Alec's 40gal breeder chronicles!

My problem was that I did not try to make the mushrooms a priority or focus of the tank.

Always trying to squeeze in some other type of coral and it's needs.

Same thing with sps, for me anyway. To make the sps grow and do well, I pretty much had to only focus on their needs. The mushrooms died off because the lighting is too intense in this small tank.

I have heard from people that have had great success with a mushroom garden, that they dosed with iodine (lugols) routinely (which I do not recommend), they said they got the best color and growth. You might look into that.

Reef Aquarium Volume II, has a large section on care and types of mushrooms (Corallimorpharians), if you ever get a chance to pick up a copy
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I'll definitely have to check out that book! At least give a look down at the book store . I think my shrooms will do okay under my T5's. I hope so at least. So why is it you don't recommend dosing iodine?

 

Oh your lights will be fine.

Because 1st it is easily replaced through water changes, and without testing for it or using the proper test kit you can cause an "overdose" so to speak. If you do decide to try iodine, and many people do I suggest using Lugols.

In the cases where friends used the iodine they had large soft corals and mushroom gardens and the uptake of iodine may have been more than that replaced by water changes.

 

So here's the pest pic I could get with my limited resources, and since I glued it down already. But here's a birds nest frag a friend gave me today. It's white with purple polyps!

 

Nice add! Looks like its got a lot of branching startin up congrats!! Don't you just love corals shopping!

 

My hawk eyeing me down

 

Thanks! I actually have a bottle of kent marine iodine. I bought a "reef starter elements" pack, or something like that, when I was starting up the tank.. Then figure out I didn't need to dose anyways haha. I've never used it, but I'll definitely look into it and buy a test!

 

My ric's from coral morphologic came in today! Again sorry about the pic, I need invest in a good digital camera asap! I got the one on the left and middle, and then the ric on the right came with a note saying "thanks for the order. Enjoy your free ric", so that was pretty cool of them.

 

Nice adds, congrats, Colin does that a lot with your orders.

 

oh, that's pretty awesome!