

[jbittner]

I have had the samme issue with some of my shrooms while others grow like mad. I found that aquacultured shrooms seem to grow at a faster rate that wild caught ones (while even some of the aquacultured ones dont grow--my green yuma). Some shrooms just are slow growers. This might be the case for the ricordia but the blues should grow like crazy. Could you post a pic of both mushrooms for a positive ID, then maybe we could give you an idea of an optimal growth rate. BTW I never spot feed my ric and have crazy growth..

 

[ChemE]

Sure thing here are the blue ric's; I'll put up pictures of the orange ric's and the blue shrooms later tonight.

Orange Ricordea Florida

Blue Mushroom