wisdom please

[newtofish]

I have adopted a 20 gallon reef plus fish tank. I have had it for a month. It was established for nine months previously adn we moved everything in water so nothing died at first. It has one occelaris? clown, two sand sifting gobies, Lenny the Blenny, two shrimp adn a crab. It had three snails when I got it adn about 25 aiptasia about the size of a dime. For coral it has a red donut coral, a brain, two trumpets, green star polyp, a few mushrooms, two plates and xenia.

After reading I began to attack the aiptasia with boiling water and a syringe and over a course of three weeks they are gone. The tank was covered in hair algae on all the rock. It has two powerheads, skimmer, filter adn hagen t5 lights. I have done three fairly large water changes and my nitrates, nitrites, amonia are undetectable. My pH was initially low but I have added some trace supplement and that seems normal now. My green plate coral and snails have died, and my orange plate that has been super happy, eating mysis shrimp has just lost its mouth? this morning. It looked great yesterday and the color is all gone in the center and it looks dead (it isnt sending out 'feelers'). Is it?

Also my trumpets heads are starting to fall off adn the hair algae is overtaking them. Why are their heads falling off? Will they grow back? I have added phosban to my filter media and manually removed much of the hair algae but the trumpets seem doomed to die!

Oh and I feed rinsed frozen mysis shrimp twice a week and some dried krill on other days.

What am I doing wrong? Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Snaz]

EDIT - Sorry didnt see you posted test results. Are you confident the test kits are accurate? Buffering anything especially pH is tricky and you HAVE to make sure your test kits are accurate before doing so.

Remove any dead things ASAP or the tank will crash.

[Myka]

What brand of test kits are you using? How old are they? You may get false 0 readings for your nitrate and phosphate (if you are testing) because the algae is using it up so quickly out of the water column that when you test the water column there is none left. Your tank is also overstocked. I would suggest removing one of the fish. Overstocking causes an abundance of nutrients that the live rock can't keep up with processing.

You can also take a read through the link in my signature about nuisance algaes if you wish.

[intarsiabox]

What type of water are you using for the water changes? Tap water or RO/DI? Tap water can cause algae blooms, also a fast change in the type of water can stress corals and kill them. Don't get too upset about the hair algae, once you get the water quality under control it will go away. The bright side is that the algae is absorbing all the phosphates, pollution, etc from the water so every time you remove some of it you are getting a healthier tank! Your light bulbs may also be getting near to the end of their usefull life if they are 10 months old, this may also contribute to algae growth. How long are your lights on for?