Shallow Caribbean Reef

[michael_cb_125]

A few photos from this afternoon...

[michael_cb_125]

So tomorrow is arrival day for a few new corals.

I ended up ordering ricordea as planned and also two sponges and some neat florida zoathids. I am receiving two color morphs af the same "vice" type zoathids. I am not into named corals, they mean nothing to me, but many folks may remember when the "vice" type zoas first came around.

Coral morphologic I think we're some of the first to find these corals right off the coast of Miami.

 

Now I am trying to find a good source that had all the gorgs that I want...

[Justind823]

Wow! Love that ric garden

[michael_cb_125]

Thank You.

 

They are without a doubt one of my favorite species! Over the years I have kept them in multiple systems with varying degrees of water flow, light, nutrients, etc. I finally narrowed down what they respond well to, and they typically do great for me. 

 

When I first started keeping them about 18 years ago, I always had decent shrooms, but they never really grew for me. I finally figured out that I was blasting them with insane amounts of light. 

While R. florida can handle very bright lighting, it is not typically ideal for most color morphs. Some of the blue/grey and tan varieties that are collected in shallow water can be pounded with PAR and do very well. But most folks want colorful corals, and divers tend to collect the brighter color morphs (which are found at greater depths). That said PAR that would melt a R. yuma generally will not harm R. florida. In my experience under very bright lighting the mushrooms tend to stay more contracted and split more often. under moderate lighting the polyps tend to get much larger and take longer to naturally split. 

 

I have also found that to obtain the big fluffed up bubbly polyps that I desire, I must keep the nutrient level at relatively high and consistent levels. I have always fed my tanks heavily, and dosed various coral foods, but the new amino acids available today are a game changer for me. I heavily dose various aminos and I used fuel. I also manually feed each mushroom once or twice per week. In the past it has always been mysis, but I recently started trying the nyos LPS pellets and I am getting a better response with these than the mysis...

 

Anyway, just a few of my random thoughts on R. florida... 

[michael_cb_125]

Just took delivery of my package, will head to the house to get everything in the tank during my lunch. 

I swear it does not matter how many coral shipments you have had, it is always exciting as hell, lol..

~Michael

[michael_cb_125]

Everything is in the tank. Still shriveled up and passed off, but I think everything will look good this evening when I get home.

 

Here are two teaser photos

 

[michael_cb_125]

This evening I scraped the ricordea off their plugs and glued them to the thorny oysyer shell that I have in the tank. I am very happy with how it turned out. Once they fully acclimate, I think that this little part of the tank will look nice.

 

The Haitian ricordea do have a different look than the ricordea collected from the keys. I will try to get some close up shots of each to compare, but I will wait until the new guys are settled in for an accurate comparison.

 

I will get some better full tank photos once everything fluffs out.

 

~Michael 

 

[michael_cb_125]

Today I setup a small tank for my mom for her birthday.

She has been keeping a mangrove that she picked up as a seed in the keys. It has been in a crappy little tank, so I upgraded it for her. I also built a shelf to hang a new light from.

I think it turned out nice...

 

 

[michael_cb_125]

Here are a few shots from this evening. Sorry for the dirty glass.

 

[Poodges]

I love your ric collection.  One of the finest I’ve ever seen.  Cool looking tank and good on you for working on your mom’s tank.  

[michael_cb_125]

Thanks Poodges!!

It is starting to come along, but has a long ways to go. I have seen some ricordea gardens that blow mine outta the water, but thanks for the kind words!

[michael_cb_125]

I am finally starting to get some "dirty" stuff growing in the tank. It seemed like this thing was going to run sterile. I have the tank positioned to where it gets natural sunlight through the plantation shutters all time of the year, obviously at different angles. I am getting some nice algae growth along the glass under the sand bed, and am starting to see more worms. I was hoping some of my bristle worms would carry over, but I have only seen a few. The coraline algae is still staring to cover the plastic in the tank, but is taking its time. My sponge and tubeworm growth is great.

 

The Haitian ricordea are starting to puff up nicely (some AMAZING colors) but boy are they pretty translucent. Nothing like the keys collected variety. I am going to assume this is probably stress related due to collection practices, not a true physiological difference between areas. I am interested to see if they darken/become more vibrant. I know the ones from the keys come in looking great, but only get better with time. 

[michael_cb_125]

A few photos from this evening.

 

[michael_cb_125]

About two days ago my rock flower anemones spawned. I noticed the tank looked hazy, upon getting a closer look I noticed two of the anemones releasing sperm.

Boy it is amazing how good my ricordea have looked after this event. Free food I guess.

