Too many mushrooms

[Deadhead1450]

My anemone mushrooms are growing like weeds and covering a lot of LR. I have about 8 that are 6-8" in dia., and several 2-4" dia. They just took off as the tank conditions inproved. Can I / how do I section them off without killing the whole thing? I there a way to get the entire mushroom off the rock alive? I need an underwater weed wacker.

Would a large number of mushrooms be responsible for my high nitrate level? As these suckers keep growing, my nitrates keep inching up (40).

Thanks........Mike

 

[easygoer2]

I'm following this one. Same problem.
easygoer2

 

[Anonymous]

Your mushrooms do add to the bioload, but I doubt that they are "responsible" for producing enough waste to bring your trates up to 40ppm.

How big is your tank? My 72 has easily 50 mushrooms (friggin weeds :wink: ) taking up every available space between other corals and my trates are zero.

I would look to another source for those trates....what else is in the tank? Have you tested your source water for ammonia?


As for the mushrooms, you can't hurt them. Cut them loose with a not rusty rasor blade. I have used blades to cut mushrooms loose and I recently thought that blade chips could come off when the blade scrapes the rock and they could rust in the tank...so think about that while you do it.

Don't throw them away. You can get a small chip of rock and sow them to it with a needle and fishing line, or you can let them sit in the sand for a week and glue the sand they grip to a rock with crazy glue. Then you can control where they are and eventually sell them if you want to get rid of them.

The only problem is that you always leave behind a little bit of mushroom on the rock and in a few weeks or months there will be another mushroom in that same spot...back to work cutting them lose again. :roll:


Good luck