The ricordea in this category are a mix of assorted color combinations that don’t fall into the other regular categories.  Some of the colors may include pink, pink and green, two-tone green, various blues and purples, and possibly some multicolored rainbow polyps.  Some of the colors, such as pink, don’t show up as pink in our sunlight system, so we have a hard time advertising them as pink when they don’t look very pink to us.  All of the assorted polyps we sell are nice and none will be the ugly greenish brown ones that some people sell.  

 

Keep in mind that your lighting and time will determine how the colors eventually look for you, so if you don’t like the initial colors, either give it a little more time or change the lighting.  If your polyps seem to be dull, or seem to be fading away, then they are probably not getting enough light.  If they bleach out and rapidly lose most of their pigment, then the light is too intense or it’s too hot in the tank.  For more information go to one of the online forums such as Reef Central and get connected with others who have more experience keeping reef tanks with ricordea.

 

These are loose polyps and are not attached to any significant amount of substrate.  They will eventually attach to any clean substrate in your tank, or you can epoxy or superglue them to what ever you want. 

 

All of the ricordea we sell are extremely hardy and are great for any level of reef keeper, from the novice to the pros.  They are primarily photosynthetic, but should be fed some sort of supplemental planktonic foods.  In the wild they eat the organic dust and silt that settles on them, so when feeding them, dust them with food.

 

Ricordea reproduce primarily by division, so these single mouthed polyps will eventually form a second mouth and then begin the process of dividing into multiple polyps.  Many people help this division process along by cutting them in half between the mouths. This may seem radical, but it works and they almost always survive the process.  If you are pondering doing this, I would suggest you do some more homework before you try it.

 

The two species of anemone shrimp from the Caribbean, Periclimenes yucatan and Periclimenes pedersoni, will readily take up residence on these ricordea polyps and provide an interesting show in your tank

 

Ricordea ship very well by priority mail and can easily survive a three or four-day ship time.