Please Help New Addition will not open up

[layer3guru]

All,

I have a 140 gallon hand made tank professionally done with acrylic of course. It is 120 gallon with a sump built internally right on the back of it which I grow culerpa in. I have all softies, blue, red and striped shrooms, Waving hand coral (anthelia) growing like mad, Toadstool about 5inches in diameter at the base and 9inches across the top, Kenya tree that has about 8 branches on it now and really needs fragging it started from a frag with about 2 inches of growth, sun polyps, also some green star polyps.

Other hardware
css 220
HOT MAgnum with no filter strictly for running carbon one week a month.

2 250W 13kMH
1 175W 10k
2 PC Actinics 55W

Parameters
Temp 80-82
ph 8-8.4
phosphate 0
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
alkalinity 290ppm
nitrate 0-5 depending on if I wait the full 3 weeks to do my 20 gallon rodi water change. If I notice my shrooms not opening as much I dose Kent Iodine I can't find lugols in my area any where. I also top off with RODI and Kent Kalkwasser.

Now get on with it I traded the wall of green star polyps that I know this store can sell for about 300bucks once fragged yeap thats how much of it there was, I traded for brown button polyps and Xenia. The button polyps will not open and at the store these things were like 2 to 3 inches long from the base rock with green centers just beautiful. The Xenia was waving in the current. I have had them for 3 days now in my tank. I let the bags float for 30 minutes, then I added a shot glass of my tank water to the bag every 15 minutes for 45 minutes before adding them to my tank. Everything else is so vibrant I just do not know what to do about these and really like the pulsing xenia but have never been able to keep them this is my second try. The button polyps are shrunk down and will not open. The only thing I can think may possibly be wrong is to much current? I have a 26HF Rio with about 10 inches of head space because of my sump being built right into the tank. The 26hf is rated at 1590gph at 1 foot head space then I have a maxi jet 1200 in one corner and a Seio 820 in the other corner. The 26hf is basically the return pump from the sump. I put the Xenia and Button Polyps in a corner about mid way of the tank out of the way of direct flow. But I have seen other tanks with these species in them with what seemed to be violent flow right across them.

I really want to try and keep the Xenia and button polyps, I have done so much reading in books and on here the last few days that my eye sight seems blurry now. Any help at all would surely be appreciated. Thank you

Oh yeah I turned the skimmer off today as it was skimming 24x7 before to see if that changes things.

 

[Sk8r]

You don't list your calcium level or magnesium, and I'd have to get up and go get my chart to check the other scale for alk, but try these params: alk 8.3-11 [on my scale], calcium 400-420, mg 1200-1260.
Those suffice for acropora, and I'd think the buttons would love those conditions. It might also help to stabilize your ph just a tad.

Buttons are quick to protect themselves and slow to come out again. Give them time.

I have heard that a little deficiency in iodine [but don't start dosing it bigtime] can result in xenia not pumping. If you want to try it, get some Kent Coral Vite and add just a little in any week you don't water-change.

But both buttons and xenia are very light-sensitive when they're hit with too much of it. If there's a big difference in lighting between the store and your tank, that could account for a lot. Start them on the bottom and move them up gradually. I fragged off some xenia in my own tank and simply moved it 3 inches out into the light---it had been in the shade---and it took it 4 weeks to expand out fully.

 

[layer3guru]

Forgot about posting my calcium, it is 450 and I do not have a magnesium test kit. My ph mainly swings on water changes I am not sure how to keep that from changing or how much more stable it could possibly be.