mushroom breeding

[ImagineAquatics]

I have some sort of red mushroom in one of my tanks and something strange has happened with it. There are dozens of tiny little mushroom looking things all over it. This is a new development, as they did not appear when I purchased it from Inland Aquatics in Terre Haute. I have had it for about 2 months now, and I fed it for the first time a short while ago. It turned into a balloon after I fed it and it stayed that way for a few days (I've seen this with all of my older mushrooms after I feed them, just not for that long..). Shortly after it opened (within a few days) I noticed the little mushrooms (at least that's what they look like...). They appear to be moving very slowly, but visibly, at a rate of maybe one-two centimeters per minute.

Are these baby mushrooms? If so, I've never seen mushrooms so mobile before. I have heard about mushroom breeding, but it always involved cutting them into pieces. If they are breading, how often does it happen?

BTW, this happened in one of my tanks that has had a recent steep pH decline. I then brought it back up again fairly rapidly (3 days). It was after this when all of this happened. Everything else looks much happier after the pH boost. Could the drop and subsequent boost be responsible for triggering this?

I will try to get a picture and post it here, but it's in a difficult spot. My digital has trouble focusing inside of the aquarium properly.

[ImagineAquatics]

Upon closer inspection, all of the mushrooms of a similar species have the same thing! Could this be some sort of parasite, or did all of my mushrooms just spontaneously multiply?

[TheOldSalt]

I'm going to guess that these are not baby mushrooms, since they haven't left the big 'shrooms, but are instead planarians, a common pest of facilities like Lidster's. They come in on Fiji rock, ( which is very cheap, thusly winding up in great quantities in big mariculture facilities like Morgan's ) and pretty much never go away after that. They don't eat the 'shrooms or corals, but instead eat the slime on them, sometimes to detrimental effect.

[ImagineAquatics]

I haven't put any live rock in the tank at all, except what I've grown myself. Must have come in on the mushrooms themselves.. I'll see if I can get one under a microscope.. Strange thing is, they're all one one type of mushroom, and no others.

Thanks for the info!

[TheOldSalt]

Not strange at all. Many of these worms have definite preferred hosts.