REEF to FOWLR

[Pchromis]

Hello all,
Been a while since posting here but this is the place for great opinions and answers.
My 95g reef tank has been up and runing for nearly a year and half. It seems I am unable to keep most soft corals alive for any length of time EXCEPT green star polyps, colt coral and a slew of mushrooms. Fish are thriving and growing. But the mushrooms are taking over the entire tank.
So I was thinking of slowly reducing the salt levels and a more standard lighting to convert the reef to a FOWLR.

My question is will LR do well with a lower salt level?
And will will the combo of lower salt and standard lighting kill off the mushroom invasion?

Thanks

 

[Agu]

If you lower the salinity enough to kill off the corals you'll have two problems. First if you get it low enough to kill shrooms you'll kill/stress everything else in the tank. Second, the decomposing shrooms will create a toxic soup in your tank. IME shrooms can survive under extremely low light so I doubt that will be the solution either.

I'd suggest you start trading off the rock for new rock either at your LFS or to other local reefers. Unless the new rock is fully cured trade off a piece or two every few weeks.

 

[Pchromis]

Ok, the problem is that as you probably know, unless I break the tank down, I will never be rid of the mushroom problems..
It might be time to set up another tank, move the fish, and break the DT down.
I was aware mushrooms would spread, but they are just taking over the entire tank.

Or maybe, I will remove the rock/mushrooms one by one until they die off.
Thanks

 

[Agu]

I'm well aware of how shrooms can spread, my frag tank could be over run with blue shrooms. Instead whenever I need salt or other supplies I just take a couple of "infested" rocks to my LFS and swap for what I need.

I get supplies and new rock ............

 

[jeff@zina.com]

Instead whenever I need salt or other supplies I just take a couple of "infested" rocks to my LFS and swap for what I need.

My LFS always has the best live rock already populated with mushrooms...

Actually, I just picked up a rock with a half dozen hairy mushrooms that had been traded to the LFS for basically the same reason. And if you happened to drive an hour south, they might be yours.

Jeff