Aquarium Update (7/16/2021) - a few things have changed in the past days

The Ultra Mini Carpet re-appeared! with green tops, though the rest are pretty bleached out, probably due to the 81+ F high temperature.

Caulerpa Prolifera, still surviving in tank.

Chaeto, looks good in Refugium. Although I am replacing the feeder net container with a smaller one, this one is too big to fit properly.

Caulerpa Mexicana died after a week or so. Right now, I am attributing all dead stuff are due to high temperature and possibly high Nitrate.

The other plant I bought online, but didn't do so well so I just threw it all in the Refugium all together hoping I'll see some miracle. They were:
Red Grape Caulerpa / Kelp (Botryocladia sp.) Macro Algae

I bought another chocolate chip starfish, died the next day, along with the 2 x $2 snails I got from Petco (the turbo and Astraea snails). According the forums, the high temperature (was 82-83+ F at the time at peak of day) was the most likely cause, the next is Nitrate. Now with the fans dropping my tank's temp. to 74F (let's see if it will still work without AC on a hot day), I could get some snails to test this out again. I guess, in some basic sense, the snails are a way to tell if my tank is reef ready, as all my corals apparently died, the zoas? I'll just count them dead, with 3-4 microscopic glow under blue light don't really count, it would take some miracle for them to come back.

I added also a Lawnmower Blenny from Petco.

Roll call, So far the tank now has:
2 x Clarkii clowns
2 x 3-spot domino Damselfish
2 x Lightning Blue Damsels
2 x yellow clown gobies
2 x feather dusters
1 x Lawnmower Blenny
1 x Ultra Mini Carpet Anemone
1 x Purple Corkscrew Long Tentacle Anemone
1 x Green Long Tentacle Anemone
2 x peppermint shrimps
3-5 x emerald crabs

Plant:
Chaeto in Refugium

Water test:
Time: 11pm

Hanna Alkalinity checker (Diluted due to out of range reading: 5ml distilled water + 5 ml tank water as C1 sample): 161 ppm * 2 = 322 ppm.

pH level = 7.57 (Seneye), 8.14 (digital yellow stick), 8.2 (RedSea test), 8.0+ (strip test)

Temperature = around 73.4 (Seneye), 74.4 (in-tank digital thermometer, apparently still dropping), 76-74 (strip), the AC was just turned off, was hot today at 95 the highest outside.

The temperature has been dropping happily from 83F as I added the $30 ebay 4-fan I finally received today. There really is no need for expensive chiller.

Nitrate = 40+ ppm (strip test)

Nitrite = 0 ppm (strip test)

Salinity = 1.024 ish Specific Gravity = 32 ppt, I've just dosed a bit of salt just now so I'll need to monitor the salinity tomorrow. I'm hoping for 1.025-1.026.

It seems that Seneye monitor is only good for reading PAR. If that is ever accurate. Therefore I've recalibrated the Seneye to match in-tank digital thermometer and the RedSea pH test.

Been reading up on how to raise pH without raising Alkalinity too much. It is said that CO2 (associated with carbonic acid) is also a main pH dropping cause, in which case, pumping air is the solution. But since I now rely on the RedSea pH test, 8.2 is quite good. So I'm not going to worry about pH for now.

I need to test the Alkalinity with Hanna again after a few days, to see if it's going to drop on its own. The alternative would be to do water changes, which I do not prefer as the goal is to create a tank that is self-maintained.

It is now crucial to find ways to lower that nitrate. I've already ordered some solution such as Seachem De-Nitrate filter (porous substrate I'm going to bag them and put in the sump), Chemi-Pure Blue, they say you can make your own from Youtube, so I'll see how well this Chemi-Pure works first.