Florida ric help..

[RealReef7]

i have a big piece of rock covered in florida rics but they are all starting to bleach.. they are on the sand bed with good amount of flow... i have 2 400w mh 20k radiums and its a standard 120g tank. My yumas are in the middle porting of the tank flourishing, and happy as can be.. i thought florida rics were suppose to be easier to care for?

 

[jdhuyvetter]

They are not big fans of MH. Mine flourish under T-5's. They did well in my tank when I had MH's. But, it was a 300 gallon tank and the MH were only 250's. Move them to a "dark" corner or partially shade them and then gradually acclimate them to full light.

 

[Rudolph]

It sounds like maybe too much light and maybe too much flow ("good amount of flow"). I am sure there will be many MH owners that will chime in and report that theirs works great, but I have T5's like JD above and they are very happy. Here are my rics and yumas under T5's. I left of one of my pumps the other day and my rics really ballooned up....I will look to replace the pump to a much lower flow (it blows from behind my rockwork so I do not want to totally take it out as I want to keep anything from accumulating in my rockwork. Or, i may put it on a timer).

many people do find rics challenging, so I am not sure I would call them easy. Mine seem to take a while to get comfortable with their new settings, so give them some time to acclimate. Many of mine take a month or two to really reach their peak form so don't get too discouraged if they take time. Make minor adjustments and then leave them alone (unless they really start looking bad). Good luck and keep us updated.

 

[Candycrab]

How long have you had them in your tank?....I would say the best thing to do is try to shade them as much as possible. Then slowly introduce them to more and more light. Ricordia floridias are usually a really tough species. I've seen them thrive under Mh's.

 

[CLINTOS]

Great advice Rudolph, your shroom's are huge.

what's your flow? and size tank? I personal find that flow and the right kind of flow, is very important with ric's.

Wish I could get them as large as your's. Great suggestion about adding a timer onto a pump, going to look into doing that.

 

[Rudolph]

My main tank is a standard 75G. I have 4 x 54w T5's. They are blubs with high par levels. If I can get them there you can too. There is one green one that is near the middle and top of the pic that is really a monster. If is barely open in the picture. The ones on the bottom are also taking off now...

I would have to go to my boxes to look each one up. I have the main return from my sump (? but by far the highest), two on each end (probably 300-400GPH each and on a wavermaker), one larger one behind my rockwork (probably around 600GPH or so). None of the pumps flow directly on the rics.

I also started a frag tank 33L (48x12x12) and only have two small pumps, I think around 300gph each. I have about 30 or so newer rics in there and my goal is to try my hand at propagation. I don't have the lighting right yet as i started with 3 x 54w T5's, but that seems to be too much, so I now am trying 2 x 54 for a while. Once the rics seem to be openning up all the way I will start slicing.

 

[CLINTOS]

My main tank is a standard 75G. I have 4 x 54w T5's. They are blubs with high par levels. If I can get them there you can too. There is one green one that is near the middle and top of the pic that is really a monster. If is barely open in the picture. The ones on the bottom are also taking off now...

I would have to go to my boxes to look each one up. I have the main return from my sump (? but by far the highest), two on each end (probably 300-400GPH each and on a wavermaker), one larger one behind my rockwork (probably around 600GPH or so). None of the pumps flow directly on the rics.

I also started a frag tank 33L (48x12x12) and only have two small pumps, I think around 300gph each. I have about 30 or so newer rics in there and my goal is to try my hand at propagation. I don't have the lighting right yet as i started with 3 x 54w T5's, but that seems to be too much, so I now am trying 2 x 54 for a while. Once the rics seem to be openning up all the way I will start slicing.

thanks they look great, your wave box is probably doing most of the work for getting them that size, they're probably not getting direct flow all the time.

I'm thinking of setting something up custom made, that has 4 t5 h.o 48" x 12"W x maybe 9 -15" deep

Hoping to maybe include a nanowavebox. Need to look into some more it's hard to get info on strength and how it work's, what depth tank it would do bast at, etc

flow I think is the major issue with shroom's, t5 lighting imo should do them good, and I can't add much more then 4 t5 with 12" W tank, so I need to control the depth to maximize the light, but at the same time provide the right indirect flow for the most part.

 

[RealReef7]

The ric colony has been in the tank for about a year.. i think im going to put it under a shady area and see if that helps.

 

[Candycrab]

I've got to agree with clintos, your mushrooms are very nice Rudolph

 

[Candycrab]

Let me know how they end up doing Realreef7

 

[CLINTOS]

I have ric's 18" under 150 watt t5 h.o and can't see them under stronger light, I think their are at their max light, before fading.

M.h has a strong point of direct light which is were the middle of the bulb is, so as long as they are at the bottom, but off to the side of the point, they should be fine.

I also never had 400 watt MH but did have around 432 watt of t5 h.o on my old 120 and considered that their max. JMO

 

[Dreamscape4]

How did you get them to bunch up so nicely?

 

[Dreamscape4]

Rudolph, How did you get them to bunch up so nicely?

 

[The Big Tuna]

Hey Reelreef7,
What are your Nitrate levels? If there non existant, than that could be your problem or part of it. Rics really do like T5 light systems, almost as much as sunlight...
Joshua

 

[Rudolph]

Rudolph, How did you get them to bunch up so nicely?

Well the hardest thing is just leaving them alone as it is tempting to want to harvest a few and thin them out. As they multiply they start fighting over the real estate and over time there is nothing left. While they have not jumped over the main rock they are on, I think sevearal are going to make the move soon. While I wish they would grow faster, the fact they don't sometimes makes me appreciate it more.

Lastly, I read on here (RC) one time where someone stated rics like "touch" each other. This guy had a jungle of rics so I figured he was either crazy or maybe on to something. While I cannot scientifically prove it, I can tell you that my rics that overlap each other (touch) seem to grow much faster and look happier than an isolated one. I hear many,many people that plob a single ric down and they sit there and do nothing.

So, the answer is to put several on a rock close together and then let them do their thing.....I would start them off where they don't quite touch when they are fully open....make them have to work a bit to find their neighbor.....of man, who is the crazy guy now.....:spin3:

Those pics are a little old, but here is a recent one that has gotten huge in the last month....

To help you gauge the size, here it is next to a large yuma...

 

[victor escobar]

Do you have experience with ricordea under led lighting? Are they growing and happy? In which position in the tank you vave them?

 

[Rudolph]

Do you have experience with ricordea under led lighting? Are they growing and happy? In which position in the tank you vave them?

If you are asking me, mine are under T5's. I tried LED's in my frag tank for a couple of months, but I wasn't that excited about it. I probably could add a strip of blues and/or other colors as everything looked washed out. It sounds like many folks are having a lot of issues with LED's so I am going to sit on the sideline before I try them again. People either love them or hate them.

The vast majority of them are flat. I have a few that are on angles and they seemed to be doing well too. I have no scientific evidence to say what is best. It can be interesting to put some on angles......you see them better.