Questions about Ricordias

[Kalied20]

I got 5 Rics at the last frag swap and they are doing great. The question I have is, "Why are they not splitting and multiplying?"

They all get hugh during the day and look great, but not one splitting or looking like they are going to.

I don't spot feed them or anything. Just cyclopeze a couple of times a week for the whole tank.

any ideas? I am trying to get a decent pic.

 

[rcmike]

Ricordea usually are pretty slow growers and take a long time to split. I had some for years and never had them split even though they looked very healthy.

 

[Lint_Licker]

Are they yumas or floridas? What kind of lighting? Where are they in the tank?

 

[rcmike]

Yeah, mine were floridas. I automatically think of those as ricordea since the others were just called mushrooms when I started keeping reef tanks.

 

[Lint_Licker]

Some shrooms are similar to yuma's. I bought a rock with what I was told was hairy shrooms. It was part of a big package deal from a guy that was selling off his tank. Well it turned out to be yumas, and there 5 of them on there, the biggest was 6"+. If I would have known they were yumas, I wouldnt have got them. I cant keep yumas for some reason.

Where a lot of people get confused, yumas need a lot of light, where florida's do not. Most people think its the other way around.

I have always fragged my ric's, Im not very patient. I just dont frag the crap out of them. I just cut the head off, cut it into 2 equal halfs making sure each half has a piece of the stomach(stalk) put them in a small plastic container with nylon mesh on top of it (window screen) and crushed coral in the bottom for it to attach to then I put it in a low flow area. In less then 2 weeks, I have 3 rics when I only had 1.

 

[Lint_Licker]

speaking of my rics.... Gary did the rics you got from me survive? If not, let me know.

 

[phudeb]

razor blade.

 

[DMBillies]

Rics and mushrooms do come back quite quickly from being diced up with a razor blade and, like quite a few corals I've fragged, seem to actually grow faster when they are periodically "trimmed."

As for them splitting naturally... I've been letting a ric "colony" grow naturally for a while now. I started with one florida ricordia about a year and a half ago. It was big when I got it (with three mouths) and split in about 2 months. It split from one into 4 in the matter of a couple of days. The 4 have been slowly growing during the rest of the time. Judging from the size the first one was when it split, I'm expecting most of them to go again soon. One has 4 mouths now and most of the rest have 3. I'm patiently waiting since I'm not in a real hurry and like the look of a naturally filled in colony.

 

[gflat65]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10016814#post10016814 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lint_Licker
speaking of my rics.... Gary did the rics you got from me survive? If not, let me know.

Nope. No living rics...

 

[Kalied20]

They are Floridas and they are in my 90 gallon about 3/4's of the way up to the 6 - 54 watt T5's.

 

[salty3]

Not meaning to jack your thread but how do you tell a florida from a yuma?

 

[gflat65]

yumas are usually 'bubblier' and have bubbles around the mouths, where floridas don't have bubbles around the mouth (bubbles/no bubbles is the most common way I've heard to tell the difference, though it still isn't always easy). There are some pretty nice colors of both species. The Apr/May Coral has some nice Caribbean morph shots.

 

[Lint_Licker]

...to go along with what gary said....

Florida Ricordeas, all of the tenticles are pretty much the same size, and with the Yumas, they are different sizes.

 

[Kalied20]

I guess two of my 5 are yumas. and the rest are floridas.