xenia

[Guest alex wlazlak]

every other coral in my tank is growing like a weed, my zoos, my shrooms, capnella, and i have tons of tiny feather dusters everywhere, but my xenia's polyps look to be disinigrating and they arent pulsing anymore. know what the problem might be? i have low PH and calcium and high nitrates, but i added calcium yesterday and PH buffer today...

[davelin315]

Lots of things can interfere with xenia's ability to thrive in a tank. Some people have luck with it (or bad luck with it if it really takes off) and others can't for the life of them get it to last more than a couple of days. I don't know what the magic answer is, but low pH can definitely kill it and I would watch your other corals very carefully. Also, xenia are an excellent nitrate sponge so get ready for a huge nitrate level jump when they do dissolve.

 

They also might be getting outcompeted by other soft corals which can release chemicals into the water.

[Guest alex wlazlak]

i have a bigger frag of it on a rock with my orange zoos. that might be it? i added PH to the tank but ill see how it does.

[Rascal]

Mine too. Up until now it has grown like a weed. I had to constantly prune it. When I transferred tanks last month ago one of the things I did with my aquascaping was limit the contact the xenia had w/ other rocks - to stop it from taking over the whole tank.

 

Last night I came home and, just as you described, it seemed to be disintigrating. Lots of reasons for this that I could think of -- issues re to tank transfer and setting up new system, prolonged heat (chiller feed pump was clogged yesterday), etc. . . . But it is very interesting that you seem to be experiencing the same thing at almost the exact same time.

 

All other inhabitants seem to be doing fine. This includes a thriving colony of Silver-tipped xenia. It is only the Red Sea xenia that are disintigrating.

 

I seem to remember reading something about this on one of the online mags a while back. Periodic mass die-offs of xenia in late summer. Happens both on the reef and in hobbyists tanks. The author thought probably heat related. If I remember correctly, he thought it would eventually grow back. Guess we'll wait & see.

[Caribbean Jake]

I have two tanks, one 55 and one 125. The Xenia in the 55 have the same symptoms as yours, teh ones in the 125 are thiving.

 

SO, I did a test on both and the only difference is the PH. The PH on my 55 is lower, not much, but still lower than the 125, everything else is the same. Oh, except for temp. The 55 has a steady temp of 76 F and the 125 has a steady temp of 80 F. Otherthan that... is all the same. Have said that, could it be the PH?

[Steve G]

I too lost a fair amoutn of xenia that had been growing rapidly.

 

What do all of us in different tanks have in common? It's summertime, with heat issues being hard to control. I have heard (just chatter from reef keepers, nothing definitive) that xenia are more sensitive to temperature fluctuations. I know my tank has been on a rollercoaster from 80 to 84 this summer.

 

Could that be it?