Zoa care

What are your current water params? and how old is your system?

Just responding to your light comment.  You don't need to spend anywhere near $700 for decent lighting for a tank (unless your tank is about 6 ft long LOL).  I'd guess the majority of us haven't spent that kind of money on lighting.  Sure, this hobby can get expensive, but it can be manageable.  I don't know what size tank you have or what kind of lighting you have -- sometimes it can be a matter of just changing the bulbs in your existing lighting. 

You could try looking at some sumps of members here or some sumps that some of the LFS may have for sale to get an idea about how to place the dividers.  Hopefully someone will see your posts and offer to help you.  All I could offer for help is to let you come over and see my sump.  I've read sometimes on the boards about people complaining about getting microbubbles from their sumps to their display tank -- I have no idea how that happens cause it has never happened to me.  It must be a design in the sump that prevents that from occurring.

I think the Key factor  here is  that a 4 year old tank was moved.

Btw- my ph has been holding steady between 8.3 and 8.4

JustAddSalt wrote: When I went to my LFS I did discover that there is a killer pc of equipment that I can buy for about 80 not including these white beads that will reduce my phosphate and nitrates down to about .005 or somethink like that...

My guess is you're probably talking about running biopellets. If you only listen to one piece of advice I ever give, then please let it be this one. Learn how to keep a stable tank on just the basics first. Once you've learned how to keep everything healthy, then start tweaking with your system. You'll save a lot more money up front, you'll know how everything should look in case something goes wrong with your tweaking, and...you'll probably save yourself some headache.

There are plenty of ways to lower phosphates and nitrates, and in a tank as new as yours, it's completely normal to have them a bit higher. Before checking out the latest and greatest "miracle" product, let's look at the rest of your system. Do you have enough live rock/sand to filter the excess nutrients? Is your tank done cycling (probably not...there will be little cycles for about a year in most tanks even though you may not notice them)? How much are you feeding? Is your chaeto ball growing fast? Do you run a remote deep sand bed? How wet are you skimming? How often are you doing water changes/how much? Are your fish messy eaters?

See what I'm getting at? There are a ton of ways to control phosphates/nitrates first before jumping to costly products. I'm not negating the use of those products...just saying there's a time and place for them. Oh...and you should have phosphates only down to 0.03. Nitrates should be undetectable for the most part (a little is ok.) These act as fertilizers for many things in your aquarium (including coral). However, what is good can quickly become bad at too high of levels. When nitrates/phosphates get too high, they become bad for corals and good for algae. Keep them down, but not completely gone. :)

ah, figured it out Here is my tank as it is now.  traded a fox face for a pale blue tang.

Below is my sump setup..two pics..sorry if they are huge pics
Here is a top view

theres no mention of alk, cal, and mag levels. these are the core tests that should be monitored. ph isnt as big as a deal as everyone thinks, if these three elements are in check ususaly everything else is ok. does your sump have a light to grow your algae? is it on opposite light schedule as your display tank?