Corals wont stay alive

I am so stumped right now its not even funny. Im about to throw in the towel.

I currently have a 20gal tank set up with about 30lbs of LR and 15lbs of Lsand. I have a seaclone 100 (i know bad skimmer but is working very well on my tank), and a HOB marineland penguin 150 with AC and Seachem PhosGuard(in filter bag). I also have a Koralia 240 creating a lot of flow with the HOB and PS. For lights i have 3 T-5 24" 24W bulbs(two antics, 1 is a purple color when on and the other is blue when on(bulbs just say antics and are only 2-3mo old.) and 10,000k)

I am unable to keep any coral alive though. I have lost 2 colonies of zoas, a hammer, a frogspawn( just a few days ago) and in the last 3-6 weeks i lost a galaxia, and a finger leather.

My parameters:
Amm - 0
Nitrate - 0
Nitrite - 0
pH - 8.2
Cal - 490
(all taken with API)
I used a test strip for Alkalinity but it came out in the normal range (high 200's) and i have experienced no flux in my pH once so ever.

I just want to keep a mine reef tank

Inhabitants:
2 true perc clowns
1 purple psedo
CUC(20 gal one from reefceaners.org)
1 turbo snail
1 MIA coral banded shrimp.( think he is dead. Have not seen him at all in weeks)

I had a slight algae problem which I treated by scrubbing it off the rocks and have been dosing API Algaefix Marine.

Please any ideas

 

High 200's in ppm is higher than need be for the corals you are trying to keep.

Do you dose anything at all?

Was this a slow demise?

Are the corals bleaching?

 

I do not dose anything major. I add kents essential elements every 1-2 weeks and occasionally use Liquid Reef: Reef-Building Complex when i dont use kents.

I would say they were slow to die. They looked great first few days then slowly got worse. 2 days ago i waved my hand over the frogspawn and hammer and they just fell to pieces in the tank. Had them a little longer than a week.

I wouldnt say they are bleaching either. They were full of color. Purple/green hammer (very dark purple) and a vibrant green frogspawn.

 

Do you have any other coral?? A large leather perhaps?

 

First relax...... Second, grab the test stips & throw them out the window. They are NOT accurate what so ever and there are ones for freshwater & others for saltwater. You have too many things going on... Now I have a few questions:

How old is your tank?
Most important what's your salinity?
Keeping corals, what's your magnesium?
What are you using for top off water (tap, RO)?

Don't laugh, my buddy was talking to a guy at Petco that has been using Petco saltwater for topoff.. The looked at the clerk & my buddy told him, why you looking at him. He has no idea what he is selling you. The clerk replied, "that's true"..

 

The only thinks I have left are an ORA Hyacinth Birdsnest, and a Red Montipora but the ORA piece has not looked good for the past few days. Looks like some polyps have turned brown

 

Get ready for an other funeral... Who the heck sold you all this? ORA Hyacinth Birdsnest and Red Montipora will not grow with your T5 config. They both require high lighting for example MH..

 

alk is on the high side but my guess is this tank being a 20 gal
1- big temp swings during the day ?
2-big sg changes.. if you lost a half gallon a day on that 20 its a big deal as far as sg goes.

also these are my guesses from past experiences with same issues years ago

 

OMG, you are adding without proper testing.. I have a 90gal with about 140gal of water & I don't dose this much! Please stop & take a breath...

 

Ill disagree with this as I am growning lots of montis and ORA acros and other sps just fine with t5ho to be exact 4 t5hos over 50 gal