yep duncans. they vary in appearance depending on where collected, what lighting, etc.
it will change appearance under different conditions. i had a single colony which i split into 2 and put it in different parts of my system, and they both looked different eventually. the tentacles seemed to grow longer in higher flow areas on the colonies i've kept. white is not a color for them and that's going to change as well in the proper environment.
well, random turbulence is best. you don't want a power head blowing directly on a coral, but you want bursts of flow to hit them at times. you can accomplish this with a series of power heads pointing towards each other, without a wave maker, but if you want to use one, it certainly won't hurt.
what do you have in the tank right now for flow?