Prolific Mushrooms and other questions
by
, 11-04-2010 at 10:01 PM (1710 Views)
I could use some insight…
I have a 65G reef tank that I inherited from a friend 3 years ago when he moved away and couldn't take it with him. At the time I knew almost nothing about reefkeeping, but over the last 3 years I've learned a lot. I've had some success propagating leather corals and bubble tip anemones, kept up with maintenance items, and recently discovered Vortech pumps (those things are awesome). However, during that time my tank has become completely over run with green mushroom corals. When I say over run I mean they are growing on EVERY surface of the tank and rock. It would seem there is no recourse now but to completely break down my system, replace of all the live rock, scrape down every surface of the tank and essentially start over. I've reconciled myself to this idea and I'm willing to take the plunge, but there's one nagging problem.... I still don't know what conditions in the tank allowed the mushrooms to thrive in the first place. How can I be sure not to repeat this fate? What might have allowed these guys to compete so well against other corals in the tank? Most of my SPS’s have been destroyed by the mushrooms and my LPS’s are starting to run out of room!
I already know I need to upgrade my sump and plumbing during this proposed outage, so I'm planning to add a refugium to the setup to help with nuisance algae I've dealt with over the years (only mildly less aggravating than the 'shrooms!). With only a 17G sump I’m not yet sure if I can get a decent sized refugium and skimmer to all fit in there, but I’m going to try.