upgraded my lighting, shroom not happy?

[bakestarr]

so i upgraded my 20w fluorescent to a Coralife 20" 50/50 w/ 96w PCs and my zoos and polyps are doing great, but my shroom which seemed to be thriving is now just staying flat on his base and not extending at all. i'm not sure what kind it is but here are some pics. could someone please ID this and tell me if i need to find a place in the shade or what? (the pics suck b/c the camera is crappy) it's brown with electric green stripes going from the mouth to the edge.

 

[bakestarr]

bump

 

[chrisstie]

I'm looking at this on my cellphone so can't quite make it out.. A ricordia yuma maybe? Don't mark my words I'm squinting to see it

Sounds like you need a way to acclimate everything to the new light

You can try to use eggcate or sheets of screen material to block out the light and slowly remove some over time?

 

[cichlid nutz]

Looks like a bullseye. It was opening up a lot under the lesser lighting because it needed the extra light for food production. Now that you have it under 5 times the lighting it won't open up as much, at least not initially and it may very well relocate itself to another part of the tank. Its not a ricordia or rodactis FYI. I have the same variety in a couple of my tanks and they "move" quite a bit and leave behind some of themselves which then become a new shroom. I have them under PC and also 400 watt MH and they do fine under both so give it a little time.

 

[chrisstie]

now that i look on my PC it looks like a discosoma to me? I can barely make it out still, though, need larger resolution pics =\

 

[bakestarr]

it looks like this when its fully extended

 

[Twisted]

with a dramatic increase in lighting, some corals will bleach, some will shrivel up, some will even move themselves.
While the lighting change you made may not be huge metal halides or something, it is still extremely intense compared to the lighting you had on before.
Where your sunglasses for a couple weeks never taking them off, then go outside and take them off and look at the sun, you will get the idea.

I have yet to see anything die from it, but I have heard of it happening, I have seen mostly some of my mushrooms sucked into thier holes for a couple days, then started comming out slowly, it took my anemone a week to get used to my new lights, it took one of my mushroms a bout 5 minutes, and another mushroom a month, I still have a mushroom that I do not know what it is, because it has yet to open back up and it's sitting on the sand bed.

I would say give it time and the mushrooms will start acting normal again.

 

[bakestarr]

bump.

its been 2 weeks, i moved it partially under a rock, half of it gets light half is shaded, it still stays flat on its base... any more ideas?

 

[Twisted]

flow change?, something irritating it, nipping at it, feeding, temp change from the new lighting, sudden change in water parameters, and yet can still be lighting...

Sadly, it is pretty much impossible to guess the problem. In fact I don't know if you have ever watched the TV show House, but not only is it one of the greatest shows ever, but it is a lot like what we have to do to figure out our tanks.
If something starts acting irregular then we have to diagnose it, starting with recent changes, and then looking for hidden problems.

Moving the shroom to a shaded area was a great idea for seeing if it is just the lights, although the waiting period maybe more then 2 weeks to find out if it is the solution.
I would do a full water work up if you have not already, salinity, PH, phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, calcium, alkalinity, and anything else you happen to have a test kit for.
If these all check out good, then you might watch the rock it is on, maybe come out at night with a red light and look for a pest that might have made it's home at the base of the shroom and is making it mad.
Some things like sundial snails, and a few other actually bore into the stalk and eat the insides of corals. Some hydroids although hard to see will come out and sting corals, especially at night.

I would say check the water, then check the tank at night to see what comes out to play, not just near the shroom but the whole tank.
Also look up the sundial snail and compare a photo to the snails in your tank, if you had one it would most likely be pestering more then your shroom, but leathers and stuff don't show as much response from what I have seen.

Which is my concern, shrooms are extremely hardy, and tolerant, so if it was a light change disturbing them, then something is either picking on them paticular, or they are just showing the most irritation.
I know there are zoanthid eating nudibranches, that will attack pretty much just zoanthids, I would guess there is something out there that prefers shrooms.

Just more unprofessional opinions.

 

[bakestarr]

thanks, for the tests i have, everything is fine... trates are a little high (less than 20 ppm) i don't have calc or alk tests... i'm taking the water to my lfs to let them test it in a few days. the only snails i have are the ones i added nassarius, bumblebee, turbos, ceriths. those are the only ones out during the day anyway.

 

[geoxman]

If they are charging for tests I would not test calcium-It makes no difference to a shroom. good luck