Newly added pulsing Xenia causing tank to smell bad! Please Help!

So I added a pulsing xenia into my 20 gallon nano 2 days ago and at first it looked to be doing fine and was even pulsing a little, now it looks really droopy and is making the tank really smelly and even the air around the tank smell. I checked ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite and got .75 ppm ammonia, 5.0 ppm nitrate and 0 nitrite. i have a protein skimmer that i have going right now. It is going fairly wet right now to try to get as much of the crappy water out. I am also gonna do about a 25% water change and have ordered some matrix carbon which should be here in the next few days to help get rid of some of the waste. Any other advice about how to get the coral to survive would be appreciated since it kinda looks like the xenia might die on me.
the first two are pics from 10/09 the third is from 10/10

 

Having an ammonia reading leads me to believe that either:
--Your tank isn't properly/completely cycled or
--Something died and your bacteria can't keep up with the ammonia released from the decaying animal

I doubt the Xenia is what's causing the smell. Xenia is pretty hardy (read: it's freakin' a weed), and the "droopy"-ness that you describe sounds fairly normal to me (and could be attributed to your elevated ammonia levels).


A few questions:
How old is the tank?
What kind of smell is it (musty or more fishy?)?
What else is in the tank?
Are you sure your parameters are correct? Tested more than once? What brand test kits are you using?

 

its more musty, definitely not a dead fish smell.
the tank is about 10-11 months, i have another coral(frogspawn that is doing just fine, also i added a cherub angelfish that is doing fine and ive had 2 clowns in it for the whole year. i have 15 lbs of live rock, live sand, about 20 turbos, a few hermits, and a mantis shrimp(n. wennerae). Also, about to run to the store to grab some amquel and some more distilled water.
if anything died, it was likely to be a turbo that my mantis then proceeded to eat.
my test kits are api dropper test kits, ill run a second test when i get back from the store.

 

Welcome to 3reef,

Must have been a fairly good size turbo to create a detectable ammonia level.

Sounds like you have it all under control. Water change, ammonia binder, water change again and carbon.

Xenia is a weird coral, 50/50 die versus thrive.

Good luck.

Moved to----------General Reef Topics.

 

xenia puts off an odour ,it is very fussy about change and in a small system like that you are more likely to smell it, you find it alot when it is shipped.
when it moves it will be droopy and recover or it will be droopy and shrink away to nothing. if you are concerned about it's effects on your tank do a slight water change, but usually it is best to just let it recover. it's one of those less is more kind of corals

 

alright, ill leave it in, hopefully it recovers.

 

i recenty

did a freshwater dip on mine and i have a 75 gallon tank, all i could smell for days was xenia
some of it was so upset it shrunk down to a what looked like a wax puddle and it has all come back with a vengence.....but i've also had it go the otherway too and melt away to nothing and die
so it's really a call that only you can make
getting your parms in order is just good housekeeping and if you want a successful tank you should do anyway good luck and let us know how you battle plays out

 

just did a 25% water change and used some stress coat-fish and water conditioner since i couldnt find any amquel at the walmart. smell seems to be almost gone, can only smell it when i put my nose really close to the water. my salinity is a little high though, 1.028. Im gonna do another water change(10%) tomorrow and bring it down to around 1.026-1.025 as well as run another ammonia, nitrate and nitrite test. Ill keep you guys updated with the status of the coral. thanks for the imput.


UPDATE: just did a water test this morning. ammonia is now almost 0, nitrates are at 5 ppm and nitrites are at 0. also the smell is gone completely. Xenia still doesn't look to good and looks like its kinda disinigrating, but we'll see

 

So it seems like there is gaping holes on some of the stalks now that are a brownish color and the base is turning a pinkish color, do you guys think it is dead or dying and should I remove it or leave it in and hope it rejuvenates? Sorry I can't post pics of it right now because my laptop is being repaired.