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IMO ,the coral also appears wasting away because of lack of feeding ??

If the concern that your lighting is hurting your corals,you may lack proper Iodine levels.
Presence of iodine is vital to corals because it is used to detoxify excess oxygen produced by zooxanthellae.
This oxygen irritates sensitive tissue.
Corals and clams that appear to shrivel or close under intense lighting are likely attempting to shade their zooxanthellae symbionts to reduce the rate of oxygen production.
Iodide essentially bonds with oxygen to form non-toxic iodate, relieving the need to shield (close/shrivel) zooxanthellae and enabling the host organism to open more fully.

Water changes are good but system itself should not creep up to 10 ppm nitrates. I would consider a refugium. I agree with others that nitrates are the first culprit.

I read and tried adding KNO3 to only 2 ppm to rid tank of cyano, like FW planted tanks do. It did work however delicate sps created very poorly and I won't do it again.

I move the favia and have done two w/c's 30 gallons each so that's about 40% over five days I'll be testing water tomm.

I'm working on those issues currently dosing 3.0 ml and I just did a W/C today so I expected the calcium to be a little low I used I/O so it should be up to par in a week or so.

Calcium is a bit low, and nitrate is a bit on the high side. I'd move it down, and make sure you don't have anything with sweepers hitting that coral day or night.

EDIT: It doesn't look like a light issue.

This photo was taken on 05/23/2010



This was taken on 04/24/2010 this is when I began to notice the decline.



This was taken on 04/08/2010 fat and Happy so i thought.



this was taken on 01/12/2010 new to the tank with in a month or so. ( I know i should keep better records.)
I did a 30 gallon W/c today the new tank parms are as follows:

Sg 1.026
Nitrate between 10-25 ppm
Alk 10.6
Cal 370
PO4 0.00
mg 1470

If the Favia has been declining that entire time, then yes. It sounds like you have it up in the rockwork. Why not move it down some? Show us some progression pictures if you have them.

reflectors are cheap w shape and the bulbs are 13 inches off the water may be 15.

on a side note the favia has been in that spot for about 4 months do you still think it's to high??

The Favia is probably getting too much light. Try a spot that is a little more shaded than where it is presently.

How far are the bulbs off the water? What reflectors do you use?

Some people just run their MH's for less hours, some raise the lights and some use layered window screen. I use the last method. I place two layers of nylon window screen over some egg create (attached with zip ties) and remove one screen after one week. The last screen after two weeks.

Ya I just ordered 14k coral vue bulbs. what do i need to do for burn in and coral acclimation and for how long?

all my other tanks had either vho or t-5 lighting.

Yes ! I would get bulbs with higher par outputs and in the 10K-14K range. 20k is for tanks that aren't worried about growth.

nope the name is stupid but the stuff works

I edited your blog to make that first picture bigger. I really thought all this time you were making up that name.

Just a quick update I tested the Phosphate again today using the same test kit. there have been no additional doses of Phosblaster super nuker or any other phosphate remove, I have not removed any chiato from the refugium, there have been no water changes (shame on me, but more on that later) and the top off water is RO/DI the results were between 0 and 0.05 I would say that it works pretty well even thought I was not battling a huge problem.

Thanks for the kudos, I did use Melev's site as a guide and used several ideas from the many sumps he has built. I did not the wire in the seams for this build but really should of because the solvent would have made a better and cleaner seam between the two pieces. if you look close at some of the joints you can see bubbles in the seam and if you use the wire you won't get the bubbles and therefore a better seam.

Wow, for being your first sump build it really looks nice. Did you use Melev's Reef as a guide? I was wondering if you used the pins to build and glue it like on Melev's tutorial. I've looked at it a few times and don't exactly understand it. I figured when I was ready to build Melev can explain it to me. Again, very nice job.

Thanks I'll try to edit that way from now on. The refugium is sitting on a x brace on the top of the sump.

I like the bubble tower and it does work well. I did not plumb is as I should of but it still works really well. I should throw some rocks in there that would really break things up. I have to say that for my first sump built from scratch I was really happy with it. Thanks much to your site and insight. Thanks again for your help.

It looks really good. That bubble tower is awesome, right? Add some LR rubble in there and you'll really be impressed.

The refugium seems to be sitting on the sump. Does it have any support?

Btw, you can edit your original blog as well as your comments if you need to insert new information or correct mistakes. Blogs aren't like build threads. When you have a new entry, start a new one. We can refer to your older entries by checking your profile. Of course from time to time, it's a good idea to make a full tank summary entry that covers everything up to that point.