Eradicating mushrooms?

[quackenbush]

I have a well established tank that is getting over run by garden variety mushrooms (purplish-greenish). I have tried trimming them and they come back stronger. I tried trimming them and then hitting them with a butane torch and the come back. I'm left with:

1) trimming again, then grinding the stump with a dremmel tool.
2) selling the three biggest pieces which are beautiful and covered with GSP, musrooms, and green paly coral, then eradicating the stragglers on the rest of the rock, probably with option 1.
3) pulling the rock and drying it out and dealing with the loss of that beautiful coraline algae and the other soft corals.

Any other ideas here? Uggh!

 

[reef dummy]

Nope, when I first started many years ago I bought a tank with purple mushrooms in it. I finally gave up on trying to eradicate them. If you truly don't want any in your tank the best bet is too sell or trade in the pieces that have them and start with fresh rock. I bet at one point my first 46g had over 500 purple mushrooms, the more you mess with them the faster they grow lol.

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

Some people have had luck applying a kalk paste, but seems to be hit or miss. Might be worth a try? Otherwise I'd swap out the rock with new rock, or trade your shroom rock with other members.

Be careful hitting things with a butane torch, certain corals like palys can release palytoxin which is very dangerous.

"Intoxication by PTX leads to vasoconstriction, hemorrage, ataxia, muscle weakness, ventricular fibrillation, pulmonary hypertension, ischemia and death"

 

[reef dummy]

Some people have had luck applying a kalk paste, but seems to be hit or miss. Might be worth a try? Otherwise I'd swap out the rock with new rock, or trade your shroom rock with other members.

Be careful hitting things with a butane torch, certain corals like palys can release palytoxin which is very dangerous.

"Intoxication by PTX leads to vasoconstriction, hemorrage, ataxia, muscle weakness, ventricular fibrillation, pulmonary hypertension, ischemia and death"

My wife had to see a Dr. Once after a palyotoxin accident. She cut her finger on the knuckle while scraping some off trying to frag some pieces and the next day it ballooned huge. The Dr. Said well this is a first when we explained what palyotoxin was lol.

 

[flyfish]

Take the rock out and put it in a bucket filled with water from a water change put the lid on the bucket and leave it for a week.Take the rock out after a week and rinse it off in RODI and change the water in the bucket that previously had the rock.Leave it for another week or so and rinse again.I did this with about 40 pounds of rock covered in mushrooms.I did the third and final week in a 35 gal trash bin with a power head and skimmer.The rock is totally clean and looks great in fact I started a 40 gal breeder with this rock and so far I have had great success with this process.The only advice is to rinse it outside as you will have a pretty heavy ammonia smell.I have not had detectable ammonia in the 40 breeder so far

 

[flyfish]

I forgot to mention that you don't want light or heat on or in the bucket

 

[quackenbush]

Take the rock out and put it in a bucket filled with water from a water change put the lid on the bucket and leave it for a week.Take the rock out after a week and rinse it off in RODI and change the water in the bucket that previously had the rock.Leave it for another week or so and rinse again.I did this with about 40 pounds of rock covered in mushrooms.I did the third and final week in a 35 gal trash bin with a power head and skimmer.The rock is totally clean and looks great in fact I started a 40 gal breeder with this rock and so far I have had great success with this process.The only advice is to rinse it outside as you will have a pretty heavy ammonia smell.I have not had detectable ammonia in the 40 breeder so far

as much as it pains me to admit it, this seems like the right path. I will miss all the layers and layers of different purple coralines.

AND, every damn rock in the tank has at least one mushroom.

 

[flyfish]

I will never have another mushroom, they are irritating

 

[reef dummy]

I like certain rarer mushrooms, not all grow like the dreaded blue or purple weed.

 

[reef dummy]

I will never have another mushroom, they are irritating

Just curious how long has it been since you did this and haven't had the shrooms return?

 

[FishTV]

I like certain rarer mushrooms, not all grow like the dreaded blue or purple weed.

Kinda funny, I have a small patch of blue shrooms, maybe 4 or 5, and from a single head, its been about 3 years. My Diablo mushrooms, same thing, at least in this tank, just slow growers. Green spot mushrooms on the other hand, that's my nemesis!! Man I hate those things!

 

[flyfish]

It's been on going for a couple of months,I did it in two parts so I wouldn't have to take all the rock out of the display at once.Ive been surprised at how tough the coralline algae is and the beating it can take.And no I haven't had the red and green mushrooms return

 

[scchase]

What part of town are you in, I might be interested in trading some clean rock piece for piece

 

[reef dummy]

Kinda funny, I have a small patch of blue shrooms, maybe 4 or 5, and from a single head, its been about 3 years. My Diablo mushrooms, same thing, at least in this tank, just slow growers. Green spot mushrooms on the other hand, that's my nemesis!! Man I hate those things!

The ones that drove me to drink were the purple/reddish ones with little blue dots on them.

 

[tomtom2245]

Also curious where you are. I might be interested in a few if you are close by.