I mix my frozen food for a couple of days in a small beaker with 100 ml of RO/DI water the add my frozen and 4 to 5 drops of Oyster feast, R.O.E. and Roti feast. I feed LRF reef frenzy mysis, and some of my homemade food, I also add these products and bind them with the seachem focus.
I have about 20 hermit crabs, 3 turbo snails, and 15 snails, 2 conchs, 1 Halloween crab, 1 sally light foot crab in my 72 gallon. My suggestion would be to bump up the CUC. Your tank being a newer setup is going to go through the ups and down of algae blooms until it gets established. Think of it this way, every time you add something, it going to throw everything off slightly until the system adjusts to the new load. For example adding a fish or two, you are feeding more and the fish is pooping more so the system is going to have to adjust for the new bio load. That being said you will make adjustments to Ca, Mg, Alk, possibly trace elements for corals. With the live stock you will start looking at ways to export No3's and Po4's.
water changes are a temporary fix to export No3's and point of sale's along with adding Ca, Mg, Alk, adding trace elements. Last September & October I was battling phosphates and nitrates, and using the common practice of water change, of doing 10% water changes every other day. The No3'3 and Po4's would go down then right back up, one thing I notice was my corals stated looking much better for the reason I was replenishing the trace elements that they need via the salt. I the process I striped the bio load and stress the fish. I lost 4 of my original fish to ich and tried to add fish and the system was stress and lost those fish. Then asking question, reading, came to the conclusion the I striped the system and I need to start dosing elements for the corals and I also need to start dosing some kind of carbon product along with cutting back the water changes to once a week. At this point I started dosing with a auto doser reef colors and bought the test kit for the colors.
I started dosing Red Sea No Po x for the nitrates and phosphates and that was helping but not enough for the phosphates. I started dosing Rowa (phos removal/GFO) the Rowa both together did a good job. I also did not add any live stock for about 30 days. In late November I add the fish back and a bunch of coral frags, then let the system ride for about 2 months. The corals started browning and I was losing arcos also may corals were growing very slow, my rock was gray also the tank did not look healthy. Back to the drawing board, I started asking question here again and also spoke with one of the on line site I was buying product through and they recommended a different product line to start dosing the
Balling Method. I usually have a busy schedule and this made since for me. I went out and bought a couple of auto dosers and started using the pre mixed Balling Method product and with in two weeks my total system started looking better.
February 2016 I pulled the No Po x off line and went with a different brand that was like No Po x and also had a better result. At the end of February I switch salts to match the new products line and the system was still improving. In March I upgraded my lights and wow the system really started to look like it was coming to life. I was running a simple H.O.B. Filter with a protein skimmer built into the H.O.B. In mid March I decided I would go with a sump since in all of the years being into saltwater I never ran a sump and want to finely try a summp. I built a sump and went on line with the sump the beginning of April. The next battle of Green hair, red cayno, and daitoms started again caused by high No3's, and Po4's, very frustrated at this point. I was still dosing GFO in the sump flow tray and a syntactic carbon product and the tank was out of control with Algae. Went back to reading and more questions, and figured I would give the H2O2 dosing a try, it helped a little bit but not the results that I wanted.
Mid June I started reading and asking questions again, and decided that I would get the bio pellets a try them in a small reactor. It worked for my system and I have my No3's under control and using GFO for my phosphates under control. The tank looks great for now and I am going to let things ride to see were I am at in 30 days, I am also trying bi monthly water changes since now that I am dosing the Balling method, bio pellets, syntactic carbon products and a small amount of trace elements use the same product line for the reason If have about 45 to 50 frags in my system that seem to eat up the trace elements from the balling method and salt. This is how my system look now. My corals have doubled and even tripled in size and the color has really come out.
The reason this post is so long is that my thinking is, telling you my story will give you some idea what worked for me. Also it may help you to understand that you will find your systems happy place
and it takes time.
