[untamed]

It has been a very challenging month or two...but I think I can say that the tank is on the mend. For the past week or so, I do believe that I'm seeing improvement in the coral health/colour and polyp extension. Here is what I believe happened.

1) My lights bulbs were nearing the end of their life. They were almost 1 year old and were not putting out enough light anymore.
2) As a result of less light, calcification slowed down.
3) As the tank began to use less calcium/alk, my Ca reactor began to deliver too much Ca/Alk.
4) Too much activity in the Ca reactor drove my Alk too high and burned off many of the acro tips.
5) I changed my refugium to a 'fuge/frag tank and began lighting it on the same daylight cycle as the tank. Combined with the fact that it is winter and the doors/windows of the house are always closed, the overall pH of tank tended to be lower than normal. This makes it even more difficult for coral to calcify. Tank was never reaching pH of even 8.0 at peak.
6) I shut the Ca reactor down completely and fired up my Kalk reactor trying to drive up pH.
7) I increased water changes, carbon and phosphate removal trying to drive Nitrate and Phosphate levels down. They were slightly elevated, but I now doubt that these were the problem.
7) I replaced the light bulbs. I measured that my existing bulbs were putting out 25% less PAR than the new bulbs.
8) Coral immediately began to look better. I had not realized how much coral colour had gone away.
9) Kalk alone began to fall behind Ca/Alk demand. Calcification was happening again.
10) I began dosing baked, Baking Soda in order to keep up with increasing Alk demand and carefully restarted the Ca reactor. The baked, baking soda tends to drive the pH up, but I still only peak at 8.1.
11) I put an addition flourescent light on the fuge and returned to reverse lighting cycle on the refugium.

So..in the end I now believe that my ONLY problem was that my bulbs were old. Everything else was a spin off effect from there. At this point, I believe the corals are healing. Unfortunately, some have suffered such damage that it will probably take months to recover completely. I probably lost 2 or 3 corals completely.