Thanks for all the responses so far. So the Rio's no good eh? I was curious. Also, in response to blueabyss, I think you're right, it seemed to be the continuous cycle of die off, ammonia, die off. I've now actually decided against the protein skimmer. I've been changing the water a little bit almost everyday for a little while, I've taken my filter completely apart and scrubbed it. I think this was a large part of the problem. An enormous amount of junk came out of it (disgusting!), my flow more than doubled afterwards. I've also taken anything out my tank that might have been a problem - some further die off that I was hoping was still alive
I am hopeful now though - things are definitely clearing up and looking much better. Today my purple palys opened up for the first time in a couple of months, my brown palys are looking better, and my mushrooms are now getting fuller again.
For the time being, I think I will make this just a softie tank, no SPS for now; I've had terrible luck with it so far. I've been trying to keep my set-up really simple, I've done tons of reading, but lately the more I read the more I'm realizing that I'm not doing some things terribly optimally for this kind of tank. Before I relied on the LFS for my testing and relied almost completely on water changes to take care of everything else. I finally broke down and got some testing supplies, and stuff that will stabilize my PH and trace elements, and Chemi-pure filter media. I discovered that my PH was quite low - around 6, I think. I got it up to about 8 now.
Hopefully this will all help!
how does this sound to people? Am I on the right track?