Orange ric problem

[emmitt]

I got this rock with 5 orange rics on it 3 weeks ago. It has 5 on it, you can see 3 and there are 2 real small 1's you cant see in the pic. First 2 weeks everything was great, now the top big one has shrivelled to nothing and has been 1/3 the size of the bottom one for 5 days. The small one to the right has been shrivelled to the size of a seed for 5 days and one of the tinies you cant see also is shrivelled to nothing. The small one on the bottom and the other tiny are both huge and thriving.
Why are the other 3 dying? i have 130w pc on a 36g, ph7.8, am-0, nitrite-0, trates 5, phos-.25 Everything else including a bunch of other shrooms are thriving and huge. What gives??? I thought shrooms were indestructable :help:

 

[n_sarno]

those are yuma not rics.. althought some ppl call yuma yuma ricordia.. anyway, they do that from time to time.. mine will look crappy for a day.. and then look fine for weeks.. not really sure why.. I wouldnt worry about it though!

 

[viper_930]

The scientific name is Ricordea yuma.
What kind of flow are they in? And how close to the light did you put them?

 

[stingrayjs]

I have a very large group of them now. From my experiance with them, the like more light than just pc lighting. My tank is 75 gallons and I have them about half way mark in my tank. I have 380 watts sunpacks and 150 HQI metal halides on the tank. When I got them 6 month ago they where about 2-3 inches across now they are about 5, and I have one real large one that maybe 6+ across. They where doing ok on the pc lighting but when I moved them more into the direct MH lighting they took off. There color doubled and they started growing like mad. Im getting ready to frag them because they are getting to big.
You need to also be carefull I have found that alot of yumas can do poorly with to much lighting. I had a few green ones up high in my tank, that where doing very poorly. There color was bad and just were not happy at all. I moved them down close to the bottom of the take and now they look great.
Also what are you feeding them, and whats your feeding schedual? Also what is your SG at? I have found that they do best in 1.25 SG. I also see you ph is 7.4, thats a bit low might want to bump that up.

 

[emmitt]

Originally Posted by ViPeR_930
The scientific name is Ricordea yuma.
What kind of flow are they in? And how close to the light did you put them?
They are in medium flow and are about exactly halfway up the tank(18"high tank).
My sg is 1.026, my ph is 7.8 not 7.4. I have tried to feed them some frozen cyclo and some mysis and some krill. I havent really seen them eating any. I also use dt's phyto and oyster eggs 2x a week.
Could they be getting too much light , not enough?? really confused :help:
p.s.- the 3 in question have been completely shrivelled for 6 whole days now. They dont seem to be melting yet but REALLY shrivelled up all day every day.

 

[stingrayjs]

Have they changed color a all? They usualy chage color or get bloches on them before they start melting. If not just sounds like you need to find where they are happy. Are they down current of anything? I would try bumping them up a bit in the tank and see if they respond. If not try lowering them, also relocate them to another part of the tank. Now they do go threw periods that they are just shrunken or closed. If they roll up into a little ball thats ok, they are just closed and resting. If they are shrunk it usualy means they need a condition changed in there environment, position, light, ect. Oh also they havn't been extruding there insides have they? When they get stressed they will kinda flip them selves inside out. It will look like its has been eating a ball of yarn. But my main guess is its light frequency releated and or maybe food but it sound slike you are feedin gyou tank well. Are you sure your paramaters are ok? That sounds like alot of food you puting in there. When I say light I mean the type of light, not how ofthen you use it. Certain light waves penitrate water better which is why almost all reefs have metal halide lighting. Its cuts threw the water extreamly well.
Its all about positioning, its one big puzzle that you just need to figure out. It has tanke me months some times to get everyoen completly happy when I move stuff around. I have mine in a low to medium flow area. Basicaly if you see parts of them slightly moving thats enough, not to much more than that. The brighter color ones are harder to keep then the comon green ones that just seem to be indestructable. I had a frag get loose, lost if for two months found it again live and well just being knocked around the tank in the live rock from the flow. Found him a new home and hes a good size now and proboly one the best looking ones I have of the greens.
All of mine I have never been able to feed them. Some times which is extreamly rare the close around a mysis shrimp that has landed on them. But as I said 99.9% of the time they ignore it. I dont use oyster eggs, or cyclopse. I use a combonation of plankton zoo, and phyto at diffrent micron ranges. DT is now making a dual phyto and zoo live plankton that workes pretty good. I have been experimenting with it. I have heard great things about cyclopse just havn't tried it yet. Just curius what else do you have in your tank that you need to feed such a wide veriety of food? Have you tested your tanks other needs like calcium, iodine, other trace elements...? If you have a protein skimmer you will need to add trace elements about one a week to replace what was lost.

 

[emmitt]

Ill try and answer allyour questions
1) no they havent changed colors, the top big one is still bright orange but shrivelled totally
2)no , they havent started turning their "guts" out, ive been checking
3) yes, sure my parameters are ok, i do alot of checking, only prob is alk and kh a tiny bit low
4)i gonna probably get flamed for this but.... i also have a torch, frogspawn, elegant, chili, sun, zoo's, shrooms, xenia, asebae and a carpet anemone.
5) the only other trace i test for is calcium which is 460-480 and i have a aqua c remora skimmer
I cant really move them any higher up, should i move them down?? Like i said i only have 130w pc so i didnt think that could be too much for them??? :help:

 

[stingrayjs]

WOW thats alot in that little tank! Im surprised that they are all living expecialy the carpet they need alot of light. But I'll leave that desussion alone for now. I just think the lighting is not enough for them.
At this point the only thing I can suggest it look into getting some more light, got for a good MH setup. Getyourself a good set of trace elements, the seachem ones work great for me. Get some test kits to test the trace elements also. But if the water is good. flow is good, its going to be light or elements its missing. It dosn't sound like a food issue to me, but maybe soeone lse will chime in and give some more ideas.

