Thanks for share more detail, I don't want to change the topic of the thread so I'll just ask one last question, is there anywhere you could recommend on gathering more information on how this works/set up
Good question.
Back in late 90s while I was in college I read a wonderful book by Eric Borneman called Aquarium Corals: Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History. Eric goes into some detail about Xeniid behavior in the wild, and that they are "some of the first colonizers of the reef" also they can be found at waste water pipes from hotels. Basically mother nature uses them in high nutrient environments to clean thing up for life to flurish. I figured if it works in the wild why not a home. So knowing that in 1999-2000ish I started to employ this method. It took a few years to "figure it out" and grow the population large enough to suit the needs of the system. But once I dialed it in for me there is nothing better than having a filtration that grows with the need of the system.