SOS: Corals not doing well. Help for noobie

[honeydewcrew]

So I've had some softies in my tank for 2 months now and they were initially doing great. But now I fear some of my fish may have started nipping them and they look awful. I'm pretty sure they've been nipping them cause I've seen fluorescent coral bits in the sand before which I assume are from fish eating them.

All other parameters have been stable (salinity, temp, alk, Mg, Ca, Nitrates, phosphates) and I've been doing weekly 15% water change. My tank is a Prostar 90 with an 11 gallon refugium added in parallel to my sump.

My stocking list of fish includes:
- 2 clowns
- aptasia eating file fish
- starry blenny
- valentini puffer
- orange back wrasse
- tomini tang
- blue hippio tang

I've included some photos of my corals (how they used to look and then now), which I currently now have in a little egg crate box I've made and they seem to be doing a little better.

Some solutions I've thought of:
- rehoming the file fish and the valentini (which I'd hate to do cause those guys have sentimental value)
- hooking up a 20 gallon tank in parallel w/ my sump and moving my file fish and puffer to there to function as a new side tank that benefits from the original filtration
- getting different corals that might be more resistant to the fish i have in my tank nipping at them

Please let me know what I should do. My goal is to eventually have a tank full of corals but I'm afraid to pull the trigger on buying some frags if my current ones don't look too hot.

Thank you so much everyone for the help!

T

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

Puffer and file fish will eat corals

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

I agree with the above post, but also you may be surprised that tangs can eat corals, especially in small tanks like yours (I'm talking more towards the blue tang), I'd highly suggest rehoming the blue tang, and potentially the Valentini puffer or filefish (if you believe they are eating coral).

Now, as for the coral recovery, keep conditions ideal. Stay on top of your parameters and keep them as stable and in range as possible. I'd also look into dosing some amino acids (if not already). I use the AquaForest Amino acids and have had great responses from my coral.