If you're washing your hands and arms with soap before putting them in the tank, that might be an issue. You should rinse your hands and arms off with hot water to make sure nothing is left on your skin after using the soap. Or skip the soap and use hot water only. You also can use salt as a scrub or BRS sells a reef safe soap. This might not be the problem, but it doesn't hurt to try. If you need to use soap, use something without perfume or fragrance.
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-suds-aquarium-safe-hand-soap.html
Awesome, thank you! I've never heard of this stuff!
What time of day are you testing for phosphates and when are you dosing them? How many ppm are you dosing? What is your nitrate level?
As an aside, I would move your DOS to be below your power supplies etc. Any leaks (split tubing etc) could be disastrous.
I do all my testing in the morning, that is also when I dose nitrates and phosphates. Great suggestion on the DOS placement, never crossed my mind. I have complete faith in the systems, until something happens! I may actually move them into the tank stand one day, for now that is the only place they can go. Especially with the battery backup in the cabinet.
pelphrey, could you list all your parameters? Everything you can test for? Salinity, temp, ORP, Iodine (if you have the kit), etc.
Salinty - 1.026
Alk - 7.8
Calcium - 450
Magnesium - 1500
Phosphates - o to .05 have to dose phosphates typically. I do feed pellets twice a day with auto feeder and a full frozen cube every evening.
Nitrates - 4 using the high range RedSea test kit.
Coral beauty? If you are able to catch and temp relocate him, that would give you an idea if he is stressing out the corals... lights seems good, flow seems good m, water chemistry seems good... maybe it’s time to checkout the tank inhabitants as possible causes?
It would take some creativity to catch him, especially with 2 rock structures cemented together! But I could certainly try. Aside from that I have 2 clowns, kole eye tang, midas blenny, 2 dart fish, 2 royal gramma, 2 cleaner shrimp, a couple snails, a hermit crab and a halloween crab. But I haven't seen the halloween crab in awhile.