Pale SPS with higher nutrients - at a loss

[BluewaterLa]

I started exactly like you did, and everything you describe is very familiar. My coralline is now really taken off, but acros still don't do well in my tank. I agree with those above that say its a maturity issue, not a nutrient issue. For this reason, I have stopped adding any acro frags at all. Everything else seems to do fine. Im gonna wait until around April of next year to do some acro tester frags (the one year mark).
Just a possible suggestion: Think about adding some micro fauna bio diversity to the tank... I added a load of GARF Grunge to the sump/refugium in my tank about a month ago. It's just now that Im seeing all those tiny creepy crawly things all over the live rock. This seems to help tanks started with dry rock.
Monti's do well so far, and this one trouper of a stick has not complained one bit...i know these are training wheels corals, but I'm getting closer. I just think your and my tank just need more time just stewing.

I can not agree more with your comment of Maturity relating to tanks.
Lots of folks think that a tank running for 6 months is ready to house anything and everything that can be purchased. This is not the case as we must always remember that we are creating an ecosystem within a small confine of space. Creating such an ecosystem take plenty of time for things to balance out and mature to be able to house many forms of life long term and in good health.
Simply put far too many folks rush their tanks and stock them too quickly full of harder to keep or delicate corals not intended for young tanks.
Even the most experienced reefers successful in keeping most all aquatic life long term struggle with new tanks if stocked to quickly before the system is ready. Just think of how many people in this hobby have had trouble or issues from upgrading from one tank to a larger tank, this is due to disturbing the ecosystem and causing instability with more rock / surfaces not matured. Most upgrades I have done took lots of effort afterward ensuring things stayed stable with lots of attention to detail, Usually about the 9 month mark is when the system starts to settle back into its previous state of the old tank. And this is just for moving an established mature tank so think about one that is running for a year or less.
thank you for sharing your thoughts / experience.