Ricordea and Zoo Propagation

I'm in the process of starting a Ricordea and zoo propagation setup. I'm wanting to start out small and work my way up in the business. Any input is appreciated. I have a good store in St Louis that can get me nice starting cultures. My main concern is getting it profitable and finding the right buyers. Of course having sought after products are a great thing to have too. This is going to be a second job basically. Have to many things to pay on still to just do this right now. Right now I can use my 100 gal main display tank a 55 gal and a few 10 gal. I'm adding more tanks as I can. Everything will be DIY.

Looking forward to it Glenn, Snap as many photos as you can.

I dont know how much room you have but if i was going to do something like this i would use tanks like these 50 Gallon Tank by Rubbermaid Comm Prod - More Livestock Dipping Tanks at doitbest.com

They are shallow so you dont need really bright lights and they have lot of floor space.

What equipment are you going to use?

Are any of these tanks going to be connected?

The plan is to have all of the tanks running together. Obviously this will depend on how big the set up is. I'm going to use some of the plastic setups too. I'm going to use the eggcrate from lowes and diy plugs. I'm probably going to just do pvc piping from one to another. I can get metal halide ballast and wiring any time I want from a local contractor that takes down old parking lot lighting. Thats how I got my current setup.

Zoa's grow fast enough in the right conditions that you should have no problems fragging them. I'm not so sure about Ricordea though. Aren't they a little more time consuming to propogate? I think most Ricordea are probably still wild caught but I could be wrong. I'm usually wrong about a lot of stuff.

the ricordea that I've done in my tank took off really well. They have almost a 6" spread on them and healed up nice and fast. Only took two weeks to come back to a complete circle. The problem people run into in my experiece is getting the frags to stick to rock or sand. You can't really just glue them down like you can Zoos and other corals.

Thats cool you can get a deal on the lights. How many watts are those street lamps? Aren't they like 400 watters? That could get expensive real quick just for electricity.

The ones I have hooked up are 250w but the lights that the dealership I work at uses are 1000w. All the guys that work there are letting me know when to pick up more items. Just wish they were electric, but for a free setup I'm not going to complain much.

we have somewhat of an "expert" on rics....Azurel....he should be chiming in real soon and he can give you some really great advice on this project...well, actually, we have quite a few "experts" here...they'll all be chiming in soon I'm sure...I wish you the best of luck on this....keep us posted on its progress!

I saw some of the pics that Azurel put up. Amazing. I also printed off as much info as Azurel put up for taking care of them. Education is the key. Trial and error always help too.

I say just cut them in half with a sharp knife. Also it seems that they like a bit of nitrates and ammonia in the water too.

LMAO that's mainly the plan. I just want to take everyones opinions and come up with a nice setup that will work for me.

What pumps and other equipment are you thinking of using or are you looking for suggestions

Hey Glenn

I will respond later today...I work third shift and need to sleep but will give some advice from my experience and perspective....Not just on the care of rics but business as well that you trying to start as it is similar to my plans for the future.

Thank you very much. That is exactly what I'm looking for. You have an amazing set up already from what I've seen.

Hey Glenn

Sorry it took so long been busy this weekend.......

First off I would due some research on writing a business plan, what you need to do to sell retail in your state as some differ greatly from others. Get a state tax ID and I think your Fed Tax ID will be your SS# but I am not sure on that one it' been so long since I looked up that info.

The Business plan will allow you to plan and have an outline of your goals so you can measure where you are at in your business and what changes if any you need to make to meet those goals. If and when the time might come and you want to expand and get a loan for the expansion any financial institution will want to see your business plan as well. Look into your local SBA( Small Business Association) they can be of great service helping small business.


DIY would be the cheapest and give you the chance to build it to suit your needs. I would not go higher then 250w MH or T-5s. Any higher wattage will cost more and increase the price or the corals you will be selling due to overhead and may not be better in the long run for you or the livestock.

If you can build your equipment like skimmers that will also help reduce start up cost. If I were starting right now I would go to Tractor supply company and get some of their feeding tubs. I have looked and they have some that are in the range of 70g+ then you can plumb them together plus you will get more water surface. Here is a link....

