How long can ricordeas be out of water??

[JuliusJames]

I tried the search function but its not working at the moment.

So how long can they be out of water? I'm going to glue about 30+ onto one rock individually in about an hour. thx

 

[Jeff]

Drape wet paper towels over the rics while the rock is out of water to be safe.

 

[JuliusJames]

thx. Two of my local fish stores said no more than 20 minutes. I did it and I just placed the rock in my main tank with the rics glued on. It looks nice so far.

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

hi there, rics are very hardy, they can stay out of the water for hours.

in fact, as an experiment, ive left ricordea nearly dry in a puddle of water in a plastic bag for over 80 hours and they were fine. ive even heard from other collectors that they have found stray polyps at the bottom of their live well sitting dry the day after the collection dive and those polyps have come back just fine.

as you will see, the ricordea polyps themselves stay fairly wet, they retain the water around them inside their slim layer.

as for the glueing, take your time, mushrooms and ricordea can easily handle an hour without being in the tank. at room temp of course...

my first of many posts!...hello all! we are a team of ricordea and invert collectors in the Florida Keys...we know ricordea and are here to help!

 

[NiTr0x911]

ive shipped rics in wet paper -2 days in transit no problem

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14207635#post14207635 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NiTr0x911
ive shipped rics in wet paper -2 days in transit no problem

not the best way to ship ricordea IMO, but i believe it! like i said, rics are very tuff!

 

[NiTr0x911]

obviously not the best but they made it and were opened within an hour.Same goes for Zoas

 

[JuliusJames]

Keysseacritters - thx for the knowledgable info. Greatly appreciated.

I have a question. Two of my rics wasn't doing good and they had a hole in the middle of it. Then they started to have brown guey substance on them. I did some quick research and from what I read, I quickly removed them from the other rics and isolated them in a tupperware container. I read a bug might of caused this. My other rics are away from the sand and are on a big live rock, bottom and middle of the tank. If you know what caused this, please educate us. Thx

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

this occasionally seems to happen. im not 100% sure on what causes this as i have seen it occur in a few different situations. here are my thoughts...a mod may want to start a new thread:

-its almost like the ricordea is rotting from the inside out. like a donut. while the damage doesnt begin at the mouth it can quickly spread to the center of the ricordea and begin to destroy to mouth.

-the brown slime that occurs seems to be either the remnats of the dying ricordea polyp itself or the remnants of some sort of failed defense mechanism of the ricordea polyp. either way, removal of the slime via small syphon is a good idea.

-the causes could be many or mulit-layered. of course, water quality could play a part. but this wouldnt explain why in the same system, the rotting would occur in one tank an not the other. it does seem to spread from one polyp to the next so the theory of some sort of bug may be correct.

-in single mouthed polyps, ive found that once the mouth is gone there is pretty much no hope for the polyp. if some of the mouth is still there then immediate isolation may bring the polyp back. if the polyp has multiple mouths then saving the undamaged area that still has healthy mouths may be a bit easier using a scalpel or other sharp edge.

-in any case, i have found that immediate isolation and removal of all the brown slime and remnants of the infected ricordea is the best first step. and sustrate that has the brown slime or rotting ricordea could infect other tank mates so it should all come out quickly.

-another cause is perhaps a dirty substrate. in one instance we solved a rotting problem by removing all the polyps and vigorously cleaning our substrate. however, i have seen this occur with ricordea on rocks as well.

-in the wild there is a species of mithrax crab, we call them RICORDEA CRABS, that seem to live commensally among ricordea colonies. these crabs may play a role in cleaning the ricordea and removing waste particles from the polyps. ive also had good luck keeping a few arrow crabs in my ricordea tanks, these seem to delicately remove any waste particles from mushroom and ricordea polyps.

id would love to hear what others think about this problem. im sure others have had this happen to their rics and wonder why.
i dont claim to know it all by any means....any info is good to know.

