Undata really low light?

[Lateralus]

I got a piece of undata a while back and placed it about 15" below my t5's. After a few weeks it's polyps started retracting and it bleached out. Then I noticed the edges started dieing off. So I went ahead and put a light defuser over that section of the tank. After that the color went back to normal and it has grown back to its original size. Since then I removed the light defuser and guess what. Its bleaching again. Now everything I read about these is they can handle high light yet this thing bleaches. Current lights are 6x54w t5's any advice is welcomed.

 

[MAthU]

Had mine about 4" from the surface, not directly under the light.. Just off to the side (250w mh 14k) mine grew like a weed.
I have no experience with t5s so can't really say much.

 

[ssdawood]

I have mine on sand bed. 27 inches from light. Full polyp extension and starting to develop purple rim.

 

[Lateralus]

I know the individual I bought it from has his t5's about 2' above his prop tanks.

 

[triggreef]

There could be a lot of factors as to why this happened. Theres just so many combos that can effect them. May have been the light, maybe not. maybe a parameter spike of some sort and coincidence with the light changes. Maybe theres something thats off just enough that is not letting it use the amount of light it was getting but just survive under the lower light. IMO to give something a lot of light everything else has to be good enough for the piece to be able to use it. If not then bleach. Then theres the occasional piece that decides to just do it for fun.

So anyway, I would explore other possibilities. The light diffusers really add only a very subtle change in terms of par and I doubt that alone would cause it.

 

[Chris Lakies]

From my experience with mine it likes about 150-200 par for good color. U are probably hitting it with 400 par. U fried it.

 

[heritage]

I found that mine does much better on the bottom or higher up but not directly under the light.

 

[hoju74]

I have mine about half way up in a 22" high tank under AI SOL's at 55% max intensity. It looks great and grows pretty fast....too bad my jedi mind trick doesn't grow as fast.

 

[mos90]

i had mine under a 400w radium mounted at 12". it was 10" under the water line. 3x the size in 6 months. under 150w leds now. i think the par under the 400 radiums was 300ish and 175 under leds. the colors are a little washed now due to being too aggressive with zeovit but coming around.