Out of ideas and need advice

[Kungpaoshizi]

Just an fyi, reef energy is not required, but highly advisable since it puts nitrates into the picture. But if you don't have the nitrates you'll get the same negatives as any carbon dosing. Someone mentioned Nopox takes away abilities from the corals? That's not at all true afaik. It "cleans" the water and cleaner water allows more light to reach the corals, that's obtainable by many methods including super large water changes.

 

[Renee180]

Today things look just a bit better still. Have been using reef energy a and b, since the beginning of dosing no3 po4, but I think not enough. I have since doubled that dose. But even though my new water testings have not shown the "correct" numbers, I am slightly encouraged by some of the corals reactions.

 

[Tdawg]

I took a closer look at your issue and some things strike me as strange.

i will explain what i would do indepth and why.

first your system is out of balance by over 100 ppm. At this level of imbalance it is best to not try to overcorrect. you may drive alk down or cause some other issue. ive played mad scientist and when the big 3 (alk cal and mag) seemed wonky, a 50% wc fixed it.

your corals getting irritated could be a number of things. if salt isnt totally dissolved that will irritate corals. your tank will have a cloudy white appearance during this time. it is best to avoid this.

get a 45 gallon brute trash can from home depot. they usually go for 30-50 bucks. that will be your change station for the future.

next:
you have a 180 gallon system, and a 100 sump. that is quite a big tank to house 4 lowly fish. softies and lps slowly wilt and die back turning to mush or just letting go if it (low nitrate) persists for longer than 3-4 months. unlike an sps stick which will show paling within a week, softies and lps are a bit more tolerant.

you can overfeed, but with such a low stock level i doubt it will do anything more than give you more nuisance growth.

you can do 2 things. add more fish. (at least 3 more) or you can start dosing to get your nitrate back to 5 in a CLEAN saltwater tank. nitrate in dirty water gives some yucky results. however in clean water, things will look better.

so to recap:
big 50% wc. get things in balance woth minimal dosing.
add fish, or dose nitrate and get a 2-5ppm reading.

make sure whites do not exceed 50% with those lights. Blues are fine.

you should see improvement within 3 days.

good luck

Please provide more details about your light recommendation?

 

[Renee180]

For anyone who has been following. It has been about 3-31/2 weeks since my 50% wc. Two weeks after that i did about a 35% wc. I have continued to use no3po4' but it has been cut way back as instructed on directions. about 8ml now back from 25ml. I stopped all gfo and carbon, fusion 1 and 2 . Even reef energy a and b.

Everything looks alot better, except the HA. Even the maroon is healing and looking much better.
2 days ago i started with gfo again, and yesterday the HA took a good hit and is finally letting go from the rocks. It is early yet, but I am very confident that a few more MAJOR wc and my tank will be spot on again.

So my conclusion is, cut out all the unnecessary crap, use a good quality salt, good R0/di water, and DO your water changes religiously. Hind sight, Although I felt I was doing my wc, they just were not big enough to keep up with the size of my tank, percentage wise, and because of this, my phosphates got out of hand and then over time and a little bit of neglact here and there , things were able to spiral out of control. I also believe my water flow was way underated for my tank, which I doubled. I even think that the gfo can be removed once the HA is gone and used only as needed, not continuously as I had been using for years.

So kudos to all who said get back to the basics and do some huge waterchanges, for me, this has been the turning point to a healthier tank and healthier fish! I guess sometimes simply is the best!