26/11/2025
Ricordea yuma – Indo-Pacific Mushroom Coral ✨
📝 Description
Ricordea yuma is a captivating and vividly colored corallimorph, prized for its bubble-like tentacles and striking, almost fluorescent appearance. Each polyp forms a rounded disc covered in tightly packed vesicles that create a soft, textured mosaic. Colors range from neon greens and electric oranges to purples, blues, and multicolored “rainbow” morphs that glow intensely under actinic or blue LED lighting.
🏝️ Habitat
Native to the warm, shallow waters of the Indo-Pacific — especially the reefs of Indonesia and Japan — Ricordea yuma typically settles on rocky substrates in sheltered reef zones. It thrives in areas with subdued light and gentle to moderate water movement, often forming loose colonies along reef crests and rubble slopes.
💧 Water Parameters
To keep Ricordea yuma healthy, colorful, and well-expanded, ensure stable and clean water conditions:
🌡️ Temperature: 24–27°C (75–80°F)
⚖️ Salinity: 1.024–1.026
📏 Alkalinity: 8–9.5 dKH
🦴 Calcium: 380–420 ppm
🔷 Magnesium: 1250–1350 ppm
📉 Nutrients: Nitrates 5–20 ppm, Phosphates 0.05–0.10 ppm
🌿 Feeding
Although Ricordea yuma derives much of its energy from symbiotic zooxanthellae, it benefits greatly from supplemental feeding. It readily captures small meaty foods such as mysis, finely chopped seafood, reef roids, or micro-plankton. Regular but moderate feedings help enhance growth, polyp inflation, and color intensity.
🔆 Lighting
Prefers low to moderate lighting, mimicking its natural habitat in shaded reef zones. Under strong blue or actinic LEDs, its tentacles glow vividly, revealing intricate patterns and fluorescent highlights. Avoid overly intense light, as this species can stress and retract.
🌊 Water Flow
Moderate, indirect flow is ideal — enough to gently move the tentacles and keep debris from settling, but not so powerful that it causes the polyp to close or detach. A varied, oscillating current works best.
