Ricordia yuma or florida?

[Tyman]

Hey all... a friend of mine recently bought a ricordia mushroom from a local pet shop. The owner of the stores a little.... on the shady side shall we say. He calls any mushroom with texture a yuma and tries to sell them for fifty + bucks a polyp . My friend only has regular flourescent lighting on his tank that he just set up and he bought one of these "yumas"... I told him i didn't think it'd last long in the brand new enviornment and with the lack of lighting. So he gave the polyp to me to babysit in my 75 gal reef with 440 watts of vho. Now that i have the thing here im looking at it and im honestly not sure exactly how to tell apart a yuma from a florida ricordia. This one is a fairly dark orange color with some yellow in it. The mouth doesn't seem to be a different color than the body and its pretty small... Little bigger than a penny i'd say. If anyone could help me identifiy this guy i'd really appreciate it... thanks in advance... Ty...
p.s., the polyp seemed to be fully opened at the top of my tank under the lights... from what i've read the yuma is much more light sensitive than the florida... could this be my answer right there??

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

You might want to read around in the Corallimorphians forum. Here is a link about identifying Corallimorphians.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/oct2002/invert.htm

R. yuma - Looks similar to R. florida, but has a ring of vesicles around the mouth. Often, the mouth is a fluorescent green, but this isn't an identifying feature. The vesicles tend to be elongated and not very uniform

Ricordea yuma

R. florida - Vesicles are pretty uniform across the body, and a ring of vesicles are absent around the mouth.

Ricordea florida

 

[Tyman]

Thanks a lot for the info... I noticed the lack of markings around the mouth and it seems to be favoring conditions recomended for ricordia florida as apposed to the yuma. I have him on the top of my reef not far from the return line from my refugium.. so he's getting the strongest light possible in my tank and a pretty good amount of flow.. (didn't want to hit him too hard so i have him behind a rock a bit)... polyps fully open and looks pretty happy... only thing thats bothering me is the coloration... a really pretty deep orange... doesn't look quite right under the brighter lights... but then again, i just got him in the tank yesterday afternoon.. so... maybe he's just adjusting his pigment? thanks again for the info and any other tips would be much appreciated as well... all the best... Ty.. .

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

That's good that it is nice and dark in color. I would be worried if it was pale and bleaching. Just as a word of warning, R. yuma tend to seem to die at random. One day they will be doing fine, and the next they will be sloughing off

 

[Tyman]

well i'll deffinetly be keeping a close eye on him... ultimatley i'd very much like to be able to propogate him... but i want to give the polyp some time to get used to my system and also i'd like for it to be a bit larger before i start slicing and dicing .... any suggestions on a good size to consider propogating at would be helpful as well... thanks again.. Ty..

 

[Tyman]

ok... argh.. i just called the shop, the guy sounds really confident that its a yuma... im gonna snap a shot of it and try to post it on here as soon as i can...