Xenia

I just got a fairly large xenia on a rock.  Is there anything important I should know about xenia's immediately?  I don't have my book on Corals yet. 

My tank is a 46 gal bow front.  I have a moonlight light with 1 actinic light and one broad spectrum light.  I have a combination Via Aqua filter, skimmer, uv set  up and 2-900  powerheads.  It has a nice overall current. 

I had some bad luck with fish about 3 weeks ago and now only have 3 small chromis' in the tank, a serpent star, a cleaner shrimp, turbos and hermits and 2 green mushrooms, a fire scallop, and a few polyps on a rock.

Thanks in advance.

The moonlight lights are both 96 W.  One full spectrum, on actinic.  The tank was about 2 months old.  I think I got over zealous and bought too many fish too soon.  Not too many fish, ultimately, but just got excited about how pretty they looked.

I have about 45 pounds of live rock.  My water chemistry seemed fine.  I took it to the Acuarium and it tested fine.  Three weeks earlier I had introduced a bi-color angel fish that had some parasite problems and I think it infected the tank.  I know now to use garlic,  after reading the website. 

I did try using a product called Revive after I lost 3 fish.   It seemed to work for a week or so, they started to look better.  but when I did a 12 gallon water change (a little less than the 50%  the directions suggested) then a couple of days later the rest died except 3 chromises.  they looked very sickly for about a week and now they seem healthy again.

I had added a long tentacle anemone just before this all started and I had just changed the lights from a one smaller wattage full spectrum to the higher wattage moonlights.  So I had too many new variables at one time and I couldn't really isolate it.

'I've been using RO water that is mixing in a 10 gal. tank in between water changes.  I keep the temp, salinity, and temp as  close to my tank as I can.

I have 3 bags of very fine live sand in the tank also. 

The tank looks good now.  I've gotten a few more frags of corals and they look good.  I'm now so sure about the anenomes.  I've fed them some krill but since the clowns died they seem to have gotten smaller.  They still open and the bulb anenome still fills its bulbs.  I'm just watching them.

Thanks for the help.  any ideas you have will be welcome.  Judy

Judy,

Mark pretty well summed it up, but I will add my 2 cents. I would definately stop adding until you have a better grasp on what you already have. The ill effects of bad water conditions, stress, toxicity, etc may take some time to show. I would also consider finding someone close to you with an established system and solicit some real "Live Sand" from them. I am in full agreement with Mark that the bags 'o sand that you can buy contain significantly less bio than you can get from a fellow hobbiest. It is true that you can get bacteria to suspend, but it is condition specific. Variences in temperature and light will cause them to proliferate, consume all available food and then die.

Anemones do not "need" anemonefish (clowns) to survive and visa-versa. However, their extremely slow metabolism may cause them to "crash" suddenly especially if there was a bad environment causing the deaths of much of your livestock. My guess is that there was a "cycle" in your system caused by an overstock and subsequent rise in organics due to the feeding of that livestock. Now that things may be settling down and your bio equaling the demand, go slow.

Good luck.

PS. Back to the origin of the thread, xenia and cockroaches will be all that's left on the Earth if there is aver a nuclear war. I wouldn't be concerned. If you need more, there are those of us around that have an abundant supply.