 

[emmitt]

Yeah, the carpet was a bad move when i didnt know anything about the tank. My wife wanted it so we got it. Hes pretty much proved to be indestructable. He went 6 months with stock 20w lighting and no feedings. The lfs told us he would filter feed
Hes doing pretty well now but i am in the process of getting a 180 but it wont be set up for a while.
Should i not move them further down? i cant move them any further up.
I know my lighting is weak for some of my corals but I thought these would be fine with it.
Anyone else have any ideas??

 

[emmitt]

bump... anyone else have an idea??

 

[misfit]

I had a similar problem once and never really figured out why.i would move them.your Ph is alittle low also for them.Try moving up more.Could also be a bacteria infection, if thats the case they will "melt" soon.I kept moving mine til they looked better and eventually they did.As for your lighting, it should be O.K. for the mushrooms,zoos,rics and such but the elegance and anemomes really need more..The carpet,Sebae and elegance will slowly die over time without Mh.Since you have a small tank and if they are doing well now maybe look into getting one of those spot Mh for them.I would hate to see them start to die and crash your tank.I'm not flaming you just trying to be helpful

 

[alyssia]

I have orange and green rics under PC lights and they do fine. The orange one will occasionally shrivel up and look really bad for a day or two and then be fine again. The green one never does that though. :thinking:

 

[emmitt]

Originally Posted by alyssia
I have orange and green rics under PC lights and they do fine. The orange one will occasionally shrivel up and look really bad for a day or two and then be fine again. The green one never does that though. :thinking:
Its weird because it has now been 7 days of it being totally shrivelled but it still isnt melting and the other one is still doing great :notsure: I guess ill try moving it a little higher. Am i right that there is no way my lights are to much for it being high in the tank? Should i consider moving it down some???
Misfit, i know the anemones need more and im in the process(dont worry, knew i was gonna get some comments about them). The elegance, i wonder. everyone says they wont make it and are now almost impossible. Ive only had mine about 2 months so its way to early to tell but it has literally doubled in size and is always fully open and looking happy. I had read alot saying that people thought they may need a little "dirtier" water than most of us have. Mine has certainly never been perfect and hes in an area where alot of detritus blows around before gettting to the skimmer and he seems to be thriving. Well see. Either way, he'll be going into the new tank under MH as soon as i get it all set up

 

[stingrayjs]

Yea move them around the tank, let them sit for a day and see he they respond. Get that ph up, and start working on your trace elements, the more you have in your tank the more materials are being used by corals to grow! Also if you want you can try tuching them and see if they resond. Mine react when I touch them while working in the tank. Normaly the shrivel up a but and start to roll into a ball. So they might not react for you being as they are at the moment.
But if its been 7 days and they havn't changed colo or started melting or turning inside out, sounds like they are just unhappy where they are in the tank. I had a cluster of blue mushrooms that would stay shriveled up. Took me a few weeks till I found a spot they like, now they are spreading all over the rock.

 

[emmitt]

Ill give it a try moving it around. Wouls you suggest up or down 1st??
My ph has been a constant battle and i have pretty much given up that i can get it above 7.8-8.0. I dont wanna use buffers but my "natural" solutions havent worked.

 

[alyssia]

I have mine under 260 watts of PC lighting on a 75 and my rics are halfway between the middle and bottom.

 

[javatech]

Ph is an ongoing concern for reef keepers and aquarists. Typicaly it is a concern more focused towards reef tanks because fish tanks can tollerate a larger flux in Ph levels before causing irreversible damage. In contrast a reef environment must maintane a constant Ph level in order to sustain life. The best Ph level in a reef tank ranges between 7.6 and 8.4 and best suited to the higher side of that range. The normal behavior of Ph in a saltwater tank tends to be on the acidic side (low) Here are some reasons for this.
1)Nitrification
2)Too much carbon dioxide
3)Natural acids created by metabolic waste
Sea water contains natural buffers like bicarbonate, borate, hydroxide and others that restrict any drop in Ph levels. One easy fix for a drop in Ph that is often used is baking soda which contains bicarbonates. Another dreaded method is to do a water change, this should replenish the natural buffers and minerals in your tank. One big reason for a drop in Ph is left over food and fish excrement so removing these things from time to time could be of some benefit.

 

[laddy]

It sounds like everyone has covered the basics here, not too sure I can add anything substantial but I'll try. Ricordea, or yumas depending on who's asking about them, are tricky at first--at least that has been my experience. I've never seen them grow too well in high light areas, but I may be wrong about that. I have them under 96w compacts in my 10g and under VHO's in my 50 and both done well. The first one I ever bought came into the tank from a LFS I trust, and right out of the gate, threw a temper tantrum like a 2 yr old--shrivled, and sulking for about two weeks. I placed it in a low light area, which it hated, then I placed it in a high light area, which it hated. It eventually ended up at the bottom of my standard 10g under 96 quads........from that original purchase, I have 7 offspring which are in my 50, and have given away two. They, I believe, just need to get comfortable, and as long as you are providing a stable enviornment I wouldn't worry about it.