Ritteri help

[EquiReef]

I have had a ritteri nem in my tank since December. He moved around for the first week and settled down. He had been in the top corner of the tank up until this last week. Since a week ago he's journeyed around the top rock work from one end of the tank to the other. I've had to relocate various other corals to accommodate his expedition.

Today he has ventured down to the front of the tank down to substrate level. Two OC clowns moved in the first day I brought the nem home and have not left it since.

I feed him silversides and mysis every few days. I had my water checked at the lfs to verify my test results and my water shows no issues other than alk being slightly low( I dose once a week as this has always been an issue).

How often do you guys feed them and what do you generally feed? I use marine snow in the water once a week as well.

Any idea why he could all of a sudden be on the move? I have excellent flow in the tank.

Will he kill any corals he goes near? I have hammer, torch, brain, toadstools, LTP, bubble, sun coral, goni, monti, Xenia, Gsp and frogspawn.

He is still beautiful and healthy looking with great color.


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[Delphinus]

IME they can be very restless like this.

I kept this species myself for many years. I found to keep them rooted in one spot, two things were needed, but both really come down to the same "hunger" for light.

1) They like to be as high as they possibly can on the reef work. If they can sense a path to a higher location, they'll likely take it. As a result, the best perch so to speak is a column or "coral bommie" far enough (so that not even an occasional brush against was possible) from the glass and any neighbouring rockwork that might be higher.

2) They want to be as close to light as possible. A point source light really helps in this case because it will create a spotlight effect. Once they detect they're in the spotlight, in such a way that moving away from the spot puts them into less light .. they'll stay. I found that when I ran halides and had 2 over the tank .. if the one over top of it didn't turn on, it will wander over to the side with the light within hours. Turning that light off and putting the other back on, drew him back like a magnet. This happened enough times that it was no coincidence.

As for feeding, I generally fed mine mysis. He did eat rather a lot of it, come to think of it. Probably every day food was consumed. (Other things that did well were any kind of shrimpy food - shrimp, cut pieces of prawn, krill, mysis, etc.)

[Delphinus]

Insanely beautiful coloured one, BTW!

[EquiReef]

Thanks for the info. The tank is beside my patio doors and he had stayed at the end of the tank closest to the sun light until now when he moved away from it. He was also under the output of the filter. Seemed like an ideal spot for him really.

Maybe I need to buy a light to use as a spot light just for him as you suggested. My husband wants to build an aluminum cage to put around him ( NOT happening)


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