Help with mushrooms

I have a tube of the Lugols Solution but was afraid to dose it in such a small take while properly doing my water changes like I do...can you not over dose iodine? I use and like instant ocean reef crystals

 

I have had mushrooms under 1200 watts of lighting, and they would not stop re producing. In fact I had to kill some, and give some to my neighbors...light is not the problem.

 

I'm clueless then onto why I can't keep them and other corals looking good

 

Curious if the iodine comment may be on the right track.

As others have stated, I've had the experience of not being able to kill the things off and now that I have decent lighting they spread like crazy. My mushrooms survived my tank unlit and 0 circulation for 6 months in a major crash! Of course they looked like crap and didn't reproduce during that time but they survived.

 

I would not use Lugols in such a small tank. Lugols is one of my favorite products. I have seen many a beautiful mushroom tanks that used Lugols, but you need to test for it and use it sparingly.

Huge difference in intense lighting on a 75 gallon and up tank and a 20 gallon tank, the depth of the tank being most significant. In my experience the most common cause of mushrooms and ricordia failing is because I provided them with way too much light initially. They either melted or detached and floated away never to be seen again.

Since you are using RC for water changes I would be testing the big 3 prior to a water change and after. I get some significant swings in alk when I do a water change with RC as well as mag.

 

its my belief that change in lighting is what causes coral to die in this manner, light shock so to say, going from fluorescent to m/h or natural sun to man made lighting or low wattage to high wattage any type of change really can cause this, iodine helps the coral to readapt to this change so the coral doesn't go into light shock. a dip of 20 drops of lugols in 1/2 gallon of aquarium water, place the coral in for 10 minutes before placing it in your tank this should do the trick, it has worked for me so many times with just about all my corals that looked like they were dieing bringing them back to life.

 

Holy GIGAWATT Batman!! ;-)

 

I have 4 39 watt t5s and I only keep the 2 actinics on, my tank is a10 gallon.

 

Just got home and soaked those mushrooms in lugols for ten minutes and then put back into the tank, hopefully it works and they start looking better

 

No doubt many corals have bleached or died from "light shock" (aka "light inhibition"), and that there are other variables involved as some simply do not share the same problems. Is this something you've discovered?

FTR- I'm in no way doubting you. I realize you've been in the hobby for a long time and you currently have the longest-surviving (and one of the most beautiful) reef tanks that I've seen, and I fully respect your advice; I'm just curious.