Welcome back guys, let’s hop right into the topic of Rhodactis mushrooms.
Mushroom corals are corallimorphs which means they belong to the order Corallimorpharia.
Because of their soft bodies and lack of a skeleton they often associated with soft corals
or even anemones, but in terms of taxonomy have more in common with stony corals.
The main distinguishing feature of soft corals vs stony corals is their polyp segments.
True soft corals have polyp segments in multiples of eight while stony corals have polyp segments
in multiples of six.
In this regard, corallimorphs are more similar to stony corals because they have polyp segments
in multiples of six.
There are several genera of corallimorphs such as Discosoma, Ricordea, Pseudocorynactis,
and the topic of this video, Rhodactis.
The Rhodactis genus of mushrooms corallimorphs are arguably the most diverse mushrooms in
the reef aquarium hobby.
They can range in size from the 1” Tonga bullseye varieties to gigantic 18” elephants
ear mushrooms.
In addition, they have some of the most diverse color combinations as well as textures.
If you can imagine a color combination, there is probably a Rhodactis out there that fits
the bill… for a price.
Rhodactis are one of the hot corals in the market at least at the time of this video.
The bounce mushroom for example is a variety of Rhodactis and it’s safe to say that it
is the king of the hype beast mountain… until the next hot coral knocks it off anyway.
This variety of Rhodactis that has balloon-like growths on its face and despite being ultra
polarizing on whether it actually looks nice, there is little question that they fetch high
prices in the market today.
That came as a surprise to me because for the first 30-something years I’ve been in
the hobby, mushrooms of any kind were never the hot coral.
We live in interesting times where a Rhodactis is sometimes sold for four figures or a Discosoma
like a jawbreaker mushroom goes for up to a thousand dollars.
Then again, there is always a hot coral out there and it’s just a matter of time until
it swings back to other kinds.
Regardless of size, coloration, or price point, Rhodactis are some of the easiest corals to
keep.
They can be kept in a wide range of lighting and flow however I would recommend taking
it easy on both lighting and flow.
Let’s tackle lighting first.
Rhodactis can be kept in brightly lit tanks like you see here in my friend Nathan’s
tank.
It’s an SPS dominated tank with the mushrooms about 18-20” down in the water column.
If I had to guess, they are in roughly 100 to 150 PAR.
Alternatively, we have kept them in lower light of around 75 PAR and they have been
fine.
Rhodactis have more or less consistent coloration so switching between lighting technologies
like LED vs T5 or ramping up intensities doesn’t really change their appearance much.
So long as you are providing the requisite lighting intensity and not burning them, you
should be successful keeping them.
As for flow, I like to keep them in lower flow.
Basically I am looking to provide just enough flow that detritus does not settle on them
or around their base.
Flow that is too strong causes them to shrink up and I prefer Rhodactis that are spread
out.
When it comes to nutrition, just providing light for photosynthesis is adequate, but
it is possible to spot feed them if you shut off the pumps and are patient.
As I mentioned before, the Rhodactis genus is highly diverse and as such, there are going
to be some Rhodactis mushrooms that are more aggressive feeders than others.
Is it worth it to feed them?
I’m not really sure.
I’ll let you decide.
Let’s talk a moment about reproduction and propagation.
In home aquariums these mushrooms reproduce asexually through longitudinal fission.
In essence that means that they start to develop two mouths and then pinch themselves in half
to form two separate mushrooms.
It is a lengthier process than say Discosoma that asexually spread through pedal laceration
where the coral drops off bits of its foot behind to spawn new mushrooms.
To speed up this process, you can propagate Rhodactis by cutting them down the middle
once they get to a large enough size.
When doing this, I try to make sure that both halves remain attached to some sort of substrate.
The most difficult thing is to re-attach mushrooms to substrate, so if at all possibe make sure
that neither half breaks loose.
The risk with this type of propagation is infection.
I lost this bounce mushroom here when it never fully recovered from the cutting process.
Ok, that does it for Rhodactis mushroom corallimorphs.
They are great additions to reef aquariums ranging from beginning hobbyists looking for
something very hardy to the discerning coral collector that is looking for a signature
piece in their hype beast collection.
Share in the comments below your experience with these mushrooms.
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Until next time, happy reefing everyone.