Controlling agressive Ricordia spread

[Larry Soderblom]

I have a 170G system of mostly SPS with mixed with a variety of zoes and mushrooms. I have a problem with a dark grey-green Ricordia that has turned into a spreading infestation. It grows rapidly and invades and damages my SPS colonies. I have tried to stop its expansion by manual pruning and covering sections of it with kalk-paste; it seems to spread even faster. I have one zoe that I find will cover the rock and smoother them out (and this zoe is benign to other corals). Any good ideas on how to control/eradicate my ricordia-weed? I am near the point of replacing all the live rock and replanting clean frags of all my corals. Thanks for any good ideas!

 

[usatennisfan]

Trade out some of the covered rocks for fresh ones at your LFS and do so as needed.

 

[Das awesome]

I wish I had your problem. I've been waiting for mine to spread for a couple years and only 2 have split

 

[alan.reef]

doing more frag and swap it..

 

[IdahoGuy]

Lasers will kill them.

 

[Frantz]

I put rubble around all my fast growing colonies (read xenia) and then i sell the rubble with new frags on and just replace the rubble. If you culture the rubble in your sump it won't look as out of place color wise.

 

[dannyp02908]

sounds more like rhodactis than ricordia. Most of us wish ricordia would grow that fast as they are very nice and rather expensive.

 

[organism]

Have you tried getting a syringe and literally injecting them with boiling ro/di water? Not saying it will work for sure, but would probably be fairly effective. Mixing the water with some kalk might help too. You could also try building an aiptasia zapper and seeing if that works

 

[ClayaLaLeona]

I suggest you just trade it out at least you can make some money out of the ordeal instead of killing perfectly good corals( albeit annoying)

 

[buffalo123]

Larry lets start by letting us know what you are doing to cause them to spread so rapidly. Share your methods.

I agree with clayalaleona

 

[Jscott11]

Yes please share water parameters feeding lights ect...ect... photos would be great

 

[Reef Frog]

I think DannyP ^ has it right. It doesn't sound like Florida Ricordea. You could make some good money or be the hero at frag swaps with a large tank of fast growing Florida Ricordia.

I probably have the same mushrooms as the OP that came as LR hitch hikers. I brushed them with a small stiff brush. They disappeared for a while & came back much smaller. At that point they were very easy to chip of the rock with a dull table knife.

 

[tangov5559]

i think dannyp ^ has it right. It doesn't sound like florida ricordea. You could make some good money or be the hero at frag swaps with a large tank of fast growing florida ricordia.

I probably have the same mushrooms as the op that came as lr hitch hikers. I brushed them with a small stiff brush. They disappeared for a while & came back much smaller. At that point they were very easy to chip of the rock with a dull table knife.

+1