ricordea florida and sps

[wjgeese]

Hi all,
does anyone have experience keeping rics with stony corals? i have a 50gal ricordea dominant tank (100s) and can't seem to keep stony corals for the life of me. alk 10, ca 450, mg 1300, po4 0 (hanna ultra low checker), no3 .25 ppm, sg 1.024 temp 78 degrees. within a week ant hard coral loses color and dies. lighting is AI prime t5 hybrid.

could thisbbe chemical warfare going on?

 

[wjgeese]

correction 100 not 100s lol!

 

[miralami]

High Alk requires high PO4, no coral can survive in 0 phosphate.


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[Alex Costa]

My experience is similar to yours.
I like rics a lot but never was able to keep them.
I use AI leds too, in display tank and in the frag tank.
In the frag tank, with less circulation, I keep them alive, but evolving a little.
In the display tank, they shrink progressivelly, until disapear.

Alex

 

[wjgeese]

My issue isnt keeping ricordea. It's keeping acros with ricordea.

 

[Daddi0]

.25 is not enough nitrates in my opinion to keep acros happy. Them dying in the first week is not good! Are you aclimating them to temperature and lighting? How do the acros die? All at once, from the top? from the bottom? Are they frags or colonies?
Cheers! Mark

 

[saltypilot]

have had the opposite experience. Have had a tougher time keeping ricordia

 

[Jsarrow]

I have both sps and ricordia in my tank in close proximity to each other and all are doing fine; I do have measurable P04 and N03 tho. Sounds like perhaps your water quality and/or flow and placement of the species need to be modified to support both.

 

[wjgeese]

thanks all....ive been letting the no3 and po4 go up some and have noticed some improvement, so hopefully that's the solution...alk still 11 and Ca is 480 and I have stopped dosing for about two weeks (!) cant understand why they arent moving, esp since I have 5 4-6" blue squamosas....they are growing...but very slowly.

 

[Oldreeferman]

Ive got a few different species of mushrooms & a ricordea that is just splitting into 2, and also have LPS & SPS in the tank. They all like the water a bit nutrient rich so if your a water polishing must have perfect water reading 0 nitrates or phosphates person they wont prosper in your sys. probably & ricordeas spread very very slowly unlike most mushrooms.
As to your issue with acros all mushrooms give off toxins as do all softys & acros don't care for that warfare so if you want success with acros then have many more acros then softys in the display tank & run carbon or have 2 tanks 1 softys & 1 SPS LPS tank. I noticed my Acans doing much better when i removed a large growth of GSP and they aren't nearly as picky as acros are. You have serious warfare going on.