Cali Kid Corals

Rainbow ricordea coloration

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richiev

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This frag's colors are amazing. This is even after it got bleached during my recent out-of-town-minor-crash:

PXL_20220630_175625077.NIGHT.jpg


The parent colony though is the semi-standard orange (top mushroom):

PXL_20220630_180025744.jpg


I think there's now a couple DBTCs of these, and I wanted to see if anyone had experience with encouraging different coloration patterns on these. Eg is it just that the babies are highly colored and it's unavoidable they lose that? Is it a low-light vs high-light thing? Would it be crazy to somehow intentionally cause a bleaching of these shrooms to induce more rainbow colors? Other?

cc @JVU who I believe has a DBTC of these
 
Is that the one you gave me? Mine settled at Orange with a green foot. Think it has a blue mouth if I remember correctly. That rainbow is beautiful.

That dull colored Zoa polyp you gave me is bright Orange now and like 10 polyps. Wan't going to put in the DT at first but now it is one of the brightest Zoas and spreading quick. Will divide it on more plugs next time I am in the tank and see if the color holds in the display. Where ever you had it, it wanted more light. It developed a orange ring at first and now it is orange patterned (under actinic). You are due a pic.
 
richiev said:
This frag's colors are amazing. This is even after it got bleached during my recent out-of-town-minor-crash:

View attachment 39830

The parent colony though is the semi-standard orange (top mushroom):

View attachment 39831

I think there's now a couple DBTCs of these, and I wanted to see if anyone had experience with encouraging different coloration patterns on these. Eg is it just that the babies are highly colored and it's unavoidable they lose that? Is it a low-light vs high-light thing? Would it be crazy to somehow intentionally cause a bleaching of these shrooms to induce more rainbow colors? Other?

cc @JVU who I believe has a DBTC of these
Click to expand...
My baby's are always a green/yellow and then transition to orange.
 
Qwiv said:
Is that the one you gave me? Mine settled at Orange with a green foot. Think it has a blue mouth if I remember correctly. That rainbow is beautiful.

That dull colored Zoa polyp you gave me is bright Orange now and like 10 polyps. Wan't going to put in the DT at first but now it is one of the brightest Zoas and spreading quick. Will divide it on more plugs next time I am in the tank and see if the color holds in the display. Where ever you had it, it wanted more light. It developed a orange ring at first and now it is orange patterned (under actinic). You are due a pic.
Click to expand...
The zoa was a transfer from someone else. I only had it for about a day. I can't recall who (whoever was the Xenia source).

I have a feeling all these giant orange ricordea people have might all be the same as the rainbow ones, and it's a matter of experimenting to try and force them to rainbow.

I might pull one I have out and try and bleach it and see what happens. The small one I have in my frag tank was rainbow the whole time, but it seems like when my tank went through its too low salinity crash it might've gotten more noticeable. Maybe forcing it to live at 30ppt for a day or two might make colors show. Alternatively I'm curious what'd happen under very low light.
 
The colors are brighter and more varied when in low light and when very young. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if bleaching makes then brighter, but doesn’t really seem like something to intentionally do outside of experimentation.
 
Anyone seen any weird situations the adults kept the color? @JVU I'm not sure if you're saying "colorful when young, and also if they are kept in low light the adults are colorful" or "when kept in low light while young". English being hard and all...

I'm wondering what would happen if it was cut in parts. Maybe split it in thirds and put them in different lighting.
 
When full grown, they are mostly orange. In low light they show more colors, with a visible blue base and some other colors in addition to the predominant orange. In bright light, the orange vesicles are mostly all you see so they look solid orange, though the blue base is still underneath.

When very young, they are more colorful with less well developed orange parts.

You can see some examples of these color variations in my DBTC thread for them. The goal of having them be as pretty as possible (without having to play mad scientist) is best achieved by having them in low light in my experience.

As a separate issue, since you mentioned it before, many corals become more brightly colored when their zooxanthellae are either starved (ULNS) or expelled (aka bleached). Reason is that the zoox are photosynthetic and so have pretty standard colors, dominating the potentially more varied and vibrant colors of the coral tissue itself. But of course the zoox are required for coral health (for carbon and other nutrients).
 
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