Back in the hobby and having trouble

[Ultra Aquatics]

Yup I know but this is my trouble, I cank get PH up past 7.8-7.9 most days and that's with the skimmer on and TONS of surface agitation. DKH won't come down, did a small wc with water at around 9dkh and it's still high. The only thing I can think to do is a massive wc to bring those levels way down, is there anything I can add to drop the dkh?

Don’t worry about PH currently. 7.8-7.9 will not cause issues, just slightly slower growth. Keep doing water changes with the new salt to get that dKH down. Keep an eye on nitrates and phosphates making sure they don’t drop too low from the water changes.

 

[ClownSchool]

Yup I know but this is my trouble, I cank get PH up past 7.8-7.9 most days and that's with the skimmer on and TONS of surface agitation. DKH won't come down, did a small wc with water at around 9dkh and it's still high. The only thing I can think to do is a massive wc to bring those levels way down, is there anything I can add to drop the dkh?

You can increase pH by adding air circulation. Like running a ceiling fan, or a small fan directly over the surface, I would suggest soda ash, but your ALK is so high already, I wouldn’t chance it.
As far as lowering your ALK, do 10% water changes daily until you get it close to 10-11, then let it reduce the rest of the way on its own.
Check your salt mix’s specs.
You can always mix your saltwater weak enough to allow your salinity to go as low as 1.024; especially if you don’t have an auto top-off system and you’re manually adding r/o water daily to counter evaporation.
Remember, you don’t want large, fast parameter swings, if you can help it.
I hope this helps.

 

[Rarnold]

It's been a ride, unfortunately this tank is to a point where I'm giving up and alerting the local coral groups/lfs to what's left in order to spare any more deaths. With planning to move and everything else, it's just too much to deal with. And I'm tired of watching animals die. Thank you everyone who tried to help.