CORALS NOT GROWING- REGRESSING

[gasperagnes]

Hello,

I am new to the hobby and completely hooked. I have a new system that is around 3 months old. My corals are fading daily, and I am unsure what to do. My system volume is approximately 185 gallons with an isolated refugium. I have (4) Kessill A 360x. Par readings at the bottom of the tank are around 80-100 and at the top 130-170. Lighting intensity is approximately 80%. I have 3 Neptune WAV powerheads to go along with 2 Red Sea Gyre's. My water parameters are as follows:

- ALK- 8.9-9.2
-CAL-390-430
-MAG-1360
-Salinity-1.24-1.25
-PH-8.04 at night 8.24 during the day
Phospate-.04 ppm red sea test
nitrate-5 ppm red sea test

I change around 2 gallons of water each day using the Apex AWC. This weekend I cleaned the sand bed and that equated to 10% water change by the time i cleaned it up.

My livestock-

- (2) wrasses
-(2) blue jaw triggers
-(1) fox face
-(1) watchman goby
-(5) damsels
-(2) clowns
-(1) mandarin
-(1) hippo tang
-(2) fire shrimp
-(2) cleaner shrimp
-(60) assorted crabs and snails - clean up crew

My corals-

(1) paly
(1) elegance coral- completely closed- hating life
(2) hammers- were doing fine and the started hating life as well
(1) torch- 2 weeks in the tank and has done nothing
(4) zoas- been in the tank for 5 weeks- all open but no growth or color
(1) green star polyp- in the tank for 5 weeks and hasn't grown a cm
(2) trachys- very moody- sometimes they are happy and sometimes they are not
(1) lobo- seems ok

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I don't want these animals to die.


warmest regards,

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

3 months is still pretty new for an aquarium, and you added a lot of fish since starting only 3 months ago, the tank has to adjust to that new bioload. We can only test for a few parameters, but there is a lot going on in new water that we can't test for.

Basically, be more patient, nothing really happens in 3 months in this hobby.