Tractor Supply Company - Stock Tanks

The extra surface area will allow you to get better coverage from you lighting and gas exchange.

Zoas will be quicker to multiply in the long run then ricordea, if you can get all of your ricordea and other livestock at wholesale this will allow you to sell each polyp at a cheaper retail price which can give you an edge in selling compared to your competitors. First off we can talk about ricordea since hat is my passion.

There are a few shops that sell aquacultured ricordea one of which is a sponsor here and another I have dealt with before and will not again. For me I would deal with Ammon at RicordeaUSA.com and contact him about a wholesale account. Having true aqua cultured ricordea from the onset will be better for you to market your rics as aquacultured since a wild ric that is fragged is not aquacultured, but just a fragged wild ricordea. It will take 4+ fraggings before( if my math is correct?) before a wild ricordea can be considered aquacultured. If you do rics I would buy as many as you can from the start. Me personally I would get about 1000 first off and frag once settled the first 250 an let them heal and grow. Once fragged and settled I would do another 250 and repeat. In the mean time you can sell from the 500 rics you did not frag to bring in capital for future purchases while the fragged rics heal and grow. Of the ones you have fragged if you split them in two then you would have increased your stock by 500.

Of Course you will only be able to do any of this based on the size of your set up.

In my experience ricordea like the same water conditions as any other coral. Parameters in line like Ca 400, alk 8-10, Nitrates 0-10, Nitrites 0, ammonia 0. I know you have as I have heard on forums that softies like rics, zoas, palys, leathers etc... Like high nutrient water or "dirty" water. Well as we all know high Nitrates can kill, very small amounts ammonia can kill coral and fish. To me when I hear high nutrient water to me the first thing that inters my mind is high in food items such as zooplankton, phytoplankton, fatty acids, amino acids and vitamins. High nitrates, ammonia etc... is a tank that is in need of some husbandry.

You can over come a tank that is low "nutrients" by dosing amino acids and spot feeding that is what those that run bactria driven tanks do to over come the low "nutrients". This method is used to reduce nuisance algea and all the perils that come along with them. These tanks also run the risk of their SPS paleing out, now it is true that ricordea can thrive in both conditions and in my case my tank is far from low "nutrients" and I also have an algea problem cause of it.I would try to shoot for a system that is some where in the middle of the two, I think will give you better conditions for the rics and zoa/palys and yet not enough fuel for algea to become a problem. Which will leave you with the corals not having to compete with algea for sustenance and nutrition.

Not sure of the shop you are talking about I know there is one in your neck of the woods that sells aquacultured rics and I would not use them. Since I am not sure if that is the one you are talking about I will not say anything till you name them. See as how I don't want to look like I am bashing out of hand, not that I would bash them but I can let you know about that if it is the place I am thinking.....I can add more but that is some stuff off the top of my head....

just what he needed! great input Azurel!

great post

Thank you very much. I just got a shot in the arm at getting the extra money together so I'm going to go shopping online this weekend to either go ahead and get what I need or at least get everything organized to do so later. Thanks again.

I'm going to get some of the Ricodea from GARF.ORG. Great place. He's picking out some of the rarer colors for me that he has.

We have a lowes here in town for a majority of what I need. I'm going to use flexible PVC for most of the hook ups. I want to have all the tanks feeding each other in a central system.

Thank you again for taking the time to write me. I'd like to stay in touch and maybe we can help each other out in the future.

I think the store you might be referring to is STL Marine Solutions. They are pretty nice to me. The only problems I've ever had with them have been with some of the fish.I went to the SBA web site and download the guide to starting. I'm going to register the name and get Tax info next week. I'm pretty excited to get all of this going. I know to take my time with it though. My Mother started a very successful business the right way and I'm going to follow her lead.I have a business plan done that I've been working on for the last two years. The only problem was getting marketing info. There isn't another place around here that sells them on the scale I want to.
I'm also going to set up an account with Ricordeausa.com when I get everything going.