 

[wantsalotta]

Well, I would not worry about them and just do it. They have natural defenses built in to these things called tides

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

tides really dont play a part here. these animals occur much deeper than any tide could drop.

another interesting thing ive learned about coralimorphs:
if it wasnt for the cooler water in the winter i think the inshore waters of the florida keys would be infested with mushroom corals and inshore ricordea. but each year the water gets cold enough to stunt their growth and kill off some. during the summer they grow as fast as they can. however, they have to start over each year as the cold water form the winter causes them to shrink up and wither away. this is why so many people complain about mushrooms overtaking their tank. if the conditions are right these things can spread like fire. in the wild they are kept in check natually by the temperature of the water during the winter.

 

[Logzor]

I pulled a yuma rock out of my old tank and took a hammer and chisel to it for around 15 minutes. It was out of the water the entire time and did fine.

I was trying to bust off just the mushrooms because my rockwork was done in the new tank.

 

[JuliusJames]

I've siphoned out the brown slime as much as I can. The rest escaped in my tank. As for the mithrax crab, I captured 4 this past week because I witnessed 3 out of the 4 eating and killing one of my hammer colony and my blasto colony. Money down the drain =(

Mithrax crab are the same as the emerald crab right? I bought them as emerald crabs. I don't trust those crabs in any reef tank.

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

mithrax is the genera, there are a couple different species though. the emerald crab is the common one found in the trade. the species im refering to is called the "banded clinging crab" by Paul Humann in his book "Reef creature identification.

we call it a ricordea crab because that is where we find them, living commensaly with the ricordea. but there is no gaurtantee that they wont find a pacific coral to be a tasty treat. in aquariums when species that are naturally found in different oceans com into contact with each other (like your emerald crabs and hammer coral) there is no telling what will happen.

im alos not certain that these crabs would cure dying ricordea. i only know that they are found in the wild living with them. and in tanks where we keep them with ricordea polyps, the ricordea polyps seem to do very well.

these crabs may not be available at your local fish store. try ebay or do a search for them online...

good luck

interesting to note that the emerald crabs ate your hammer coral...perhaps this should be posted in the LPS forum? good to know.

KEYS SEA CRITTERS

 

[VacavilleFC3S]

theres was several threads on this a few months ago, i don't think they ever figured out why the rics from dying fromthe inside out

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

i discussed this probelm of ricordea rotting from the inside outwith my partner further, and we had some other ideas.

many ricordea and mushroom polyps are collected with different amounts of substrate on their foot. some collectors may choose to pass their ricordea off to wholesalers as soon as they have collected it and "as is" with larger than necessary bits of rock or spoonge.

in our experience, any larger than necessary bits of rock, and especially pieces of stray spoonge or macro algae die off and rot after their collection. i have noticed a few members here excited about a "bonus" of a tagalong spoonge or piece of algae with their ricordea polyps. these little extras, that eventually get hidden under the polyp, could be a source of the ricordea rotting from the inside out. as far as single polyps go, you really want just a enough small pebbles attached to the foot and NOTHING else.

soon after we collect our polyps, we go back and further trim and remove any excess pieces of rock and spoonge. the polyps are then kept in our system for a couple months before being sold. polyps sold in more of a "turn and burn" fashion may be more succeptable to problems due to die off of surrounding tagalong growth.

so if you buy single polyps, it may be advisable to trim off excess rock or spoonge bits before attaching them in your tank.

 

[Tallinu]

I've had a Yuma cough up loads of the slime that you are talking about and I siphoned it off repeatedly with a turkey baster in a vain attempt to keep it alive. Curiously, I left the gunk in the plastic container, set it aside and forgot about it for many hours. It ate the plastic leaving a rough dimpled surface in the shape of the blob of gunk. I was quite surprised and wondered if enzymes from the gut were partially responsible for the resulting mess and meltdown of the ricordea.

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

a very cool observation tallinu...ive never saved the brown slime before, course we dont have many rics that die this way.