What's killing my mushrooms?

I'm not sure if they are dying but I'm pretty sure they are. I'm very confused because my water parameters are good and they are in different parts of the tank, I've had the ricordea in the same spot for months and the greens are new. I'm at a loss at how one day they looking super happy and the next day they are slimy, shriveled, and looking dead. My parameters are
Salinity: 1.023
Phosphate: 0.5
P.h: 8.4
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5.0
Alkalinity: (meg/l) 4.5 (dkh) 12.6
Calcium: 440
Magnesium: 1300

How do I bring that down? The ricordea is, I've left him there because he seems or use to seem to be a pretty happy camper. My green is totally gone this morning :(

Are you dosing any chemicals?

How high were the nitrates?

Do you have any brittle starfish in your tank?

what is your lighting like?  I had some mushrooms under t5s that would just shrivel unless they where put in some shade.

Here's the tank the day before my mushrooms started to get slimy. This picture was taken Friday as well as the first one I posted. Sorry for bad quality just cell phone pics

Having a Nitrate level of 80 and then using an ion exchange resin like Chemipure to help the biofiltration reduce it to 5 ppm could easily be the reason for dieing mushrooms.

Coral and their symbiotic Zooxanthellae algae need nutrients to survive. Soft coral need higher levels of Nitrogen and Phosphorous to survive. I don't know how long the Nitrate level was at 80 but it may have been high for some time. The mushrooms were probably loving it. Severely and quickly reducing the nutrient levels with the use of Chemipure was probably a big shock to them. Chemipure also removes other elements/nutrients which the mushrooms like.

I knew a person that could never keep any coral, even soft coral, because she had been running Phosphate remover continually from tank set up.

The brown color on the rock is diatom algae and possibly also dinoflagellate algae. Sometimes when a coral dies, an algae comes along to help eat up the pollution. Watch for Cyano as well.

I have found that the best way to reduce pollution is not to use a chemical. I believe algae is the best answer. Algae eats pollution like crazy. Macroalgae is a much nicer algae than Cyano, Diatoms or Dinoflagellates and IMO is better than any chemical or ion exchange resin. I highly recommend adding some Macroalgae like Caulerpa and/or Cheato to this tank or if it already has some in a Refugium, I would turn on the lights 24/7 for a while.

Aloha,
Mark


Edited by Mark Peterson - September 17 2013 at 8:30pm

Thank for some answers Mark I was really starting to worry. I guess lesson learned with Chem bags haha. After I noticed the rock discoloration I pulled that bag out and put small pebbles of live rock in the back filtration. I will be stealing (haha more like taking) some plants out of our refugium tank. I would have already but different households. Anyways after I pulled the bag out I had already started seeing changes in my tank. I'm just going to wait it out and hope for the best. My alkalinity has spiked in the last 48 hrs and of course Calcium and mag have dropped but everything has stayed the same. I'm hoping the tank will find its natural balance with out losing anything else. As of right now the only thing lost is a six line and three green mushrooms. The ricordea looks like it is healing itself and nothing else was our had shown signs of being affected.

For what ever its worth...

Chemi Pure Elite or regular?  It actually matters...

I  think it's your Phosphates, yours is way to high and mushrooms act very poorly at those levels.  Critical level is at .10 and Corals will decline at .25.  Besides all of the other difficulties it presents.

Chemi Pure has no ability to directly adsorb or absorb Nitrates.  It will however remove disolved organics that break down into Nitrate.

What is Temp.?

Also make sure to double check the calibration of your Hydrometer or whatever you are using, low salintiy is devastating to Shrooms as well as the temperature of aquarium.