I follow a strict water change every 2 weeks. I use distilled water. I add
Red Sea salt and maintain specific gravity of .023 to .0235 water temps at
78F. I'm trying to find a way to lower the temps know that I realize that
it's not my heater that's maintaining my water temps. This was a surprise
to me. I have two 1200 Maxi-jet pumps a Emperor 400 and SeaClone skimmer.

I havn't had 9 months of this problem. None months ago I had the problem
of Angle agae and took care of it. Two/3 months ago I got a Hawk fish in
addition to a yellow tank and a purple damsel. The Hawk didn't seem to be
able to compete with the other two fish for the food. In my attempts to
make sure he got fed I started getting too much food into the system. Bang
the Angle head took off again.

I've made adjustments in the feeding so that I'm pretty sure the Hawk is
getting enough. I'm back to maybe 3 days before the glass needs wiped
down.

I'd really like to get temps down to 73F or there abouts. I don't like
reducing the water flow in the tank. I'd appreciate recommendations.

The Emperor has two blue filters and one plastic with charcoal in them. I
do note that I use to usually find little shrimp in them when I rinsed
them/changed them. I don't seem them now. I wonder if I've lost some level
of biolgical balance. Or could it be that the Hawk fish has cleaned them
up?

I have a live sand substrata. I use to see the occassional miniscule red
worm but no longer sometimes in the sand.

I check water for nitrates and nitrites. The worst strip testing was maybe
in the range of 40 ( is that ppm ) for nitrates. I've never seen nitrites
becomming an issue. Most of the time nitrates are reading at about 30
(ppm).

I keep a clean skimmer pulling it apart about once every 3-4 months and
getting brushes down into it to clean out any accumulated scum. I say it's
scum it's not green but spots of stuff slowly start to show up. The top
collection cannister gets cleaned about every 3-4 days using a brush.

I've not had much luck trying to keep corals. I had some stag coral that
grew well for about 8 months then a water conditioning crisis were I was
adding coral growth chemicals that I went overboard with. Lost the coral
and havn't ventured back. I think its best if I avoid anything too exotic.