Ric set-up recommendation

[drouner]

What do you think is the best set-up for a ricordea tank?

[Morphologic]

I don't necessarily think that there is a single "recipe" for a good ricordea set-up, but there are certainly some important things to take into consideration when setting up a tank that will be showcasing a nice ricordea collection. Off the top of my head, here is what I think should be considered:

1) Wide, shallow and open-topped aquarium - Ricordea, like tridacna clams, look best when viewed from the top down. Looking horizontally through the glass is still beautiful, but to appreciate the absolute brilliance and fluorescence, take a look down through the water rather than through the glass.

The more water that you have to look down through, the more that the brilliance of color is going to be filtered out. Particularly the warmer colors like red and orange. If you've ever been diving you'll recall that these are the first colors to be filtered out as you dive deeper. So if you are going with a "look-down" tank, I'd recommend a tank that isn't deeper than 14" or 16". I think that 12" is pretty nice.

Take a look at the Zero Edge Aquariums (http://www.zeroedgeaquarium.com/index.html) , I think that they are perfect for a ricordea display. We just ordered our first Zero-Edge, so we should have it in about another month (They are all made to order). We'll keep you posted on how we like this set-up.

2) Use Metal Halide - We use 400w XM 20,000k mogul-based metal halides without actinics. We like the color rendition of this bulb, and don't find the need for actinics. If you are going with 10k or 14k MH, then I would add actinics. I don't have a whole lot of experience with T5's, so I can't comment on whether these would be better. But when you consider that you want an open-topped aquarium, a single pendant held higher above the water will allow for greater viewing area. A closed canopy, or long/wide t5 fixture would likely cut down on the ability to look down through the water.

We would like to try out a PFO Solaris LED pendant to see how that brings out the color (Anyone have any experience?). If only they weren't so bloody expensive...

3)If ricordea are going to be the focal point of the tank, then I would stay away from any stinging anemones or corals with powerful sweeper tentacles. Ricordea are not that aggressive, so be mindful of their neighbors.

4) Water flow is not a major consideration for keeping ricordea happy. Obviously you still need to have clean, well oxygenated water, but you don't need to have a massive amount of water flow. A gentle current, just enough to get the polyps to sway lightly is perfect, and looks very surreal. And if you are looking down, you don't want the water surface to be overly agitated by water motion. You want a clean, slick surface like glass itself.

5) Ricordea will feed happily on frozen foods like Cyclopeze and other meaty plankton foods, but they aren't aggressive eaters. I don't think that direct feeding is absolutely necessary for long term health, good lighting should be enough "food", but feeding will probably increase the rate of growth and division. If you are going to be feeding, turn down the water flow so that the polyps have a chance to digest properly. Feed with a syringe or turkey baster to get the food as close to the mouths as possible. Also, a tank full of hungry fish and inverts can eat this food faster than your ricordea can, so keep this in mind as well. We keep our stocking densities of fish/inverts very low. Again, the idea is to showcase the ricordea.

If I think if any other considerations, I'll be sure to add. and likewise, if anyone else wants to input on what they have found to work well for showcasing ricordea, by all means chime in.

Cheers,
Colin
Coral Morphologic (http://www.coralmorphologic.com)

[jcm1229]

Thanks for the tips. I'm setting up a 20g ric dominated tank. Will be semi rockwall with aquascapes and will try to mount my rics at a 45 degree angle as my viewing will be from the front. Tank will have mild to moderate flow and a 14k 150w halide light.

I've kept rics in my main display in the past with moderate to good success.

Couple of often debated questions for you.

Keep florida ricordea and yumas together or do they have different requirements (lighting, flow etc...)

May want to throw in some tubs blue zoas. Often debated ric/zoa chemical warfare. Any truth to that?

Thanks!

[Morphologic]

We have a few yumas in our growout systems that are overlapping with our Florida ricordea, and I have not noticed any sort of negative interaction between the two species.

I also haven't noticed any significant negative interaction between our zoas and rics. But just out of future growth and development, you might want to consider leaving some room between them initially, so that they can grow in to each other naturally. It would also be an interesting experiment to see whether the zoas' growth is faster, slower, or no different in the direction of the ricordea. But from what I've observed nematocyst interaction between the two species is fairly benign. A longer term chemical interaction is possible, but so long as you have a decent skimmer, change your carbon, do regular water changes, etc. I'm pretty certain that any possible chemical warfare ought to be kept to a minimum.

Hope that this helps!

Cheers,
Colin
Coral Morphologic