About to give up :(

 

lionfish was getting better (going back to his normal color) but now his colors are fading again. he is still eating though and i'm putting garlic in his food. he has very few ich spots on him.

 

lunar wrasse is doing good, i have only seen 3 spots on him but they've been gone for a moment. hes doing everything he used to do.

 

sailfin is eating stuff off the rocks but i feel like he's the one who put ich in my tank because he is covered.

 

Eel is being his normal self and eating food with garlic on it. dont see any spots on him but its hard to see cause since he's a snowflake.

 

I have some 5 star green polyps ( i think thats what its called, it looks like grass kind of) and i would think that if my tank was really doing bad, the polyps wouldnt come out but they seem fine.

 

I dont understand why my tank is soo foggy, my jets arent facing towards my sand but it seems to get more and more cloudy.

First- Ich. Tangs are Ich magnets, that's just the way they are. As long as your fish are eating they should pull through. Just keep feeding garlic in their foods, and consider getting a UV sterilizer.

2nd Nitrates- People often live under the misconception that nitrates should be 0. That's not really true. Reefs will do fine with nitrates up to about 50ppm, though 20 is a good number to shoot for. 

3rd cloudy water- This sounds like a bacterial or algae bloom to me, but I can't tell without a photo. In either case a UV sterilizer will clear that right up.

4th, filtration. When running a marine tank it's best not to think of filtration in the traditional sense like a freshwater tank. In fact you don't really need a hang on the back filter anyway (They become nitrate generators). However you should have plenty of live rock in the tank and high flow. For example, on my tank the total water volume of my system is circulated about 30 times ever hour. Most of this water movement is supplied by powerhead pumps, in my case Koralia's. You should also have at least 2.5-4 inches of sand in the bottom of your tank, this will help to reduce nitrates. If you don't have a refugium on this system you should also have some sort of macro algae in the display (caulerpa works well and is not bad looking). This macro algae will suck up nitrates, phosphates, and other stuff you'll want out of the water. You should also be doing regular water changes, at least 10% monthly. BUT the most important thing is not to overfeed your tank. Most nitrate problems are caused by the hobbyist overfeeding. Feed only what your fish can consume in 1 minute, or feed very small servings a couple times per day so that not much if any food is wasted. 

lastly, your fish choices. The only fish you listed that is not reef safe is the lunare wrasse. Lions, and eels are generally fine as long as you don't keep them with shrimp or small fish. Lunare wrasses will eat most invertebrates, and will chow down on corals. If you ever have questions as to a fish's reef safety feel free to post on the board, or a good online resource is liveaquaria.com you can go there look up your fish, and read up on the care info available for it. They usually include max size, temp, reef safety (Yes or no) and other helpful stuff.

 

Whats the cost of a UV sterilizer?

 

I thought this sailfin was going to be ok in my tank but i had some frags i bought from dahn and they were all fine until i got the sailfin, my birdsnest with the green polyps were pretty much white after a full day and my green slimers tips were white. i thought maybe it was the lunar wrasse but i have had them in my tank for about 3 weeks then in 1 night they turned to crap, those frags are now in my friends tank so they can hopefully regrow.

 

Arthuriv - the water is a white cloudy.

 

As soon as i can i will post a picture, i'm working till 10 tonight.

 

The water has been cloudy for about 3 to 4 days now, it was really bad yesterday though.

 

about 2 to 3 weeks after i set up the tank i put a piece of coral in my tank to kind of "test" it out. the green star polyps popped out with in 30 minutes or so, after that i put in 1 fish a day.