Corals dying nothing has ever seemed to grow

[sweendog87]

System is 8 months old
55gallon 4 ft micmol light
Thriving with copepods amphopods sponges and also fish I have 7
2 perc clowns
Scopas tang
Blue chromis
Lawmower Benny
Firetail dartfish
And the newly added mandarin dragonet

Corals are lps & softys out of all my corals in the 6 or so months iv had them I have barley seen any growth and in the last 2 months iv lost a trachy 2 heads off my gold torch 3 heads off my hammer goni is only opening about 10% lobo nearly dead
And a candy cane that was one of my first corals and it has never changed in 6 7 months but now starting to die.
Everything that is dying seems to be very slowly firstly recieding then striping small bits at a time in the current.
Everything else like my zoas elegance star polyps frogspawn mushrooms leather and
Blastos are looking great just not growing

Now I'm he tottaly honest iv been a bit lazy with water changes but iv never had high nutrient levels the have been lately sitting at 25 no3 and 0.1 p04
Iv never had an algae problem and run carbon
My dosing schedule is by hand and I'm pretty good with that iv only missed a few days in 6months but I'm using 2part Randy's receipe 1
And I'm not the best at keeping my perameters perfect and a few weeks ago I tested and my alk was at 13 so stopped dosing for 2 days to bring it down to 9 maybe that has something to do with some deaths but I think the corals stopped using it so it spiked maybe I'm wrong.

Sorry for the post getting so long and it not written the best but any help would be great thanks in advance

 

[Vincent100]

Are your salt levels ok , do you run a top off
Also I'd think about getting a dose pump to try and keep your mag alk , Cal as stable as possible
13 to 9 alk drop over 2 days is a big drop in my eyes , also shows that your tank is useing up alk and Cal at a fair rate
I'd say dose pump and stable levels will help your tank alot

 

[Retro Reefer]

My guess would be your lighting.. I’m not at all familiar with that light but @ 60w the micmol LED is probably not sufficient for LPS in a 55 gallon tank and also wondering if it’s providing proper spectrum.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Get a handle on the alk.

 

[Dom]

I think you are looking at more than one issue.

IMO, you should keep things simple. Before you start investing money into dosing equipment, do faithful water changes on a weekly basis for a few months and see if there is any improvement.

Also, you should have an Auto Top Off Reservoir (ATO). Having one goes a long way in creating stability in the tank, particularly where salinity is concerned.

Water changes are important. Yes, they provide a vehicle to export waste from the tank, but they also provide a means of replenishing the depletion of elements like calcium and magnesium.

As Retro mentioned above, lighting may also be an issue. I shoot for a minimum of 8-10k lumens at the point in the tank furthest from the light. You might want to try moving your corals around the tank. Unlike an anemone who can move around the tank to find their happy place, corals can not. It may be light AND flow are an issue.

 

[Rcpilot]

I agree with getting alk in check and stable.

I used to have really good luck with SeaChem Reef Builder. I would simply add a measured amount to my 10g ATO reservoir once a week. Basically like mini-dosing the tank every time the ATO pump turned on. At first, I had to experiment with how much to add to my top off reservoir each week, but it wasn't hard to figure out how much the tank used and adjust to a steady, measured dose each time I needed to put more in the ATO reservoir. It made my alk super stable, then my corals really started growing.

 

[sweendog87]

I have an ato and my salinity has been stable since day dot it's my calcium and alk that's been slowly rising to 13 from 9 over a weeks or so

So this is my plan help me if I'm wrong but I'm goin' to do 2x 50%water changes over then next hoping new water will help then I'm goin' to start dosing via a dosing pump and soon will be using the aquaforest 123 method hope this is right