From ReefPedia

[edit] Ricordea Difficulty: Easy Light: Medium to High Aggression: Semi-aggressive Hardiness: Very Hardy Growth Rate: Slow at first, Fast after time Availability: Common

Ricordea

Introduction

Ricordea are a wonderful coral. Why you ask? Well, there's plenty of reasons indeed. They are colorful, easy to care for, easy to obtain, small enough to work in a small tank while making enough of an impact to work in a larger tank, and don't require super high lighting. What more could you ask for in a coral? Read below to learn more about what makes this coral a great one.

Common Names

The full name of Ricordea is often used, though sometimes misspelled as 'Ricordia'.
'Ric' is a common abbreveation, particurly when speaking about the coral. Sometimes the varity names are used ie: 'skunk yuma' 'red yuma'

Scientific Names

• R. florida - Atlantic and Caribbean species
• R. Yuma - Pacific

Hardiness

Easy. Very good for a beginners coral as it is tolerant of less then perfect water quality, but does a good job of indicating how poor/good the water is by how it looks. It also deteriorates slowly enough for you to improve your water qualitly before the coral is permanently damaged

Flow

Low to Medium flow. You do not want the coral to 'flap' around, but it should not be in a stagnate area either. Flow should not be placed directly on the coral.

Lighting

Low to High.

Ric's are very adaptable and can do well under anything from basic flouresent lights to high powered Metal halides. Different lighting will affect their coloring and growth rate to a point. A highly-colored Ric that came from being under high lights, may lose some color when put under low lights. The opposite is true as well.
As with any coral, changes in lighting should be done slowly. When aquiring a new Ricordea, it is best to assume that it came from lower intensity light then yours and either place it in a shaded area, adjusts the photoperiod of your lights, or use a method like layers of screening to slowly adjust the Ric to your lights.
Actinic lighting can improve the coloration of some Ric's, on others a difference may not be noted.

Placement

Another nice feature of Ric's is that they can be placed anywhere in the tank you'd like to place them. Depending on the layout of your tank, there may be some areas that are more suitable for them then others.

Ricordea can sting and damage neighboring corals, so avoid placing too closely to other species. Ric's look very nice against a sandy bottom, or clustered on a rock that winds through your aquascaping. While there is not technical reason to keep you from placing them on the top of your rocks, they may not look very natural there. Also, depending on the postioning of your return jets/powerheads, the current may be too strong for them.

On placing a new Ric into the tank, it is important to remember that if it is not attached to a decent sized rock, it may blow about and become lost in the rockwork, never to be seen again. Once a Ric has fallen down a crack in a rock, it will be very hard to get out without tearing aprt all your rock.
So it is a good idea to put unattached polyps in a sheltered spot untill it attatches to a rock

Have a Ric that is attached to a very large rock, and you want to move it without moving the entire rock? Simply take a pair of cutting pliers (cleaned well of course) or a hammer and chisel, remove the rock if possible, and chip/break off just the bit off rock from right under the Ric. Most live rock will chip easily, giving you a thin peice of rock with your now movable Ric attached. Go slowly though, to ensure that you do not tear the foot of the Ricordea.

Feeding

Feeding is a debated point with many corals, and Ricordea is no exception. Many have been kept sucessfully long term with both spot feedings, and no feedings.

Ricordea, while having symbiotic algae to provide them with energy, also have a mouth and digestive system. This indicates that whether or not they need direct feeding from you, they will accept direct feeding.

In most tanks, even given no feeding, they will still recive some food from particles that fall on them during the feeding of the tank. Ric's don't tend to 'grab' food the way anemones do however, and in a tank with good current, the food may not remain on them long enough to get eaten.

While your Ric may be very healthy without spot feedings, it seems that they grow faster and split more often when feed. A ric that is not feed, may simply never grow larger, and never split. It has the energy to live from the algae, but has no extra energy to put towards growth.

What to feed

Ric's should be fed meaty foods as what they would naturaly eat would be items such as small crustacens, broken down food bits from fish passing by, and waste product from fish passing by. Food particles should be small, about the size of the Ric's mouth. While larger particles may be accepted, and eaten, it is common for large particles to be accepted, then expelled uneaten. This will happen right after you've gone to bed for the night, leaving you unaware of the food now spoiling in your tank!

How to feed

Using an oral syringe, turkey baster, or the like, allow food particles to gently fall in the center of the Ric from a spot just above it. Touching the coral, or trying to press the food into the tentacles will most likely cause the coral to ball up, preventing you from feeding it.
If the food does not get eaten, or is expelled uneaten, remove it after one hour. If the food has not been eaten after an hour has passed, it is not going to be eaten.

How often to feed

Weekly feedings are always a nice, easy to remember choice. Ric's can be fed both more and less frequentaly, it is mostly up to you to decide. If you are going for growth and splitting, more frequent can help. If you are not, then missing a weekly feeding is nothing to worry over.

Don't try to feed a Ric that is in the proccess of splitting.

