Never give up on a mushroom

[GreenSaltyOne]

So, here is my old post. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2309790 Also known as mushroom spewing its guts for over a week. Which turned into 3 weeks. Then it died..... or so I thought.

Portions of it fell off as it disintegrated. It eventually turned into 4 separated balls of flesh that looked like leftovers from a bad dinner puked up. Those leftovers have now put on color, changed shape from small flaps of flesh into a circle, and are in the process of forming mouths. They even close as night now like a mushroom would! My mushroom died, and what was left reformed into at least 4 new mushrooms. Absolutely unbelievable.

In the end - never give up on a mushroom. I'm glad I put the rock it was on into my spare tank with random extra corals I don't care about. (My experimental tank). Once the mushrooms reform, I will gladly give them a spotlight in the DT.

Lesson learned. Pictures will come tomorrow. I will also keep tabs on the progression as they become whole and new.

 

[smkkib]

i'm waiting for the pictures. I'm having a similar scenario here. i bough about 10 polyps of fluffy morph. they start dieing. now i 'm at bleached status. all the other corals with mushrooms fine in my tank.

 

[Josh40996]

Oh wow! I just finished reading you thread on the mushrooms decline and then I scroll down to find this thread by you. Great news!

Pics when you can.

 

[dinwiddie90]

Never give up on any coral. If there is any tissue at all left then it can still come back

 

[GreenSaltyOne]

Here is the Pics

Here is the Pics

Never give up on any coral. If there is any tissue at all left then it can still come back

+1

I didn't have the heart to kill it cause it was my first coral ever. Glad I set it aside and let it do its thing.

It completely bleached under new LED's, and on top of that my nitrates spiked to 50 for a few days. It went downhill as you can see in my previous post. What is left is a baseball diamond with the bases being leftover mushroom parts that are reforming into individual mushrooms. The large white masses are obviously mushrooms, and there is a little one at the bottom (home plate) that has already colored up with brown and has a mouth. The one on the left has a mouth as well, and already forms a circle. The top is a big slab of the old mushroom that held on to dear life. It is coming back the slowest.

A picture is worth a thousand words so here is two thousand.

 

[GreenSaltyOne]

I just looked at the pics. They kinda suck. Going to take another right now and post again.

 

[GreenSaltyOne]

Better pics

Better pics

Also, if you connect the four white masses into a circle, they outline the size of the base of the mushroom previous to its decline. It was a good size piece.

I'm going to do a little timeline here of the decline to where its at now as well.
Pic 1 - Healthy and new
Pic 2 - First signs of decline
Use your imagination to how it got to the last two.....
Pic 3 & 4 - Four new mushrooms from 1.

It has taken 2 months for this all to happen.

 

[pitmindi]

Hi, my green hairy mushroom was doing great for months, I would even feed it and it would curl into a ball and digest the food (SO COOL!) then about a month ago it starting drooping and looking awful. I moved it all around the tank to see if it liked somewhere else better and it looked worse. Now it is on the sandbed (on the rock its attached to) and there is lots of parts to it but it looks like it is dying. I will post a pic this weekend

 

[GreenSaltyOne]

If water changes and low light / low flow placement don't work, just stick it in a corner and let it do its thing, and just keep your water in check. I left mine alone and watched it for over a month as it drooped more and more, lost all its color, and eventually had chunks falling off as if disintegrated. The mushroom left chunks of flesh on the rock as it died, which as of now, have reformed mouths and begun taking on color. I found a tiny piece of flesh that has formed a mouth, making for 5 new mushrooms out of one large old dead one. I have a theory that they just get old and die off, and pieces form from that death into new life. Good luck with your mushroom but remember - Never give up on it.