Noob questions about some coral behavior and lighting.

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

I'm trying to figure out:
1) If my tank is getting enough light or too much
2) Why my finger leather bent over
3) Why my torch coral quickly (2 seconds) sucks in and then slowly extends back (minutes to hours)

1) I have 3x Kessil A360WE spread out over my 525XL (60x22x22) at 6" above the water line. They are set to a 2 hour ramp period to 45% intensity, 65% color for 10 hours, then ramp back down for 2 hours. I plan on mainly keeping LPS and softies, potentially trying SPS later on at a very high region in the tank. Most of my rockwork is about 10-16" below the surface (16"-22" from the light). I watched BRS's videos on the Kessil and from their information I feel like I should have the lights closer to 60-70% but I don't want to fry my corals and I haven't had the lights set this way for long. I guess I just want to make sure I'm not harming them. They seem happy to me but I have some strange behavior from a couple as described below.


2) My leather decided to bend over for the past couple days. He's still coming out and polyps are out (though not as extended as when he's happy). He's not in a high flow area so I don't think he's getting blown over. I do see that the direction he bent towards is towards the center of one of my Kessil's so I'm wondering if he's not getting enough light? However the LPS I have in the surrounding region are very happy and my neon green toadstool who is basically on the sand is also happy.

3) This one I'm salty about. I WAY overpaid for a torch coral that, when I took it home, noticed it was slightly bleached (the store I purchased from doesn't accept returns whatsoever, I should have inspected better). I placed it in a low area of the tank and while the bleaching hasn't continued, it hasn't gone away either. He does seem to randomly shrivel up to the base throughout the day and then slowly come back out as if something was irritating him (but I can't see anything bothering him). Today I've been observing him between breaks coding and noticed when he shrivels it's very fast and then takes forever to come back out. I do have a moderate amount of micro bubbles could this be part of the issue? I went back to that LFS and noticed the same type of torch that was there previously was almost totally bleached out... I'm wondering if they were part of the same batch / colony / shipment.

Sorry for the long-winded questions. I just want to make sure I'm keeping my livestock healthy.

Parameters:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Phosphate: 0
Nitrate: 5
Calcium: 460
Magnesium: 1350
Alk: 8.4
pH: 8.2
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 79-80

 

[cjd]

The corals you have in question are low light corals , BRS did their study for high light SPS . I am a Kessil fan boy and would say that they are up to high for those particular corals. Personally if I ran kessil at 45% intensity , I would run at or close to 0% color (all blue) If you are the type that likes a more "daytime" look I would drop that intensity down to 25% and see how the corals react after about a week or so . If you get a positive reaction ( the corals start acting and coloring up normal) you can slowly adjust the intensity up by a couple of percentage or so every week until you are where you want to be. If your corals resort back to reacting funny back off the intensity . If you are wanting to increase your lighting for more light hungry corals you may have to consider relocating some coral away from the light .