The mushrooms, Oh those evil mushrooms. First there is one and you think they are a nice frilly green. Then there are two and three, you think how proud you are that your corals are propagating. For a time you even brag about the nice colony that you have grown, then one day you wake up and find that they have shaded out a neighbor killing it. Then you notice that they are climbing the walls of your aquarium growing out of every orifice. Your thoughts have soured and you now want to rid them from your tank. Cutting them doesn't work, they just keep coming back. They never stop, they just keep coming. Untill - today! After talking with Fisher12 who suggested heating the rock in an oven, I thought I could do one better - a blow torch. There I was looking forward to "fried mushrooms, some fava beans and a nice chianti". With my handy blow torch I slowly and maliciously scorched each polyp as there inards popped and spat - I could hear there screams as I exacted my revenge. There is nothing like the smell of burnt mushrooms in the morning - that is not from Silence of the Lambs but Apocalypse Now, what can I say I like movies. When I was done I was confident that I had silenced the mushrooms - they would no longer haunt my dreams. Roxanne took a few pictures as souvenirs which I understand is typical of killers.
Ahhh the smell of sweet revenge!!!! I to have delt with part of my mushroom problem, but in a different way.... you might check out my thread in General Reef Discussion.... it is a bit of a sad story though...
It has been pointed out to me that the manner in which I chose to present the expulsion of the mushrooms from my tank may be a bit controversial and I guess rightfully so. It is a bit hypocritical of me to state that we strive as a club to conserve our reefs for future hobbyist and then I show pictures of me blasting mushrooms with a blow torch. I assure everyone that does not know me that I believed that sharing these pictures would be humerus and was in no way intended to offend anyone. In my defense I have sliced, pinched and injected mushrooms after doing a lot of research on how to control there population. I feel that my extermination of green mushrooms in my tank is no different than chemically treating my tank for flatworms. I do understand that mushrooms are more appealing to hobbyists than flatworms but in my tank they are a pest no different than the worms. I did consider trading the rock with other hobbyist or a local fish store but I liked the rock and few hobbyist have pieces that large they can remove from there tanks. I hope that people will take my humor with a grain of salt that it was intended to portray and not a statement of cruelty to our marine animals.
I have some of those mushrooms too. I'm not sure what to do about mine either, as they are coming loose and going everywhere. (I'm picking them out and putting them in Jim's tank-don't tell). Anyway I can understand why you want to get rid of them. Mine are also on a really nice large rock that I want to keep. A rope? hummmm........ how about we super glue his armpit's??? haha
Don't be too hard on yourself, Hannibal . In the 'real' ocean, nature has a way of weeding out overpopulations of plantlife, inverts, corals, fish and so on. Hurricanes, undersea earthquakes, natural predators, etc...etc...etc.... In our home reefs (which are MUCH more stable then the real thing) most of our inhabitants seem to thrive, excessively in some cases. Seems like they have nothing better to do than replicate themselves, lol! So by taking measures into your (our) own hands, we are (in a sense) acting as nature would by weeding out an overpopulation of an organism that, if left alone, could possibly destroy our entire mini-ecosystems. Make sense? Okay, so that may have been a little deep and it did sound a bit corny reading it back but I think you get the picture..........now were did you put that Chianti???? Tracy (cardoc's wife)
I would compair the mushrooms that Chris, Marti (soon Jim ), and I are dealing with to glass anemones. Mine killed the entire base of one of my corals by stinging it.
"silence of the mushroom..." I'm crushed.... I feel so.... I don't know- frightened by you people. hehe.
silence of mushrooms.... Chris, do you remember you gave me some of your green mushrooms a few years back, when I came to your house and bought a lot of Marcus's corals when he had to move? I won't tell them what you've done to their family.... (they've grown and spread, but in no way have they become THAT aggressive. hehe. I got the nice ones, I guess. thanks.
OH MY GOSH!!! That is just way too funny and scary! Chris, I think we need to have a therapist at our next meeting. I wish Joe and I had the problem with mushrooms taking over instead of things dying. Our poor gorgonian is just about dead. Kathy
