Thinking about Ricordia as my first coral

**mpcolson** · 09-13-2010, 09:45 PM

I have my little QT together now.. Hooray!!

I have been looking at corals just to see what I like and what I might want down the road. Many, many choices there.

I stumbled upon Ricordia while looking at mushrooms. They seem to be a decent starter coral. And they have some very colorful selections. Some look like a bowl of sherbert swirl.

I see that they are for moderate to low light. Ironically I bought a fixture with reefing in mind and I have a 175 watt 20K Halide with four T5 actinic. My tank is 13" deep at the sand bed.

Is this going to burn these corals?

Here is a pic of my tank on T5 lighting. The halide is off for the night. It would be center mounted, mogul type. Creates a slight shadow in the center from the center brace.

SEE IMAGE HERE

**CarmieJo** · 09-13-2010, 10:09 PM

I like rics a lot! They are hardy and come in a rainbow of colors. Check out TR Sponsor http://www.saltcritters.com/.

**Rostr02** · 09-13-2010, 10:34 PM

I like GSP as well, green star polyp

**Amphibious** · 09-13-2010, 11:32 PM

Your lighting is plenty bright for just 13” of water. You will have to tuck that Ric under a ledge. IMHO.

**CarmieJo** · 09-14-2010, 02:38 AM

Originally Posted by Amphibious

Your lighting is plenty bright for just 13” of water. You will have to tuck that Ric under a ledge. IMHO.

Yep, I forgot to mention that.

**mpcolson** · 09-14-2010, 08:45 AM

What does IMHO mean?

**Amphibious** · 09-14-2010, 08:52 AM

In my humble opinion.

**mpcolson** · 09-14-2010, 09:10 AM

HA HA! No need to be humble... I think you know what you are talking about.

I read on some sites that Rics can be acclimated to halides, have you heard of that? They say to start them on the bottom and over a period of weeks slowly move them up to your desired placement in the tank. The claim is they will eventually adapt to any lighting. They just don't like heavy water flow.

Would you agree with that or is that just sales pitch?

**Phurst** · 09-14-2010, 09:58 AM

I agree that you'll want to start it in a lower light area, but I have come to understand that they can actually take quite a bit of light if acclimated slowly. I have rics in the top half of my 150 under 400w halides, and I have some in my shallow acrylic tank, where they are maybe 12" away from a 250w bulb. Definitely start them off low, but they can slowly be moved elsewhere if you desire.