ridding tank of mushrooms and gsp

tbmoore · Post by **tbmoore** » Sat May 01, 2004 9:44 pm

Well I finally am cought up from my trip (as far as my reef goes) and started fine tuning a few things...My first anventure is to rid my tank of some mushrooms(anything above 6 in from the sand) and gsp which will take over my sps. I am open for ideas other than breaking down my rock. What I am trying is a meat injector filled with boiling water and calcium mix. Trying to raise my calcium and kill the unwanted at the same time. Will let you know how this works and study any other suggestions. I also spent couple of hours with a razor blade tuning up my glass...mainly at the sand level..what else do you do on a rainy sat afternoon....(with kids in the house)

Melissakins · Post by **Melissakins** » Sat May 01, 2004 10:03 pm

You oughta bring stuff to the next meeting, frag it and bag it. I'm sure someone would want it to buy or trade......

harbingerofthefish · Post by **harbingerofthefish** » Sat May 01, 2004 10:05 pm

Getting GSP out might be a problem. Gonna be hard to cut them or pull them off LR. Your most likely going to leave some behind. Probally the best bet is to pull the whole rock.

Shrooms you could probally slice at the base with a razor and reatach the heads to rubble. Then take super glue and totally cover the base that is left. The base will die off and the caps should reattach with no problem.

p.s. if you need to get rid of any of them *wink* *wink*

tbmoore · Post by **tbmoore** » Sat May 01, 2004 10:20 pm

saw the wink....would love to give them away but do now want to move any rock...and cutting them off just causes more to show up...need to kill --KILL----KILL---KILL

harbingerofthefish · Post by **harbingerofthefish** » Sat May 01, 2004 10:31 pm

if you don't want to remove any rock I guess you could always inject them with Kalk or something.

tbmoore · Post by **tbmoore** » Sat May 01, 2004 11:07 pm

One point of this thread is to point out my mistake....when I set up my reef I just wanted something cheap to fill in the spaces..now as I am getting a little more in my reef I need the room for some of the better corals. In other words I did not think far enough ahead and now I am playing the price trying to rid myself of some problems. I want to keep my hairy mushrooms and ricordea but the lower end plain mushrooms and gsp have to go also the xenia. Also because I need help in corecting my problem. The Hint is to think ahead and not catch yourself in my position...not to say these corals are bad ...just that they do not work well in a sps tank....

Post by **snoopdog** » Sun May 02, 2004 9:29 pm

For shame, you are ridding of what i try to grow

ShagMan · Post by **ShagMan** » Mon May 03, 2004 7:01 am

Kevin, it made me sick too... Terry's not kiding either, the biggest red and green mushrooms, just infesting the lower 6" of his reef... he's unfortunately right though, culling them out isn't the best way to eliminate them, because when you cut the head, you end up with baby shrooms floating around, plus the base can grow back. Nuking them with boiling SW or kalk is the best solution.

Post by **snoopdog** » Mon May 03, 2004 7:20 am

But with a scalpel i would think you could cut off the mushroom enough to save them. The remaining neck could just be damaged being belief with maybe a pair of forceps. Mushrooms can grow back with the opportunity but they are not impossible to kill. I have learned this from fragging. If you do not leave enough behind or damage the pieces too bad they will die.

harbingerofthefish · Post by **harbingerofthefish** » Mon May 03, 2004 6:33 pm

What I was taling about was to cut off the caps so that would live and grow new ones and then just cover the old bases (still on the rocks) with glue or something. When I first got my little bit of LR it had and aptasia on it. I just covered it in super glue so it couldn't open or spread. It just died.

Of course since you don't want to remove anything it makes it a little tougher to deal with. If you do want to destroy them feel free to clip a few for me and Kev

then zap'em with a suringe.

tbmoore · Post by **tbmoore** » Tue May 04, 2004 3:43 pm

Well the bottom line with this hobby is that usually there are no short cuts...just doing things twice. With that in mind I broke down the few pieces of rock with the GSP on it and took them to the kitchen counter and went to work. I used tooth brushes....knives....razor blades to scrape as much off as I could. Then with hot tap water rinsed the area that had the GSP (without getting any on the rest of the rock) for several minutes. Then dripped dry and replaced in the tank...The corals were out of water for about 15min. Considering some corals are exposed at low tide and still survive I think I should be ok. I hope so since the one piece had about 5 colonies attatched. Lets hope all lives but the GSP!!!

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue May 04, 2004 8:23 pm

It is pretty difficult cutting the caps of mushrooms (at least it was for me). They always seem to draw up and slime a lot. I usually end up cutting once and having several pieces floating around only to regrow in another place. I was thinking of taking some of the rocks out to do a freshwater dip and then cure it again. I just did it to a small piece that had a mojano and to someone that has SPS mushrooms are in the same category.

Brandon · Post by **Brandon** » Wed May 05, 2004 10:03 am

Scott wrote:It is pretty difficult cutting the caps of mushrooms (at least it was for me). They always seem to draw up and slime a lot. I usually end up cutting once and having several pieces floating around only to regrow in another place. I was thinking of taking some of the rocks out to do a freshwater dip and then cure it again. I just did it to a small piece that had a mojano and to someone that has SPS mushrooms are in the same category.

It's always a matter of scraping them off for me, and having mushroom bits and slime floating all around the tank... which I'm sure any hard corals just love. I wonder what would happen if you injected them with ice cold water? I dont have a needle and syringe or I would try it.

tbmoore · Post by **tbmoore** » Sun May 09, 2004 2:04 pm

Since I cleaned the rock everything looks good and no return of the GSP....