How are you doing? I was wondering if I am on the right track but I have had my tank for last 1-1/2 year now. It was just a fish tank for last 14 monthes or so and I have had my protein skimmer running 24/7 till last 3 hrs. I realized that when I have coral I shouldnt leave it running. So well within last 2-3 monthes I have added, Zoo, hammer head coral and they have been doing amazing well. And last night I added Pulsing Xenia that I bought from a local reef keeper and it was nicely pulsing in his tank but now my xenia is not pulsing. So i started researching and came across the proteing skimmer over skimming so I shut my skimmer off and yea. Now what else should I do to make my xenia pulsing again. I have T5HO 36inches light fixture and T5 24 inches fixture. Your help will be very much appreciated.
Thanks once again.
Jay

The best way to generate growth of corals and coralline algae is to maintain high quality seawater conditions, and secondly to have the correct reef type lighting fitted. Nature will go its way if conditions allow.
Corals could be increased by propagation but your probably not ready for this. Also, coralline algae can be increased by scattering broken bits over the rocks, but this is not intended to mean destroyinmg nice bits already on the rocks. When plenty has grown, sometimes bits fall off and these could be used.

Routine seawater changing is important as more and more livestock go into the tank. Stocking should be slow to permit the bio-filtration to adjust. If routine changes are not done routine seawater testing should highlight – eventually anyway – a fall in quality, such as increasing nitrates. I don’t think any harm will have come to your system to date. However, once livestock are in place then the seawater starts to deteriorate, so I would commence doing changes. The initial guideline is 10% of the total net gallonage in the system (so this includes any sump). The amount changed can be altered as experience is gathered of the system’s requirments.

Distilled water could be used if it is of high purity, but it could be more economical over time to use an alternative, which I and many others use, this being a reverse osmosis (RO) filter. These produce typically 95 to 98% purity. They don’t cost that much, though I don’t view them as particularly cheap. They come in different ‘gallons per day’ outputs and one should be chosen for the size of routine seawater change needed.

By ‘filter’ I assume it is a mechanical filter. The regularity of servicing is dependant on the state of cleanliness of the seawater. At first it is usually trial and error, just having a look to see what the condition is. I clean mine once every 4 weeks. As said, each aquarium is different. It is better to clean a mechanical filter too much than too little. I’m sure you know, but if you have bio-filtration in say a canister filter, the bio-media should never be cleaned in tap water or there’ll be dire consequences! Clean bio- media gently in warm tank seawater, say at a routine seawater change.

A 2 month old tank will be initially stable (ie. the bio-filter will contain the necessary bacteria to deal with toxics) but it will still be ‘wobbly’ (a good technical word that!). Some aquarists come to grief at this stage as they think all is ready and stock too quickly.

From what you say the crabs have dealt with the hair algae and the blenny is tackling the glass algae plus more but is not clearing everything. One of the jobs most (all?) aquarists have to do is clean the algae off the glass often about once a week. This is easy, especially using an algae magnet.

Personally I would not obtain any additional algae eating livestock and see how things develop. It could be that as the tank fully matures the algae dies back anyway as nutrients are used up (especially if there isn’t any overfeeding and routine seawater changes are done). If algae reduction does occur then the food supply will diminish leaving not enough for all.

This is unfortunate, particularly for those of us with daytime polyp extension problems… it’s hard to feed small-polyped corals during the day because their polyps are withdrawn and it’s hard to feed at night because of the aforementioned oxygen-level problems when the skimmer is turned off to facilitate feeding

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