Glove polyps bleaching?

[Genix]

i've had my glove polyps (possibly clove...not sure) for almost 3 months now. i had them under NO flourescent for the first month and they would stretch out tall and looked very healthy. i then installed a 96-watt CF light to my 15 gallon tall tank. i noticed that the gloves didn't stretch up to meet the light anymore and remained quite squat. so i moved them further away from the light. then they would stretch out tall like they used to, but recently the tips of the feathers are turning white. so i've most recently moved them as far away from the light as possible. also until recently the light would stay on sometimes up to 16 hours per day because of my work schedule (gotta get a timer). what should i cut my daylight time down to in order for these to recover? anything else i should know?

here they are looking healthy several weeks ago.

also, the base of the stocks look quite fibrous. i thought it might be algae so i brushed the bases of the stalks with my finger and they looked nice and fleshy again. is there any problem with doing this?

 

[Genix]

woah there, don't everyone reply at once!

 

[Fluff]

Moving them down I'm sure helped but when upgrading your lights, you need to slowly acclimate the tank to the new brighter lights. Layers of window screen works well where you remove a layer every week or so. And 6w is a lot of light for these low light corals. Maybe to much. Having to adjust to it all at once has got to be stressful. Also, I wouldn't brush the stalks because of irritating the flesh. As for you daylight schedule, that's a long day. I'd cut them back to 10 or 12 hrs.

 

[melosu58]

I agree give them time to get used to the lights. Even us with two vho light can only change one light at a time to keep stress down. They will come around. Fluff has got some good advice