🪸💜✨ Purple Ricordea yuma – Frag (Similar to Photo)

Premium Purple Mushroom Collector Coral

🔹 Quick Stats

Care Level: Moderate Temperament: Semi-Aggressive Colour Form: Beautiful purple pigmentation featuring rich violet, lavender, and deep amethyst tones across its distinctive fleshy oral disc. The surface is covered with numerous rounded, bubble-like vesicles, creating an intricate three-dimensional texture. Under blue-spectrum reef lighting, its purple pigmentation develops an especially captivating appearance, with delicate variations in tone highlighting the coral's characteristic surface structure and natural beauty. Water Conditions: 24–26 °C, dKH 7.5–8.5, pH 8.0–8.4, sg 1.024–1.026 Family: Discosomatidae Lighting: Low to Moderate (PAR 50–150) Water Flow: Low to Moderate, Indirect Placement: Lower to Middle Reef Type: Frag – Similar to Photo Classification: Corallimorpharian – Mushroom Coral

🧬 Overview

The Purple Ricordea yuma is a beautiful mushroom coral admired for its elegant purple pigmentation, distinctive bubble-like surface texture, and remarkable fleshy appearance. Combining rich violet tones with the characteristic morphology of Ricordea corals, this variety offers exceptional visual appeal in established reef aquariums.

Its most distinctive feature is its beautiful purple colouration, which can display a captivating combination of lavender, amethyst, and deeper violet shades. These colours complement the intricate arrangement of rounded vesicles covering the coral's oral disc, creating an exceptionally textured and attractive appearance.

Unlike traditional stony corals, Ricordea yuma belongs to the corallimorpharians, a group of soft-bodied marine invertebrates that do not produce a hard calcium carbonate skeleton.

Its fleshy oral disc is covered with numerous rounded vesicles, including around the central mouth, giving this species its characteristic appearance and distinguishing it from many other mushroom corals.

The elegant purple pigmentation creates a beautiful contrast against fluorescent green, orange, yellow, and red corals, making it an excellent choice for aquarists looking to introduce additional colour and diversity into their reef displays.

As the coral settles into suitable aquarium conditions, its fleshy disc can expand, revealing the intricate arrangement of its vesicles and enhancing the visual depth of its purple pigmentation.

Under appropriate lighting, gentle water movement, and stable water chemistry, the Purple Ricordea yuma can become a spectacular feature within mushroom gardens, mixed reef aquariums, and carefully curated collector displays.

Selected for:

• Rich purple, violet, and amethyst pigmentation

• Beautiful lavender tones and subtle colour variations

• Distinctive bubble-like vesicles and fleshy oral disc

• Exceptional contrast against fluorescent green and orange corals

• Premium collector frag – Similar to Photo

🍽️ Care & Feeding

Although primarily photosynthetic, Ricordea yuma can benefit from occasional supplementary feeding with small meaty foods and fine suspended particles, supporting healthy tissue development, vibrant pigmentation, and natural growth.

Recommended feeding:

• Finely chopped Mysis shrimp

• Small zooplankton-based coral foods

• Reef Roids and fine powdered coral foods in small quantities

• Naturally occurring plankton and suspended organic particles

Gentle target feeding once or twice per week can be beneficial, although supplementary feeding is not essential in well-established aquariums with adequate lighting and nutrient availability.

Avoid overfeeding, as excessive food accumulation may negatively affect water quality.

Unlike stony corals, Ricordea yuma does not produce a calcium carbonate skeleton, making it less dependent on elevated calcium and alkalinity concentrations. Nevertheless, stable reef parameters remain important for long-term health.

This species can be sensitive to sudden environmental changes, particularly rapid increases in lighting intensity, excessive water flow, and fluctuations in salinity.

📈 Optimal Parameters

📍 Placement

Position the Purple Ricordea yuma in the lower to middle regions of an established reef aquarium, where it receives low to moderate lighting and gentle, indirect water movement.

A lighting range of approximately 50–150 PAR is a suitable starting point, with gradual acclimatisation recommended when introducing the coral into a new aquarium.

Low to moderate flow is particularly important for Ricordea yuma, allowing its fleshy oral disc to expand naturally without excessive physical stress.

Avoid placing the coral directly in front of wavemakers or strong water currents, as excessive flow may prevent full expansion or cause the specimen to detach from its substrate.

Its distinctive appearance makes it particularly suitable for mushroom gardens, isolated rock islands, and lower reef displays, where its elegant purple pigmentation can be fully appreciated.

Allow sufficient space between the Ricordea and neighbouring corals to avoid direct contact and potential competition.

Stable water chemistry, appropriate lighting, and gentle water movement will help maintain its beautiful purple pigmentation while encouraging healthy expansion and natural growth.

Reefara

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🪸💜✨ Purple Ricordea yuma – Frag (Similar to Photo)

A beautiful Purple Ricordea yuma frag featuring rich violet and amethyst pigmentation, distinctive bubble-like vesicles, and an elegant fleshy appearance. With its captivating purple tones, intricate surface texture, and exceptional visual appeal, this premium mushroom coral is a stunning addition to established reef aquariums and exclusive Ricordea collections.

Please note: The photograph is for reference purposes only. The frag you receive will be similar to the one pictured, although slight variations in size, shape, vesicle distribution, and colouration may occur.