Propagation

Basic notes on propagation

Propagating Rics is easy as can be! If they are doing well, in an established tank, and feed ocasionally, they will take care of it for you. Splitting rates vary, but ussally it is fast enough to be intresting, and to give you a few extra corals every year.
That not fast enough for you? Then all that needed is to split them in half with a razor, and let the halves heal into two new Rics. That sounds pretty easy huh? Then read below for a more in-depth intructional on how to Frag ricordea.

Setting up

You will want the following items

• Two shallow contaniers of tank water. Enough water to stay at a stable temp while you conduct the propagation.
• A fresh razor blade
• Undyed, unscented paper towels
• A way to mount the coral, see below for choices
• Clean hands, or if you want to make sure of everything, latex gloves.

Mounting options

• Rubble tray with large gravel peices-Recomended method

For this method, you need a shallow plastic tray, filled with small peices of course gravel. Think pea sized to nickle sized. This should of course be reef-safe.

After you have split the coral, simply place the tray in a spot in your tank that has low enough flow to not blow out the coral, but to circulate the water, and set the coral frags in it. Mesh netting can be used to ensure that the coral does not blow out, and that no critters get in the tray. Wait one to two weeks. Ta-Da! By now your coral should be mostly healed, and attached to a couple peices of small rocks. Now it is a simple matter to super glue the -rocks- to base rock. This way you avoid the hassle of the other methods.

• Base rock and rubber bands

In this method, you take the split coral and use a rubber band to hold it agaisnt the base rock until it attaches. While this sounds simple enough, it can be a tedious battle to get the rubber band snug enough to hold the coral in place, while keeping it loose enough to prevent it causing damage to the coral. Also if the coral is aggravated by the rubberband, it may take a long time to attach to the rock

• Base rock and wedding veil/netting

In this method, you lay the frag on the base rock, then lay netting over it and use rubber bands to secure the netting onto the rock, without the rubber bands touching the coral. While this method works well, and is a good choice if you do not want a tray sitting in your tank, it can take a long time for the coral to attach to the rock. It is also hard to tell if the coral has become attached or not, without undoing the whole thing.

• Base rock and toothpicks

For this method, you take round plastic toothpicks and shove them through your coral frag, and into the base rock. You then place a dab of super glue onto the toothpick just a bit above the coral to keep it from slidding up and off the toothpick.

This method can work very well, and is the least noticable, however, it is very hard to get the frags to attach. They tend to slide off the toothpick, even with the blockade of superglue. Do not use wooden toothpicks.

• Other methods

Spot for other methods to be added

Spliting the Coral

Remove the coral you wish to split from your tank and place them into one of the containers of tank water.
Take a single polyp out and place it on the plastic tray.
Using the razor blade, cut through the coral in one smooth motion. You want to get a single clean cut. It will not take much pressure, but the coral may be hard to hold, and the blade may 'catch' so it is best to use a firm hand, without crushing the coral tissues.
Take the split peices and place them into the second container of tnak water. They will be extruding a very thick, very slippery slime. This is normal, but they will be very hard to hold.
Repeat untill all the corals have been split
Take one of the split corals from the secondary container, and gently blot it off on the paper towel if doing any of the mounting methods other then the rubble tray. For the rubble tray method, proceed as directed in its description. For other methods, you are not trying to dry off the coral, you are just trying to blot off the slime so you can work with the coral piece. You do not want it to become fully dry. Mount the coral as described in your chosen method. Place each coral into the main/propagation tank as soon as it is mounted.
When finsihed, throw out the water in both containers.

Over the next couple of weeks, you will want to check your frags daily to ensure that they are not becoming infected. Infection tends to look like thick white stuff clinging to the cut edge of the coral. If infection if noted, increase the water flow to the coral.
Read below for some notes what size peices to cut the coral into.

What size pieces can I cut my coral into?

In theory, Ric's can regenrate from a few cells. You probably don't have the time to wait for that however, so here's some hints on appropriate sizes

• In half-Recomended

Cutting the coral in half will give you the fastest healing time. A ric cut in half can fully heal into a round shape in a week or two. Both halves will now be a full coral, nearly the same size as the one you sarted with.

• In Quarters

Ric's cut into quarters heal relatively fast, especially if each quarter has a part of the mouth attached. However, the healed frags will be noticably smaller then the original and may be odd shapes for a while after the cut edge has healed

• Smaller peices

Smaller peices take longer to heal, and result in very small corals. This method is for if you want to chop a ric up into a lot of peices, and then be supprised six months down the road when you realize they have fianlly grown out. Smaller peices tend to get lost to infection, or simply die off more often. Experiment with a cheap ric before using this method on your prized yuma.

Aggression

Very low aggression level. Rics have no feeding tentacles, or attacking tentacles. However, if they are in contact with another SPS type coral, the Ric will likely kill it.

Availability

Availablity for Rics depends on their Color, Rarity, and your location. A basic rule of thumb is that the brighter the color, the more colors, and the farther you are from the ocean, the fewer you'll see available.
Florida rics seem to be more available then Yuma rics, or possibly, just less in demand.

Other Issues

Predators: You can find that protozoa will attack these ricordea[1] and consume them completely. After the protozoa has been identified make sure to dip the ricordea in a coral solution such as lugals.

External Links

Coral of the week on ReefSanctuaryand [2]