Shrooms not looking that great, advice please?

[Fally]

I just added a 10 Gallon sump to my 29 gallon tank Saturday. Everything went up without any troubles. I ended up rearranging the rocks in the tank and added some live sand to the main tank and the fuge in the sump.

Ever since I did all that my shrooms look crapy. They are mostly closed up or at least as shrunken as I have ever seen them. I tested my water and the params are almost perfect.

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5-10
PH - 7.8
Phosphate - 0

Anyone have any idea what might be going on? I have noticed that after a 5 gallon change the shrooms would look a little lame for a day. I was thinking that they would come out of it by now.

Any advice would be appreciated, I love my shrooms!

[Sweetpea]

Your pH seems low... maybe that is contributing to the shrooms' bad mood?

[Fally]

I have been thinking about upping that to 8.2, but it has always been that low. The tank has been running for a little over two months.

[jerryc]

May just not like the placement shrooms don't like a lot of flow or high lighting
so take a look to see if you placed them in a different flow are closer to your lights

[butterfly_babe4200]

Can you post a pic? Mine do that kind of stuff all the time they are very hardy and get over what ever it is quickly.

[Fally]

They are looking a little better now. Here are some pics from today.

[graphixx]

they dont look too bad, just keep an eye on them and they should come around!!

[butterfly_babe4200]

They should recover just fine. When you moved the rocks around you disturbed some of the detritus under them as well as releasing some nasty stuff into the water. But they look like they are coming back to normal just give them a bit more time. And be careful next time you move your rock around, other corals are much more sensitive to the bad stuff you released and will die because of it.

[Fally]

Wow, good info. I guess we need to pick an arrangement and stick with it then. I started out with less LR then I wanted and have been adding a piece here and there. Everytime we add a piece we rearrange things...

What exactly is the nasty stuff that is released? Just rotting organics? I just figured that I would see some sort of spike in something I could test if there was a problem with something like that.

Thanks for the advice!

[JustDavidP]

It's probably not related to anything "released" at all. Shrooms, like zoanthids, xenia, leathers and other 'softies' are that much more affected by 'change' all together.

My mushrooms have been almost closed shut for two days now. They do this EVERY two weeks. Why? Because I conduct water changes EVERY two weeks :D

Your addition of the sump, the inclusion of new rock, sand, and most importantly WATER in the sump and refugium changed the environment enough to cause them to retract. It is a defense mechanism and is fine. You'll see that they open more and more each day, and will do the same thing again, when you do a significant water change.

This same reaction ALONE, is the only reason I keep Xenia in my seahorse tank. Well...that, and the fact that they don't sting my ponies. You see... if I come to the tank and see ANY cranky xenia, I know that something is wrong in the system. It's a good indicator coral....as are shrooms.

Dave