The ricordea mushroom coral has seen a spike in its popularity in recent years due to a number of new color morphs being developed as well as corals becoming more and more popular within the aquarium keeping community.
This has cause a large number of people to want to add a ricordea mushroom to their marine tank or reef tank or even a coral only tank recently.
In turn, this then ends up causing a number of people to reach out and ask a wide range of different questions about keeping a ricordea mushroom in their tank with more and more questions being asked with each month that goes by.
One thing that a number of people have been asking about is for ways that they are able to improve their ricordea mushroom growth rate to try and help their coral grow at a faster pace.
Due to this, we have decided to publish our own article going over the best ways to help your ricordea mushroom grow faster to try and help as many of our readers as possible.
What Is The Normal Ricordea Mushroom Growth Rate?
The normal growth rate for a ricordea mushroom is 1 split per 1-2 months in standard tanks but most tanks do have a number of potential problems that prevent the ricordea mushroom growing at a fast pace.
If you do want to get your ricordea mushroom to grow as fast as possible then you can fully optimize your tank around the requirements of your ricordea mushroom coral and sometimes get 1 split per 2-3 weeks but this is not easy to do and most beginners will struggle to grow at this rate.
This is why we usually recommend that you aim to get your ricordea mushroom to grow at a rate of 1 split per month and be happy with this as this is a faster growth rate than most people will be able to get with a ricordea mushroom anyway.
If your ricordea mushroom is growing at a slower rate than 1 split per month then the points that we will cover below should be able to help you improve the growth rate of the coral in your tank.
What Can I Do To Improve My Ricordea Mushroom Growth Rate?
We have our short list below going over the most important things that you have to do to improve your ricordea mushroom growth rate and the more of these you optimize, the faster your ricordea mushroom will grow:-
- Provide Nutrients
- Offer Optimal Light Intensity
- Manage Water Flow
- Maintain Steady Water Temperatures
- Use Reef Safe Tank Mates
- Manage Your Color Morph
Depending on your tank setup, you may not be able to optimize all of the above things around the needs of your ricordea mushroom due to the needs of other corals, anemones or fish in the tank so do your best to optimize as many as possible.
Provide Nutrients
The first thing on our list that you need to optimize around the needs of your ricordea mushroom is the nutrients in the water as they play a vital role in the growth of all corals, not just ricordea mushrooms.
You should aim to get a good quality salt mix with a high calcium content as well as making sure that you are using a good quality reef safe aquarium supplement that provides your corals with all of the other nutrients that they need.
A large number of people who are new to keeping corals in their tanks often fail to realize that they need to feed or at least supplement the nutrient intake of their ricordea mushroom with this being the main issue we see that limits growth for a ricordea mushroom coral.
Offer Optimal Light Intensity
A ricordea mushroom coral will grow better in a moderate to high lighting intensity but some people have been able to keep their ricordea mushroom in a tank with a 50 PAR light setting and still see solid growth provided everything else is correct.
If possible, we would recommend that you aim for a moderate lighting intensity for your ricordea mushroom rather than a high lighting intensity though.
The majority of ricordea mushroom corals do tend to have a better growth rate with a moderate lighting intensity and a high light intensity setup may end up causing burns or over exposure that limits the ricordea mushroom’s growth rate.
Manage Water Flow
The majority of tanks setups with a ricordea mushroom coral in them should be aiming for a moderate water flow level and although a ricordea mushroom coral can live in a low or high water flow tank, their growth rate will be limited.
Depending on your exact aquarium setup, you may be able to keep your ricordea mushroom in a high water flow tank and use a rock or other decoration to dampen the water flow by the time it gets to your ricordea mushroom coral to reduce the impact on its growth rate.
Maintain Steady Water Temperatures
You really do need to maintain a steady 72-78℉ water temperature in a tank with a ricordea mushroom coral if you want an optimal growth rate.
Anywhere within that temperature range should be fine but anything out of that temperature range will limit the growth rate and cause issues with the ricordea mushroom melting, even if the temperature is off by a couple of degrees.
This is why you should be trying to plan out all of the corals, anemones, and fish that you want to keep in your tank as matching water temperature ranges for the full tank is important.
Use Reef Safe Tank Mates
Many beginners fail to realize that many marine fish are not reef safe and they will nip or even eat your corals.
Even one tank mate nipping your ricordea mushroom can prevent its growth and cause it to shrink.
You should do your best to only keep reef safe tank mates in with your ricordea mushroom but even then, there can be a small number of animals within a species that is usually reef safe that may still nip your corals.
Manage Your Color Morph
The actual color morph of your ricordea mushroom coral can have an effect on the growth rate that the coral will achieve with the yellow, gold, and pink morphs tending to naturally grow at a slower rate than the other color morphs out there.
Even in a fully optimized tank, these morphs will still usually grow at a slower pace than the other color morphs and unfortunately, there really is nothing that you are able to do about it.