 

The ricordea are getting larger and larger and I have had about ten of them split, and four actually drop babies. I made an impulse buy the other day and ordered a few more Florida Keys collected ricordea. I sent photos of what I have to the diver and boy did he deliver. I got some very neat morphs in this batch. I plan to cover one more oyster shell and add a few to the rock in the back right of the tank. 

 

I have decided that I am going to glue the red and blue sponges to the back wall of the tank, where I hope they will plate out over my caulerpa and shade it some. 

 

After this my plan will be to truly focus on obtaining some other Caribbean Mushrooms. I have the rock that the rock flowers are on, and I plan to use that for the St Thomas, neglectus and carlgreni species of shrooms. I believe that I may remove the rock flowers all together. 

 

After that it will be gorgonians....

~Michael

[mitten_reef]

pulling out all the stops on filling this tank with awesome and colorful ricordea!  I love it!  

 

 

[michael_cb_125]

Yes, I may have an addiction problem.....

 

I have what I want the tank to look like in my mind. Unfortunately (or fortunately, lol) it is requiring a few more ricordea than what I had planned. 

I absolutely love the colors, textures and everything about these amazing lifeforms. 

 

I wanted to go ahead and get the total number of added ricordea into the tank so I can start acclimating them all at once to brighter lighting. Getting a batch and then waiting a month or more to get additional makes lighting acclimation a pain in the butt. Most of the corals that I receive are either collected a few days prior to me getting them, or they are kept under natural sunlight with very little artificial lighting added. With all that said, it takes a little longer to get them used to LEDs. 

 

Once this last batch is acclimated to my current settings, I will start slowly ramping up intensity. At the moment I am only a 45% blues and 10% white, no UV. 

 

The spot for the other shrooms I plan to add is very well shaded, so I should have no issues adding them later. Also, the gorgonians that I plan to add can handle crazy amounts of lighting, so should be fine there as well. 

~Michael

[michael_cb_125]

Here are a few quick crappy shots of the new ricordea on plugs, right before they were scraped off...

 

 

[michael_cb_125]

There are more but my phone takes forever to upload photos....

[michael_cb_125]

Here is a shot of the tank with them scattered across the bottom. 

 

 

[michael_cb_125]

I attached everything to the thorny oyster shell located in the front left corner and the rock in the back left. The two sponges were glued to the back wall, and happy so far how that turned out. 

I think that the ricordea will look really neat once fluffed out on the oyster shell. I think that the oyster spines will look neat protruding though the shrooms. The back rock will be relatively full, but with plenty of room to place several gorgonians. I like the look of corals touching, and every time I see these species while diving, they are always growing amongst eachother and touching.

 

I will get some phots of the new arrangement this afternoon. I am sure everything will still be pissed off, but you will get the general idea. 

 

I am also having to find space for the babies that I am getting. Right now I am hiding them behind the main center rock, but this will only work so long. 

 

I am trying to convince the Mrs. that a small bookshelf style tank would be neat in the cabinet, LOL. Otherwise I will have to sell them....

[kekke1082]

On 9/28/2021 at 6:03 PM, michael_cb_125 said:

The ricordea were nice a puffed up when I got home so I just really upset them, lol.

 

A razor blade, superglue and 30 minutes later we have this...

 

They look pretty mad in this photo, but they should perk back up shortly..

 

Beautiful ricordeas you have there! I have an old 25+ gallon lagoon style tank im having refurbished (resealed, made rimless and euro braced) and I've been considering using it as a refugium for my 40 breeder but seeing this makes me strongly reconsider.... What supplier did you use for the ricordea? 

[michael_cb_125]

Feel free to message me bout my suppliers. They are not sponsors and I don't want to step on toes.

 

~Michael 

[michael_cb_125]

Here are a few photos from when I got home today. Did not clean the glass sorry there is a haze.

 

I can't wait for the ricordea on the shell to really settle in. They are going to looking very nice.

.

[kekke1082]

Thank you! Definitely dont want to step on any toes. I'll message you. 

[michael_cb_125]

The tank is looking very nice this evening.

The ricordea are continuing to look very nice. The zoanthids are finally starting to really perk up and look good. My caulerpa and unknown macro are growing nicely, but the hermits like the brown macro I collected. Thank goodness the upper parts are growing nicely.

 

I have been starting to worry about Temps a little more than I typically do. I typically do not run heaters (as I mentioned in the beginning of the thread) but with this much smaller tank the Temps are going to swing to much. I ordered a BRS titanium heater and wifi inkbird controller. I really freak out about heaters as I lost a fish only system to a faulty heater about 12 years ago, and since I have always been paranoid about using them.

As such I also ordered a hydros controller to operate as a backup to the inkbird.

I ordered the X2. I figured for 200 it is a good bargain. By the time I get a good thermometer, powerstrip and another heater controller, I am not too far off in price. Plus if I do decide to get nerdy I can upgrade and add equipment, lol.