Scientific Name: Discosoma and Actinodiscus sp.
Classification: Soft Coral
Common Names: Mushroom coral
Classification: Soft Coral
Common Names: Mushroom coral
Description:
The Actinodiscus Mushrooms are also referred to as Mushroom Anemones and Disc Anemones. They were previously in a genus called Discosoma. These invertebrates display a wide variety of colors, textures, and patterns. Some are solid colors, whereas, others are striped or spotted. Some are smooth and others are bumped. The great variety together with the fact that they are easy to keep make them a great addition to any aquarium.
The Actinodiscus Mushrooms are also referred to as Mushroom Anemones and Disc Anemones. They were previously in a genus called Discosoma. These invertebrates display a wide variety of colors, textures, and patterns. Some are solid colors, whereas, others are striped or spotted. Some are smooth and others are bumped. The great variety together with the fact that they are easy to keep make them a great addition to any aquarium.
Natural Environment:
They can be found in de Indo-Pacific and South Pacific seas.
Care:
Care level: Mushrooms are easy to keep and tolerate almost any tank setup
Lighting: Will tolerate very low light levels, but does best under moderate lighting. Very intense lighting may prevent the coral from opening fully.
They can be found in de Indo-Pacific and South Pacific seas.
Care:
Care level: Mushrooms are easy to keep and tolerate almost any tank setup
Lighting: Will tolerate very low light levels, but does best under moderate lighting. Very intense lighting may prevent the coral from opening fully.
Water Current: Mushroom corals prefer low to medium water motion.
Temperature: Does well within a range of at least 72º to 84º F (22 º to 28 º C).
Aggressiveness: Low. Have never noticed it attacking nearby corals. Mostly other corals win from the mushrooms.
Feeding: An Actinodiscus Mushrooom receives some of its nutritional requirements through the photosynthesis of the symbiotic algae zooxanthellae which it hosts. It also feeds on other nutrients and particulate matter and benefits from additional food in the form of micro-plankton or brine shrimp fed to each polyp of the colony.
Supplements: No special requirement are noted, but may benefit from iodine supplementation.
Tank Positioning: They can be place anywhere in the aquarium but most people place them near the bottom because they are not very light demanding. They are great for filling gaps between larger corals.
Propagation: Not tried it yet, but it is said that they are easily propagated by cutting individual polyps into several pieces. These can be placed on a gravel bed with low water flow and will attach themselves to pieces of gravel. They can then be superglued to a suitable substrate such as a reef plug.
In my aquarium:
For me it started with a little red mushroom I got for free at our aquarium store 14 December 2009. I put it on a rock and after a couple of weeks it had attached there. It was at that point that I wanted to try and create a rock filled with all sorts of mushrooms.
On 6 March 2010 I got another one a greenish looking mushroom which I dropped next to the red one. It didn’t take long for him to settle there as well and the rock already had 2 mushrooms (and a lot of Halimeda algae).
The aquarium got rebuild, all corals where without light for 3 whole days and waited in a bucket. When I placed the mushrooms back it was as if nothing ever happened to them. Only difference was that the rock was grey and had no more Halimeda on it, but the mushrooms where doing fine.
On May 27 2010 I got in contact with someone on http://www.zeewaterforum.info/ who had a bunch of blue mushrooms for sale. I found one lose and bought it together with some other small coral fragments. It was the third coral for my coral rock. Unfortunately it became harder to keep them in place so they could attach to the rock.
Not long after I found 3 lose mushrooms in our aquarium store which I got for free. The first rock was pretty full so we decided to move my project to another rock. Again the attaching was hard and one of the mushrooms got blown away never to be found again.
On the 10th of July I came into contact with someone from http://www.zeewaterforum.info/ again. This person said he had many mushrooms for me, and he did. We got 4 rocks with mushrooms, one being a very small rock with a red mushroom which we place with the 2 remaining green ones. The other was a rock filled with purple mushrooms and two rocks with buttons and a mushroom in between.
By now we had many mushrooms all in different place with different conditions and all looked different. Couple of days later we found our first two mushrooms had split. A small red and a small green mushroom appeared underneath the big ones. In the beginning they look a bit transparent but it is only a matter of time till they gain full color.
In august we had to do a little rebuild again to catch a fish, none of the mushrooms had any trouble with that except for the red mushroom that was attached to a rock with buttons. He seemed to have itself attached to the other rock as well and while shifting rocks the buttons broke lose from the mushroom. The mushroom is still doing fine, as if nothing ever happened to him.
When we got back from vacation in September we noticed many corals had grown, just like the mushrooms. The oldest one gained another little one, and the blue mushroom also gained 2 small ones. The blue one however has a lot of blister like spots on it, no idea yet what it is. Also the Sea Anemone next to it seems to bother it a lot.
The purple mushroom that came with the buttons has a hard time to, it is being overrun by buttons but also seemed to have separated.
September 18 2010 we bought many new corals again, one of them being a rock filled with Xenia Xenia
And 10 days later we got another batch of lose mushrooms from our aquarium store. One being a striped one, bit bigger then usually. And the others are 5 small dark red or brown mushrooms. Of the last 5 only one is still visible, but that one seems to be stuck now, so that’s good. The striped mushroom is still all over the place.
More information:
For more about the mushrooms in my aquarium and their history see the following links:
Other good articles:
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