can i expect a recovery?

[Chad Vossen]

my ricordia rock had become heavily infested with hair algae. over 6 months, the ricordia shrank and would hardly open. they have not eaten in about a year now. i put the rock into my chocolate chip starfish tank (my mushrooms dont get eaten), and the next day i saw my starfish had eaten half my ricordia... so i took a razor and cut them all off the rock. i put the polyps into a container with mesh window screen on the bottom for them to attach to. within 2 weeks, the polyps attached and i cut the screen and super glued them to rock rubble.

well, thats the history of my ricordia. right now they are less than dime sized and under 175W 10k halide. they have been in this situation now for almost 2 weeks and they seem fine. they dont respond to food at all. i am just wondering how long it will take for them to look good again. they are green ricordia with neon green mouth.

 

[Lance M.]

Just make sure your water params are good and it could take several weeks to a couple months.

It sounds like you had problems with excess phosphate so make sure you test for it.

 

[Chad Vossen]

all my ricordia that have attached to rock rubble have shrank to the point of being a green bubble on the rock. then they just vanish.

its a bummer i cant seem to keep rics alive. one of my favorite corals.

 

[Lance M.]

Might be too much light since your using 10k and I didn't think to say when you posted this 3 months ago that you probably had a problem with phosphates since you had hair algae. even if a test kit doesnt read it you would still have the problem (hair algae consuming it, therefore test kit reads zero) and there is inorganic and organic phosphates and the test kit may read only one of them.

 

[kwilson80439]

sounds like too much light and it can take months and even years to grow out