Need Mentoring

[Fcamdog]

I am setting up a 20g long aquarium with the sole purpose of propogating mushrooms and ricordea. So far, substrate is crushed coral, so they have something to attach to and equipment consists of this: CPR BakPak skimmer, Koralia 2, heater and 4 bulb T-5 HO for lighting.

For you serious shroom gardners what do you do to make them grow? What supplements help, what parameters do you keep your water quality at, what fish are good, what fish should I avoid, what inverts will help, what inverts will hurt?

This is staring from scratch, just added water yesterday so I want to do this right. Farming mushrooms is the goal, anything else is secondary. All tips and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Fcamdog

 

[Fcamdog]

Anyone?

 

[The Curious]

In my experience w/ shrooms, the more light the quicker the propagation will take place. I use trace elements, as well as iodine, and calcium/alkalinity buffer. The crushed coral substrate will work great for you. For optimal growth start a culture of Brine Shrimp, get a turkey baster, and feed the baby brine shrimp to each individual's mouth every few days.

Shrooms are super easy. I had a few in an extra tall 30 gallon w only18 watts of NO florescent light, and they grew and propagated extremely well.

They are also super easy to frag

 

[Tryx]

I have a 36g with 4 bulb T-5, bak pak skimmer, and my shrooms are out of control!. I don't dose a single thing. They were doing just as well under some crappy PCs. I dont think there's any tank they can't flourish in.