I’m in the same region as yourself and also a fisherman. Love driving to the keys to go fishing. Amazed at how they survive hurricanes. Any life in those shallows likely affected by thunderstorms. Guessing nature knows to adapt to frequent stress yet prolong not so much my best guess. Kind of like running out in the cold doesn’t affect us yet staying outdoor when it’s freezing in wet cloths likely getting us sick.You bring up some great points and I’d be very interested in a longer term study/experiment into this with different types of coral (LPS vs SPS vs euphyllia, leather, mushroom, zoas, etc.).
Being a fisherman my whole life down here in FL I’ve seen huge swings in temp, nutrient levels, salinity, etc that corrects itself almost as soon or sooner than it happened.
Granted, I haven’t dove to the reefs to see how the corals react to these changes but that fact that the reefs (especially the shallow reefs near biscayne bay and Ft. Myers are still growing, intact and healthy (other than some damage, mostly bleaching during long term high temps in recent years) seem to prove your suspicions about returning to normal parameters asap to be more positive than allowing them to remain at inadequate parameters for a longer amount of time.
I would imagine the corals would stay closed for a few days after both big swings but bounce back rather quickly. With all the big swings we have during hurricanes (storm surge brings in a big load of nutrients from deeper water 3x-10x what is brought in on a normal tide cycle and hyposalinity from rainfall) and then a return to normal-ish parameters usually inside 24-36 hours due to the tides bringing out the higher nutrient and polluted water from runoff from beach areas and coastal cities and bringing in cleaner water with normal nutrient levels it really surprises me that we have good healthy reefs in less than 30’ of water.
Like I said before, you brought up some excellent points and I’d love to see any further research into this subject if someone or an organization with more resources than I would be willing to work on it in the future.