Kids! What is this?? and a dumb question

[starla]

At 21 and 19 years of age I didn't think I would have to tell my kids..."please don't buy me any coral or fish, " I think we need a thread on lecturing our family members about NOT buying us stuff!

That being said here is what they bought. I think its a mushroom of some sort (thankfully) accept it almost looks like it has a mouth in the middle. I looked in my coral book and online and can't identify it. For now I have it sitting up high, with a medium current.

and a close up of the bottom one there is actually four on this piece.

Ok next question here is my mushroom I bought back in jan one of my first corals

and here it is today

When I first bought it you could see the rock behind it all the time, today its full. so now my dumb question..

can the rock that it is on get too full?????? Do they just sorta "move?" Do I have to do anything to it or just let it be? The picture doesn't do it justice. It looks gorgeous! But also looks crowded.

thanks
starla

 

[Ace25]

First pics, ya, mushroom, have to wait until it expands to really be able to tell what kind though. Looks like it might be some type of richordia, but really can't tell shrunk up.

Next question, yes, mushrooms will keep spreading and when they get to "crowded" on one piece of rock, they just detach and float around the tank until they find a better spot. Kinda cool seeing parachutes floating around the tank, but a pain at the same time as they can get out of control.

 

[Subliminal]

The top does look like ricordia. Mushrooms are funny. When they sit for a while they get strong on the side that that holds them up right. When you get them and put them in your tank, if they are sitting in a different direction, they get all droopy like that. They'll beef back up, though.

Almost looks like a yellow ricordia...cool.

 

[Grins]

The top ones are possibly ricordea yuma or standard rhodactis of some sort. However, I'd say they are simply very bleached. I have seen naturally brownish/red ones that neon greenish white color when bleached. They do have mouths on them but so do your other mushrooms, the bleached ones just have gaping mouths so you are probably noticing them more.

 

[starla]

Hey Grins ok if they are bleached do I have to worry about this? Can I do anything to bring them back to their normal color? Will it hurt them?

 

[Grins]

They bleach either from lack of light or too much light. They can survive but you do want them to regain their symbiotic algae (that helps color them). What kind of lights and where in the tank were they when you got them? If they were up high under MHs for instance they had too much light. If they were on the underside of a rock under PCs, they had too little light.

 

[starla]

Hi Grins
Ok they were under metal halides up high. I have novas extremes T5's 454 watts I have them placed higher in the tank so I should probably move them down. They do look like the ricordia that Ace and Subliminal said except for the color. These are almost a flourscent white/green look. I am going to read up on bleached corals. Trust me, when I went to the LFS store today to find out about this purchase I left in anger.

They lost two of their best staff in the last couple of weeks. We saw FOUR dead seas horses in the tank and this poor red carnation coral looked like it was on its last leg. I almost thought of buying it to a least give it a fighting chance. The tanks looked terrible and dirty and these poor star fishes. HUGE the size of my husbands hand when spread wide open , in this little itty bitty tanks, AND the tips on many of them where look bad like skin necrosis.

I spoke to the owner about the dead seashorses ect..but well.

So as it stands now I am not even sure where I am going to conitune to buy coral and fish to stock my tank becasue I left there pretty angry