The Puffer Forum

I've had some fluffy mushrooms I didn't have an ID on. Today I found out that they are Rhodactises, as I found one of them like this :

It scared the living daylight out of me, as I know my female mandarin fish is very, very tiny, and could definitely be the one in the mushroom's belly. In panic, I started to tear out some rocks, in hope that my two tiny mandarins would come out and have a look. And they did! None of them were eaten. None of my fish were eaten. It's probably their breakfast that was the victim, as it landed close to the Rhodactis this morning. Lucky mushroom, and lucky mandarins. Now that I don't have to worry about any of my beloved fish, it's quite fascinating to watch this. I will worry about the mandarins until they've grown bigger though. They are definitely small enough to be eaten, and they love to walk around looking for food in that area.

The mushroom has started opening up again now, and it's definitely the frozen mysis that's been eaten.





Almost totally open now, but the food is still in it's mouth:

that is cool. I didn't know mushrooms did that

That is to cool, I want a mushroom now.


Do you have to feed mushrooms or do they usually just nab whatever out of the water?

As I don't know the exact species, I don't have the exact information on that one. And of course, my sources don't aggree with each other either. According to LiveAquaria, they do get some of their food through zooxanthellae, but also would like zooplancton and other stuff. I haven't intentionally fed mine, except that I add zooplancton to my tank sometimes, and it really thrives here. It probably feeds a bit off the rests from the fish food, like it did today. BTW, it spat out quite a bit of the frozen mysis shrimps it tried to eat today. According to RC, all Rhodactises can take fish, though. I don't really see how, because all I have seen of it, it has moved pretty slow. My clowns loves to brush their butt into it, as they don't have a nem to live in, and the mushroom has never tried to catch them. It does contract a bit at the touch, but it looks like it's only trying to protect itself.