Ricordeas & T5HO questions

sbcaes

New member
hey folks. has anyone ever kept rics under t5's?

do they shift coloration under t5ho vs mh?

which once gives better coloration ? thoughts?

I've seen t5ho lights shift mushrooms to freakishly unreal colors wonder if rics would do the same? esp in comparision to
MH's.
 
I keep my ric's about 6 inches below my T-5's. I know someone who keeps all his rics about a foot (maybe a little more) directly under his 150w MH. Just be sure to acclimate them if you move them to higher light. I think the whole ric's like low light thing is misleading because IME, they LOVE light. Yuma's on the other hand, like low light IME.
 
Florida ricordea love light and will thrive in it as long as it isn't to much like 400w MH on a 30g......

I have mine under 250w 14k Hamilton SE with T-5 actinic supplementation and they are doing great and do not have any issues. When I get Florida ricordea I don't photo-acclimate at all but yumas I do because of their sensitivity to sudden light changes when going from dim to bright.

You should be fine with T-5 and F.ricordea, yumas I would slowly acclimate them to the lighting over a long period of time(month or two). I do this by getting them in shade/indirect lighting and as they tend to stretch for light I move them out a bit more, I keep doing this till they are in direct light and fully open. My rare watermelon yuma it took me about 2 months for it to come out into direct MH lighting and now it has no issues at all(knock on wood).

You will get the same basic coloration under each, but that ability to supplement actinic with a multiple bulb T-5 set-up you can enhance it a bit more then you could with just a MH set-up. The higher you go in the K value in MH the more you will enhance the fluorescence's of the polyps like 10k vs. 14k or 20k. The later will give you the best coloration but maybe not the best growth or reproduction, but that also depends on the quality of your water.....There are far more bulb types in T-5 as far as spectrum then MH so you can pull different aspects of color in the polyps out depending on what combo of bulb you use......But either way you should be fine to use either just remember to photo-acclimate yumas over a long period of time.
 
I agree with AZUREL on using metal halides I have a 75g all florida ric tank which I use 2 175 Hamilton 20K bulbs they look great everywhere in the tank. But 400 MH would be way to much. I should mention my lights are 7 inches from the water also.
 
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