A 12 hour photoperiod of the most important color/spectrum, blue-actinic like in the natural ocean, has always been more important than increasing the intensity, in my experience. In other words, coral do better on a 12 hour daily period, even if it's just minimal light(several blue tubes), than they do on short daily periods of very intense whitish light. If you go back up and read what I originally wrote you'll see that increasing the photoperiod of the blueish light was my first step in saving the coral / saving the tank. 

It's important to remember 2 things:

- Blue-actinic wavelength light is a lot brighter to marine animals and algae than it looks to our eyes.

- Coral are the beneficiaries of lots of other living organisms in the tank and those organisms desperately need good light from morning to evening.

Aloha,

Mark  

808-345-1049

The technique, as I believe evan127 is suggesting, requires a hobbyist to daily monitor specifics of water chemistry and make fine adjustments with additives to keep algae from growing. It's usable on paper but in practice (IMO) is fairly difficult to accomplish. The information and technique have been available for years, but it has had trouble catching on in the hobby because of simpler/easier methods, mainly involving PO4 removal media and sufficient numbers of herbivores. 

My congratulations to evan127 for attempting this with his system and hope he continues to keep us apprised of its success here: http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=81189&PID=620239&title=evans-120#620239

Aloha,

Mark  

3. more water movement than other coral.

Light - The 6 tube t5 lighting was set to peak at about 55% power level for an average of about 6 hours per day. Dawn-dusk ramp up times are not included in my rough estimate. As of this writing the photoperiod and intensity is being increased incrementally, aimed at eventually coming closer to 12 hours per day with the t5 fixture at full power.

Water chemistry - Parameters seem to be within generally acceptable ranges. The water is clean enough, probably too clean as has been discussed. The solution we seemed to agree on is to feed more and that has begun.

Water movement - We haven't touched on this yet. If it's not too much trouble, perhaps Geoff wouldn't mind telling us what pumps are operating and where they are positioned? 

Aloha,

Mark