I havent seen this problem pop up yet. Hopefully it resolves on its own for you. The chat box should be where it use to be. You sure its not collapsed or turned off in your settings?
OK, just found it under reef discusion community.
Maybe I came in at wrong part of site(when I google socalireefs.com it comes up w/ like 200 possibilities)
The icons in each post and those showing things like new posts, thread closed, you have posted in this thread, etc, are either too small, not there or not clear enough to make sense of.