Ricordia,mushrooms, and zoas shrinking

[Oldie1]

I had several salt tanks years ago and started one back up this year. After a few months and adding some softies, they were growing well. I was using a 49 gallon bowfront. The tank however developed a leak so I moved all my fish and livestock to a 90 gallon tank. I had purchases LED lights with seasonal settings and auto off and on. But now they are shrinking rapidly and have all gotten much smaller. If I increase the lighting for more growth I end up with am algae overgrowth. And some red cynobacteria showing up. I'e tried lowering them, raising them, etc. I've currently only got 3 fish in the tank because I want to get the coral well established. I do regular water changes and filter cleaning. I have macro algae in the tank and also in a refugium. My protein skimmer is operating perfectly. I've given some phyto and some marine snow every few days but the corals keep getting smaller and smaller.
So it's been a lot of years since I had my tanks. Parameters seem to be fairly steady. I'm just not sure what to do to make these guys grow again. I have a Georgian in this same tank that is doing very well and growing. I have a couple bubble tip anemones that have also shrank, and a rock flower that has grown. The macro algae is gwoign really well and I remove some on a regular basis so they don't block to much light from the coral. Can someone just give me an idea of what to do? I know there's probably a lot of questions I may not be able to answer. I've forgotten more than I remember.

 

[Crossfire]

I've noticed this too. I run my lights pretty high for my sps corals and my zoas in those higher light areas get pretty small. I believe lower lighting will help, not higher. Just dim the lights for a few weeks and see how the corals respond. Nothing will happen fast so stick with one light setting and put the corals in a good place without too much light and see what happens.

It takes about 4 weeks for a coral in a different environment to begin to get comfortable enough to start growing again. That includes moving it in the tank or changing lighting.

 

[Oldie1]

The lights recently went to the autumn setting which lowered the percentage of light. What I worried about was that the 90 gallon tank is substantially deeper so the coral are much further below the water surface. I thought maybe they weren't getting enough light. I could put the lights back on slow acclimate. I lowered the lights closer to the water recently as well because of that. So if I leave them as they are, do you think they'll recover?
Also could use some advice on what to feed the coral and how often.

 

[mta_morrow]

Couple thoughts and recommendations.

What are your nitrates and phosphates reading? Those corals need some nutrients. And with only 3 fish, you may not have any!

Also, I would set your lights and don’t touch them for a month at least. Pull those corals to the front corners where there is lower light, and once a week move them a little bit towards where you want them.

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

Out of curiosity is the tank new or used?

 

[bacc2bacc]

You are more than likely to burn out a coral in higher light before ever killing it in low light. Is the tank you transferred them into cycled? Have you check alk? Ph? Those would be the 2 things I would check for if my softies were shrinking. Something must be off for them to be doing that.

 

[Oldie1]

The tank is not new. But I bought it new at least 15 years ago. I had to move and the move literally killed all my fish and corals due to stress and the weather turning colder during the move. It was too long before I got them set back up. I was running 5 big aquariums then. And otherwise the tanks would have been in a vacant house if I hadn't move them all at once. I haven't used the tanks for about 10 year until this year. I really got burnt out loosing $1000s of dollars worth of fish coral and then of course live rock when I shut them down. I disinfected and cleaned all the equipment before I moved the fish as well. I moved all the fish substrate, rocks, coral, etc from the leaking tank to the new tank. I have a good supply of pods etc in the tank . I've been running this tank for about 2 months now but then noticed the coral shrinking. The other tank was set up about January.

Couple thoughts and recommendations.

What are your nitrates and phosphates reading? Those corals need some nutrients. And with only 3 fish, you may not have any!

Also, I would set your lights and don’t touch them for a month at least. Pull those corals to the front corners where there is lower light, and once a week move them a little bit towards where you want them.

I don't have a test for phosphates. I just have one of those test kits. My Nitrates are about 20 ,but I need to do a 10% water change and replace dirty filter stuff. My ph is 8.2
I recently purchased some Fluval Biomax Bio Rings Filter Media and also some Chemi pure Elite which says it lowers phosphates. Is that a bad thing?

 

[Oldie1]

I ordered a whole line of salifert tests and a reactor and some Rowa Phos. Hopefully I'll get some parameters to the perfect level. So then back to my question. Do I give the coral supplemental feeding and if so what?