Every system with aquascaping I know of has some shadowing and there will be adddtional intensity drops with depth of water. How much of an issue it is depends on the particular species/genotype and the intensity at the specific location you want to place it.
My thoughts on what I see in the pictures you posted; Seems you could push the whole "island" back a couple inches to reduce the shading that seems to be concerning you. Second, it looks like you've set up your system with dry rock and I'd strongly encourage you to get some maricultured live rock (or wild if you can find it) to introduce the spoonges that are essential for a reef ecosystem and will greatly accelerate the maturiong process. Here's some links:
BActeria and Sponges
Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)
Sponge symbionts and the marine P cycle
Marine sponges are ubiquitous colonizers of shallow, clear-water environments in the oceans (1, 2). Sponges have emerged as significant mediators of biogeochemical fluxes in coastal zones by virtue of respiring organic matter and facilitating both the consumption and release of nutrients (3, 4)...
www.pnas.org
Phosphorus sequestration in the form of polyphosphate by microbial symbionts in marine sponges
Coral reefs are highly productive ecosystems that raise a conundrum called “Darwin’s paradox”: How can high production flourish in low-nutrient conditions? We show here that in three abundant Caribbean sponges, the granules that have been commonly observed in sponge tissue for decades are...
www.pnas.org
Differential recycling of coral and algal dissolved organic matter via the sponge loop.
Sponges treat DOC from algae differently than DOC from corals
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Surviving in a Marine Desert The Sponge Loop Retains Resources Within Coral Reefs
Dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen are quickly processed by sponges and released back into the reef food web in hours as carbon and nitrogen rich detritus.
PDF | On Jun 23, 2015, Jasper M de Goeij and others published 2013 deGoeij Science Sponge loop | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
www.researchgate.net
The Role of Marine Sponges in Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles of COral Reefs and Nearshore Environments.
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