Tips on saving bleached rics?

[ACBlinky]

I was at the LFS today and couldn't resist buying something from the 'scratch & dent' tank. There were some horribly bleached rics baking under MH lights that look like they have the potential to become gorgeous when they colour up. The guy who sold them to me said they'd do best in the shade for now, but I don't really have a shady area so I opted for the bottom of the tank. My lighting isn't very strong, the tank is 24" deep and I've got 5 x 96W PCs (1 x 10K, 2 x 12K, 2 x actinic). Any tips on the best way to nurse these guys back to health?

Here are a couple pictures...

Flash:

Tank lights:

In person I can see some green and quite a bit of orange colour -- I'm hoping they'll turn out like some of the orange rics I've seen, it's one colour that's sorely lacking in my tank

 

[spsboy]

the best way I've found is to just leave them alone in a very slow flow area with a medium amound of light. Typically they bleach because they had to little light or to much light.
They look like multi-colors to me, which are typically a green base color with orange tips. Good find,
Drew

 

[ACBlinky]

Thanks for the reply
So far they look like they're doing fine, they're not bleaching further or melting so I have hope they'll recover. One actually looks slightly darker, but it could be wishful thinking

Multicolours would be nice, I can't wait to see these guys colour up now! I picked up these six for $10CD, figured I couldn't go wrong.

 

[Chad Vossen]

my LFS i worked at got in a purple ric, my boss put it into a tank with horible water quality and it turned pure white. my manager gave it to me free and 4 months later, it has 1/3 of its color back. right now its a light lavender or pink color. but slowly and surely its coming back.

i say keep it in top quality water and medium light to low light. i have mine 12 inches under 80 watts pc lights.

 

[smp]

Low flow is important.
I had a few polyps go ghost white on me when I ran some Phosgaurd for the first time in my tank (my yellow leather HATED that stuff too). I quickly stopped using it and ran carbon .. the rics are still bleached, but better. This was about 2 months ago. All my other ric colonies were just fine and continue to thrive.

 

[jpgwold]

I got a rock with aprox. 8 rics on it from my LFS. When I got it they were light purple, after being in my tank for about a month they are a deep purple; except for one that was almost white when I got it and is now almost completely purple. Good water quality Med light low current no target feeding.