xenia not doing good

[coryaquarium101]

Just got a xenia frag yesterday, looked good in the store. had to drive about 2 hours home. Kinda acclimated it fast, not the drip method way. I also got a big piece of liverock with like 15 or 20 red shrooms and a single green looking shroom and they are doing great, i also have very bright green polyps that are doing great and multiplying. The Xenia is really dark sickly brown color and tentacles or whatever are shrunk up.

cory.

[silverwolf72]

I would give it a couple of days to recover before you start to worry about it

[redfishsc]

Xenia can behave strangely for a while before it acclimates and spreads all over your tank like a weed.

[MarkusII]

Hello,

Xenia are really behaving strange...
Sometimes they grow like hell in a tank, sometimes they cannot be established at all. Sometimes they do well over a long time and then disapear....
I had the white one since the beginning and it always did nice. Then I tried to establish a more brown kind and failed three times before sucess...
Recently the white one almost disapeared in two parts of the tank but do perfektly well in another corner... (and experienced it in another tank as well).

But they normally do not like long transports!

regards

Markus

[coryaquarium101]

Well the xenia is a little more erect now, but it still doesn't look like it did at the store. I did a 5 gallon water change today, maybe that will help a little bit. I am gonna test the water tomorrow. I know my calcium is only around 320-340. Gonna get a Mag test kit soon and see if that is low or not. I'm not sure if Xenia needs high calcium or not? The bases of the xenia are erect but the tentacle things on the tips and not really erect and just kinda floating around.

[ScooterBlenny]

It's not uncommon for xenia to be a little ornery for several days...I brought some from home to my office tank last week, and it is just now starting to stand up a bit. I wouldn't be too worried unless it turns into a yucky puddle of slime;-)

[coryaquarium101]

oh ok thanks scooterblenny and the rest that have replied.
I think it is starting to look a little better, slowly.

cory

[Ken_Allen]

Mine took overnight and then opened up very nice. 1.025, nitrates at nothing and flow at medium so they sway around a little. They're growing and seem to know their "bed time"

[EMV7904]

I'd like to add my experience here:

I had xenia years ago and could NEVER keep it alive. At that time I only had power compact lighting. I must have spent $1,000,000 on xenia frags trying and trying becuase I liked it so much.

Fast forward a few years and I change to metal halide lighting. All of a sudden I have more xenia than I knew what to do with. The only thing that controlled it was the overgrowing anthelia. LOL (again a result of the metal halides - cus I could never keep anthelia either.)

Then I decide it's actually a pest coral to my sps and try to get rid of it. I couldn't GIVE it away after trying to grow it for so long. Finally scraped the skin off all of my rock and got rid of ALL of it...and now want it back. ;) Me and xenia have a love hate relationship.

I'll also say that xenia, even in a WELL established and thriving tank can just go bad all of a sudden with no warning, and it goes fast. It's just the life cycle. When this happens, it usually doesn't ALL melt away and some little piece of 'skin' will stay behind and start the whole colony back. My LFS has been through this many times over the years.

Just my story...and I'm sticking to it!

Oh, and usually xenia is going to like 'dirtier water', and by that I mean they do better in a tank that is not as pristine as some of the sps tanks you see here.

[ScooterBlenny]

Cory, the xenia that I added last week is just now "standing up" and pulsing happily. It was flopped over for several days.

[d0ughb0y]

from my experience, xenia is impossible to kill (unless you take it out of water of course).
I have xenias that got stung the hell out of it by LPS and looked dead (drooping and lifeless), and came back to life on its own after some time (I moved the LPS). I have xenias that got sucked in to filter and chopped up fingers and all juice/slime (it stinks) pretty much squeezed out. it is in a condition that pretty much anyone will leave it for dead. out of curiosity, I superglued what's left of the tissue to a piece of rock, and placed it in my frag tank, and it grew right back so it may be down right now, but do not count it out just yet.

[saltman123]

My Xenia does not spread. It did once spread a baby to the glass, but that was it.

[ranger07]

Iodine

[arre]

i would do a water changes. higher ph 8.3-8.5

[MAMGM]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13725717#post13725717 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ranger07
Iodine

Yep I agree. Check your Iodine level.Xenia depletes the Iodine in your water

[thomasp123]

i got a new xenia on saturday and did my normal waterchange on sunday and things looked ok the xenia was mostly open but not as much as at the store. The last two days it has been completely closed. I use purple up for coraline algae which has calcium strontium and iodine and coral-vite for trace and viamins. my water is good no nitrate or NH3 or NO2. calcium is 400 and carbonate hardness is dk 10. should I just wait and see?

Tom

[saltman123]

Here is my experience.

When I didn't have a tank I would see Xenia in the store and was amazed by how it pulsed. I finally got a tank up and went to a ManhattanReef frag swap and a friendly member gave me a sweet xenia frag.

When I first got it it was lighter, and pulsing. Put it in my tank and it almost immediately got darker in color. It also stopped pulsing strongly. It looked healthy, and continued to grow great, just didn't pulse really strong anymore and got dark in color.

I recently got another frag of xenia and it did the same. Put it in, it immediately got darker in color and doesn't pulse much. But it does thrive and is growing great. It doesn't spread, but just keeps growing thicker and bigger.

When I turn the pumps off for water change, or late at night I see it pumping, but never in the day.

[thomasp123]

I also noticed that at night both my green star polyp and the xenia close up tight. Is this a normal night mode?

Tom

[saltman123]

At night mine close up tight, or pulse slightly too.