Whole mushroom population in a tank dying at once

[br3nt]

So my boss today told me a story how twice in his life he has seen entire tanks with lots of mushrooms out of nowhere all die at once, like they are on fire and/or melting.

So can anyone tell me the term for this sudden die off?

thanks, brent

[madadi]

tank crash? anything else survive?

[br3nt]

He was sitting at the tank when it happened so he saved the livestock.

He explained it as the tank has an unknown capacity for mushrooms and once that threshold is found they all die. Survival instinct or something like that.

So again, has anyone heard of this happening?

[sportzfish]

Alk problem?

[zachfishman]

Haven't heard of that, but I have seen pictures of tanks absolutely covered in shrooms from top to bottom.

[Cymaster007]

Maybe a mushroom touched another coral and caused some sort of coral chemical warfare maybe?

[mfd574]

Could maybe be an iodine problem.

[shovel]

Could be a bold faced lie.

[Iron Mike]

Could be a bold faced lie.

That is what i was kinda thinking, for an entire tank to crash right in front of your eyes is something i just cant see happening. But anything is possible in this hobby.

Edit: What about electricity, or maybe he or she had something on there hands like bleach or some sort of soap that instantly killed the tank. Ask if there hands were in the tank within a few minutes of the crash.

[lloydkeller]

ive had mine for 4 years started with 10 on a rock now have a tank full never had any problems at all ive been lucky some days they do look better than others but over all there healthy there huge

[pimpinitup6969]

had a 75g tank with thousands of mushrooms just melt after a heater problem but i doubt they would just all Melt without some sort of MAJOR problem

[syrinx]

Xenia- yes- mushrooms no. I have seen cases though where a tank would literally melt- usually involved people using lysol or other cleaning products near the tank- not species specific though. Xenia though will melt for no known reason.

[br3nt]

Syrinx, yes! Someone who has heard of this phenomenon. Is there a scientific name for a whole tank dying, even if it's xenia?

[br3nt]

Could be a bold faced lie.

It could be, but it's not, why be a jerk? ANYTHING seems possible in this hobby, why doubt? Yesterday i hatched a shark from an egg, wasn't a big deal at the time but 6 months ago when i got into this hobby that would have blown my mind. Be nice.

[Lance M.]

With mushrooms, I don't see them all randomly dying for no reason, especially at a rate where you are watching them all die at once. I think it's a real exaggeration. I've experienced the xenia die-off before and I haven't kept any xenia since. Luckily I saw them dying and pulled them out of the tank. SPS will sometimes randomly die, for literally no reason. There are several stories in the SPS section of the forum about RTN and people losing massive colonies in hours. There was one thread a couple months ago where the guy saw it start to happen and started taping it and you can watch the tissue come off the coral.

But like said I don't see this happening with mushrooms unless there is a major problem causing it. I've seen neglected tanks where not only you could not see any rock because it was covered with mushrooms, but the glass walls where covered in mushrooms.

[RockinSmall]

i have seen massive die off in a tank covered in mushrooms.

Also, temp could have a lot to do with at as well as chemical warfare or just a bacterial infection. brown jelly can infect a couple mushrooms and then destroy the rest rather quickly...

[Rigger]

Well, if it's true I'd love to know how it happened. Over the years the mushrooms have taken over! I've started to pull rock out on piece at a time to get rid of them. What a PITA!

[deucebone79]

I recently went through this with my 75 mixed reef. All mushrooms-red, blue, green striped, knobby, bullseye etc. all (melted away) within a 2 week window. Ordinarily you would think crash or something out of whack but water params check out and other corals sps, lps softies are all thriving. In fact during this 2 week window our monti caps had a growth spurt. Lfs said the cause was bristle worms irritating the mushrooms but I wont bite. 7 colonies gone within 2 weeks, each colony dissolved in 1-2 days. These mushrooms were the first corals in this tank and all lived in peace for a year and a half. Guess its just nature taking its course.

[cjilge]

This is happening right now in my tank! started last night, also effected are some blue clove polyps. all are on the same rock. there is sort of a redish crap on them and then they string up and melt away. it has taken about 24 hours but I've lost about a 10" patch of cloves and probably 10-15 mushrooms. the mushroom strings wrapped around one of my acros and seems tohave stung it. I think the acro is going to be ok, but as for the mushys and cloves they are all but gone. I cleaned the rock with a tooth brush, threw in some extra carbon and cranked up the skimmer. I plan on doing a big water change first thing in the am. Water just started mixing today. hopefully it will be contained to this one area. Glad, and sad to hear this is happening elsewhere. Good luck to you all.
params
ph 8.1
na 0
alk 8
mag 1400
ca 380 started dosing a few days ago and on the way up

[Tuscaquatics]

I had an entire rock full of mushies melt away in a day or so. It was when I had a bunch of corals essentially just piled up since I hadn't arranged them yet. I think they were too close to some zoos and they got stung. The skimmer went nuts for a couple days.