Hello,
I can't really tell by the pics, but it could just be salt?? When you first started describing it the first thought I had was it was fungus, but from the looks of the pictures, it does look like fungus. Also about the lighting, I beleive that some zoos do awesome under extremely bright lighting in regards to color. Others it seems that they need more actinic lighting to stay colorful? You could try moving them lower?
Brandon