Ric - Interesting observation

maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
I have some rics that are multiplying like crazy in my softie tank so I decided to move some over to my sps tank. The lighting in the sps tank is much more intense and I placed the rics on the bottom of the tank and inside of caves.
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Before I moved the rics, most were single mouthed, maybe 1.75-2.5" across. They've been in the tank for about a month and shrunk in size to about the size of a quarter and now have 3-4 mouths with no signs of wanting to split or multiply, colors are very intense. I realize that due to the intense lighting they need less surface area for symbiotic algae so they shrink in size, but why the extra mouths and not splitting?
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I remember that one of the rics I moved had just split from another, the one thats in the softie tank is huge, about 3" and single mouthed, it's brother in my sps tank is 1" with 3 mouths.
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I think I'm going to move them back over to the softie tank and see if they expand and split or multiply, if so, then I've discovered a way to force rics to multiply and split

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I'll try and post pics
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
1st pic shows a neon green ric with 3 mouths, this one is about .75". When I placed this one in the tank, it was about 2" across with 1 mouth. 2nd pic shows a lime green ric with 2 mouths thats about an inch in size.
I'm going to move both of these back over to the softie tank and see what happens

 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
hmmm. along those same lines I got one ric that had two mouths I cut a sliver off for a friend who traded me some orange zoas. grew out the sliver, the two mouth ric looked bad for about 2 weeks then. split into 3, two half sized ones and one teeny one off the same side I cut. maybe I left damaged flesh that could photosynthesize but had no mouth it has since grown a mouth. possibly another way to force splitting. I'm interested to see what happens with switching them back and forth.
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
I have another colony of rics in the softie tank that are freakishly huge, each ric is maybe 4" across, not the best color, kinda like a dusty, bluish green with single mouths, I'm going to move one to the sps tank and see what happens to color/size/mouth. I'll start another thread to document this little project.
 
azreefgirl

azreefgirl

Member
It is an amazing tank, but the reason I linked to it was because he mentioned that he switches them from MH to PCs to help with the splitting process.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
that post totally supports your theory, going from halide to pC. changing lighting seeming to spurr splitting. I cant wait to hear about your results.
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
I feel and look like a lizard.....Sunbruns sux
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The switching lights, hum...I can see this turning into a full blow experiment.
It's been a while since I went off on a wild tangent, I'll have to start organizing my thoughts and ideas on controls.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
it'll be hard to run controlls if your switching the entire environment (tank to tank) I'm riveted. if you dont keep us posted on this I will hunt you down and pester you with questions on every thread.....
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
reefkprZ, good point about switching tanks and controls. I think I may create another $84 frag tank or maybe dual frag tanks so that I can seperate the tanks, but use a common sump, that way water quality is the same and then use various lights above each tank.
What do you think of this?, I could create 2 of the frag tanks and then divide each tank in half with a divider mounted above the water line. (divider is to stop light polution from side to side) Use dual lighting, but vary the light on each side,. ie dual 10ks above entire tank, but vary the times on ech side.
Or, I could use 6500k on one side for growth and 10k/14k on the other side for color and document the findings.
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This is going to be fun!
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
the divider would have to run all the way to thye bottom not just over the tank to prevent the middle ground from having 50/50 combination of both lights. I think the two tanks one sump Idea sounds the surest way to prevent light contamination from the other light source. I like the way you think.
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
I guess I could use black plexi with holes drilled thru along the bottom so that water flows evenly across the tank. PC lighting should work, might even spring for T5 or T8. What do you consider to be optimal ric lighting?
reefkeprz, here is the link to my $84 frag tank, this should be fine for the rics, I'll cut the flow down a little, this is a fairly shallow tank and my zoo's multiplied like crazy under the 2x96 PC lighting, figure the rics should react the same.
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/216638/84-frag-tank-update
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
I like that set up.
IMO optimal lighting for ricordea florida in that tank would be 150w MH 24" above the water (no need for actinics).
 
puffer32

puffer32

Active Member
My first pic, (blurry i know) is when i first got it, i put it under T5 lighting for 3 months, second pic is what it looked like at the end of the 3 months under T5. I then put it under MH for 3 months, last pic shows how many times it split under the MH. I now have 6 rics.


 
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