Restoring Bleached RPEs

[GobyJohnKenobi]

About three weeks ago I bought a colony of RPEs from a local reefer. He had them for a while in a tank with a huge amount of flow that is mostly SPS and clams. The flow was basicly shredding them off of the rock. The lighting of the tank was also very high as needed for its primary inhabitants.

When I first saw them they were bleached, only the green center mouth with a pale green area around the mouth and almost no red color to them anywhere.

I have had them for three weeks now under 80 watts of PC lighting. They are placed high in the tank only a few inches away from the light in an area of high flow ( well, high for my tank, 10X hr ). They are also under the output from the protein skimmer. All of my params are good and my other colonies of zoos have good color and are growing nicely. I feed my tank every other day with DT's Premium and once a week with a large speck of DT's oyster eggs.

So far I haven't noticed any return of their red color. They are opening nicely and seem healthy otherwise.

My question is, is there anything else that I should do to help them regain their coloration ( Do they need more/less light? Feeding something like Frozen Cyclopeeze? Or will they never recover and are they doomed to perish?

Sorry to sound so morbid, but I really expected a quicker recovery or at least a sign of a recovery by now.

 

[Bebo77]

give them time.. i lost some zoas under a rock for more than 3 weeks when i finally found them they look BAD... i fragged the zoas and mounted them in an area of high flow and bright light. 1 week later they already look better... i would give them more time and make sure your parameters say stable...

 

[Peter Eichler]

They'll be fine, just be patient. It's actually quite common for zoas and palys to bleach in nature and they almost always recover just fine.

 

[coralfarm123]

You can always try spot feeding it very small particles of food. They will eat most of the stuff that your fish will eat as long as it fits in their mouth.

 

[mfinn]

I have noticed that sometimes with the known color of a zoanthid has been changed because of light or lack of light or other conditions the changed polyps sometimes don't go back to the original color, but the new polyps that grow do.
So only time will tell.

 

[surfnvb7]

i agree with mfinn. they will take a VERY long time to regain their color, if ever. at least half a year. the growth may also be stunted due to the bleaching. but any new polyps *should* not be bleached, and should be a red color if they are indeed RPE's.

if it were me, i'd just try to get some RPE's for somewhere else, and sell the bleached ones on ebay as "UBER RARE WHITE PE's"

some nut will pay big $$ for them, thats a given!

 

[GobyJohnKenobi]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I think I'll stick it out and try my best with them.

<----- Sucker for stray cats, limping dogs and baby birds that fall out of their nests.

Surfnvb7: If you see an auction for APEs ( Albino People Eaters ) bid high please. LOL