Two coral questions

[Fishkeeper]

Hi! As you may know, I recently lost my entire tank to a domino rally crash, and I'm just setting it back up. I have a couple of coral frags in the tank, both of which are doing well, but there's a couple of things I'd like to know.
The first frag is a palythoas frag, about 3" at the base, with the largest heads being slightly over 1/2" across. It's spreading onto the other rocks now, which is nice. Now, I know these are poisonous and should never be touched with bare skin, although I've seen my rhino blenny sit on them with no problems. My question is, how far away from them should other corals be?
The second frag is a pair of greenish-red mushrooms on a small rock. They take on a purple tint when closed up. They're about 2" across, each, and one has what looks like a smaller coral growing from a spot near the middle of the disk. They have slightly jaggedy edges. My question is, could these be elephant ear mushrooms? I've heard that EEMs can eat small fish.... And a 1" pygmy goby definitely qualifies!
Yes, I know that a rhino blenny with a pygmy goby may not be the best idea, but it's a fat, speedy little blighter of a goby, and the rhino shows no interest in him.

[Hpimichael02]

1. palythoas are very peaceful and i have a section of mine growing around mushrooms touch each other among zoanthids as well no problems what so ever. they are only posin is inside of them when you frag.
2. post a pic to help better identify them

[smaug]

What the heck is a dominoe rally crash?

[Fishkeeper]

Smaug, I meant the kind of thing where one problem sort of triggers another, and so on, like dominoes.
Hpimichael02, I'd like to post a pic but for some reason I just can't seem to get it to work... It may be something to do with the fact that I'm on an Ipad, but I can't get photos onto here.

[Hpimichael02]

you will have to add the Photobucket or some kind of image posting app on the Idevices and then post an IMG tag...

what that could be is the mushrooms growing a new mushroom. this slowly happens when the baby mushroom splits from the base of one of the bigger ones and stay attached till it moves far enough enough to open up and start feeding by itself.

[Fishkeeper]

Okay, good to know....

The teeny muchroom-thing is almost in the middle of the disc, so I don't think that's what it is. Does anyone know the best way to tell EEMs from other mushrooms?

[kaybee]

They're a lot wider in diameter (5"+ easy) than common mushrooms.

Note the size difference between this green elephant ear mushroom (rhodactis mussoides) on the left and the smaller common red mushrooms (actinodiscus sp.) on the right. It's grown some in diameter since this photo but I can't get a decent shot of it since I've relocated it to a different sector of the tank.



The amplexidiscus mushrooms (giant cup mushrooms) are of even greater in diameter (8+") and threat to smaller fish.

Close ups on the differences in tissue texture: (to distinguish between small-sized elephant ears and large common mushrooms):

Common mushroom texture


Elephant ear mushroom texture


The giant cup mushrooms can have a 'hairy' appearance.

In E. Borneman's book 'Aquarium Corals' there is a photo of a Rhodactis swallowing a banggai cardinalfish that it caught.

[sweeneyc]

good pictures! Fishkeeper, is truly a mushroom? If it is a ricordia, it could be another mouth. Mushrooms have many ways of propagating. The one previously mentioned is called daughtering, where little baby mushrooms appear at the base. the other is division, (myosis or mytosis I don't know I'm a history major).
This is where the mushroom or ricordia will create another mouth and then eventually split. With two mouths it can now create two separate entities.

I call them "Mouths" but I really don't know if thats what they are. They have the look of a little mouth, but for all know, it could be the other end.