help! 2 corals not doing good!

I have a duncan that wont open after about 3 weeks. I have moved it several times and after reading up on it i placed it in the sand in a low flow area with low light which is what i read it should like. It opened the first 4 days i had it and now this. Next i have another which i was told was a favia from 1 person then another said its a war coral. It was growing and doing great until a few weekes ago when i had to scrub the hair algae off my rocks. Since it has started to bleach out and now is showing skeleton. I moved it a little lower cuz i thought the light maybe affecting it but it is just getting worse everyday. All my other corals are thriving. Palys get new heads every few days to a week, hammer is doing good etc. I have been doing 10% water changes a week and occasional 20% changes every few weeks to try to clear out the algae. There are 2 photos on the corals. Any help will be greatly appreciated!!

 

From your photo the Duncan looks dead. If not already it is very close. Hard to tell from the photos IMO. The hair algae leads me to believe a moderate amount of PO4 or nitrate? Do you have test results for those params?

 

I take my water to the lfs and they always say the phosphates are low and no nitrates/nitrites. I have tried everything to get rid of the hair algae. I built a fuge, i run a skimmer, i bought a phosban reactor and run gfo which i change once a month, bought my own ro/di unit so i make my own water and saltwater now, i started doing 10% and 20% water changes, and i have even vodka dosed for 3 weeks until a bout 5 days ago when i bought a sea hare that has been putting in work cleaning off the rocks. I dont know what else i can do... im getting a tds meter in a few days to make sure the ro unit is doing its job but the water taste phenomenal and i got/ hooked it up on christmas day so it should be doing its job. I did run phosphate sponge when i first got the reactor and had better results on the algae than i have seen with the gfo. Seems like the gfo doesnt do much and after a week the sponge under it gets clogged with green crap and i have to clean it.

 

I would invest in some test kits and slow down man. Way to much going on and your water is probably never consistent. Buy test kits asap

 

Ok. I didnt just slap everything on either. This is all over the course of about 6 months that i have been battling this stuff. What test kit should i get? I have been looking at them but not sure which is good. I was gonna get the api master at first then i read its not that good, also it doesnt test for cal/alk/mag which i thought was something necessary. They come with ammonia test but i have never seen them test for that so is that important too?

 

What kind of ro or rodi unit do you have?Living in S. Florida means you have Chloramines in your water.Without a really good rodi it is very possible you are adding ammonia with every wc.
It would also help if you tell us the type of lighting you are using.
If you plan to continue with lps you will at least need to test for Magnesium,Calcium,and Alk.Having a pet store tell you your water is good is not very reassuring(depending on the lfs).
Salifert makes the most accurate test kits.IME

 

I have a 6 stage ro/di unit that i got for christmas. It is made by watergeneral mfg. Co. If that makes a difference. Lighting is 2 taotronics 55x2w led fixtures. They are hanging about 6 inches from the top of the water. I run the blues for 10 hours and both for 4 hours from 10-2. The lfs i go to is the most recommended in the area. They use a powder kit to test the water and have always said my water params are great. They also test my salt with a refractometer. They say the phosphates and nitrates are low to none but it might be showing so low cuz of the hair algae. They never really offer me a solution though besides blue leg hermits and mexican turbos lol. I have 10 red legs, 3 mexican turbos, 14 margarite snails, a polka dot hermit, and now have a sea hare. I have 4 emeralds as well but they were attacking my palys and i also found one eating the head of the last sea hare i had so i moved them to the fuge where they have eaten almost all my cheato, hair algae, and the pileolaria sp. That are all over the glass. Could them having eaten the cheato be making the hair algae grow? Over the last 5 days since i stopped the vodka(also wasnt running gfo till i started it back yesterday) and they ate the cheato the hair algae is back to dark green whereas it was light green to brown before

 

would you have pictures of your RO/DI unit? I did a quick google search. I am interested in seeing the RO membrane and DI canister in particular. From the pictures on their website it looks like the DI is tee'd off before the membrane?
As for nitrates and phosphates, your are correct that you are getting a false reading. The nitrates and phosphates are locked into the hair algae, so as long as it is present your readings will be lower than the amount actually in your system. That said, manual removal of the algae will remove those locked in "ates". However if the algea starves out/dies in the tank, the "ates" will be released back into the water column to feed a new bloom of algae.
You mentioned a fuge, what do you have for macro? Do you regularly keep it trimmed back (there by removing "ates" that it has trapped?

 

Yea ill post some pics. I can see that it goes from the first 3 canisters to a white canister then there are 2 clear canisters 1 with purple green gel balls and 1 with green gel balls which i am guessing is the di resin in it that i can wateh the water go through before it comes out. I pick hair algae out usually every other day. In the fuge i have 2 mangroves 1 has bloomed and the other hasnt but has alot of roots. There is live rock with gha on it. No sand. There was a big ball of cheato which had gha growing in it which i let happen for a few months then i just recently picked the gha off. About 2 weeks ago i switched the light from a halogen to a little led clip light. It doesnt give off nearly as much light as the halogen which i was also wondering if i should switch back to the halogen? Then about a week ago i put the emerald crabs in the fuge and they have been going to town on the cheato which is basically a few pieces here and there. Maybe a small handful if i clump it together. Ill take a pic of the fuge too.

 

I guess its good to say i have been maintaining it fairly well. There was a point on dec 15 when the rocks were covered and my brother and i had to take them all out and scrub them in saltwater cuz it looked soooo bad. I remember the date cuz it was my birthday party day and i woke up in the morning and did it so the tank would look decent fort he party lol. Now there is just patches here and there that im always picking out but cant get it all. The sea hare is actually doing a very good job.