pulsating xenia rampage!

[SirVilhelm]

I purchase a stalk of pulsating xenia about a month ago and it has since spread like wildfire. I am now starting to regret putting them into my tank.

Anyway, I've noticed that my star polyps are staying retracted and not coming out to enjoy the light. The only thing I can think of is that it's getting irritated by a xenia stalk that has recently moved into the area. Do xenia's has stinging cells or chemicals that would irritate the star polyps?

Also, I need to start cutting these guys back, any easy ways of doing this?

[Sugar Magnolia]

Cutting them back won't do anything. Any speck of flesh left behind will grow back, unless you smear a bit of kalk paste over it. Another option is to remove the rock and use a hammer and chisel and take just a bit of the LR off with the xenia on it.

[SirVilhelm]

Well that sucks. Will they eventually overtake the tank if left alone?

[winnermc]

Yes, they will take over. That's what happened to me. I started with one stalk and within 9 months I had a few dozen. They were everywhere; even on the glass. I finally got fed up one day and started pulling them out. I left a few, but when I see them starting to get out of control I start weeding again.

[Lyfey]

same deal, I had 2 stalks when I bought the frag for 35 dollars, Acclimated horrible and turned black.. I thought it was dead, now I have about 13 stalks in my tank and my Biocube.. lol.. they really do grow fast!

If you want to move them, have them touch any kind of rock rubble and they will move onto it as long as it is closer to the light... begin collecting them this way and seclude them onto an island in the sandbed, and try to get people or LFS' to buy them :) thats what I am going to do if it gets out of control.
just my .02c

[SirVilhelm]

They seem to duplicate instead of move to the rubble. I see them "crawling" up the rock toward the light but they leave stalks behind.

I should have known. The LFS I got these from have hundreds of stalks in a 300 gal tank. It looks really cool to see so many pulsating at once but that's not the look I want ;)

Anyone know if they have stinging cells?

[mrbncal]

They are more of a chemical warfare specialist. Not stingers.

[Gdevine]

Make no mistake about it Xenia and GSP are invasive corals and will take over a tank especially in the right conditions. I made the newbie mistake as well 3 years ago and got so sick and tired of ripping them out I actually thought about breaking the tank down and starting over again.

Instead, I nuked the tank with a Fluke Tab and it killed all the Xenia and GSP and nothing else. It was like a Godsend to be honest with you. I got my tank back and had a chance to add the corals that I wanted after I got a bit more knowledge.

LFS should warn all new to the hobby about these corals so they can make an informed decision...but you know how that goes.

[supervdl]

My Xenia always disappears at some point. Maybe I have a predator.

[bigclops]

i have heard of people xenia only fuge.. might be kind of neat!

[silverfly]

I had a tank full of it, then it melted in a day and took most of the tank with it -gutted. I've now noticed two tiny patches starting to grow!

[Gdevine]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14631154#post14631154 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by silverfly
I had a tank full of it, then it melted in a day and took most of the tank with it -gutted. I've now noticed two tiny patches starting to grow!

Xenia crashes happen and can kill a tank especially when the tank has a significant amount...but they will come back again if the tank itself didn't crash.

[SirVilhelm]

So you would recommend Fluke Tabs? That would kill off my star polyps too? hmmm

[silverfly]

Managed to save my rock,sand and a couple of softys-everything else floating aroung on christmas day! The old skeletons of coral now form part of my new reef.

[Gdevine]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14631287#post14631287 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SirVilhelm
So you would recommend Fluke Tabs? That would kill off my star polyps too? hmmm

Here's a copy of an old post on exactly what I did:

I had the same problem; this coral can be extremely invasive in some tanks and mine was one of them. Each weekend I had to frag the stuff until my fingers were sore from cutting and tearing for hours. In fact, I was so disgusted I even considered breaking the tank down and starting over!

But before I did that I went the Fluke Tab route with great success.

Here's what I did:

1. Traded some of the most overgrown rocks with LFS for new Fiji rock and did some new acquascaping (LFS can sell Xenia fast as it's very hard to ship).
2. Fragged as much of the remaining Xenia as I could.
3. Added 3 new bags of carbon in my fuge.
4. Did my weekly water change.
5. Diluted one tab in tank water and poured in the return section of my fuge.
6. Four days later did a 12g water change (on a 65g DT) and syphoned off as much of the dead Xenia as I could.
7. Did my weekly water change that Saturday. (So, 2 water changes in one week for me.)
8 Have a good clean up crew (hermits) as they will eat the dead Xenia tissue.

And that did that! I couldn't have been more pleased, in fact I was so happy with the results I bought some new Zoa's to start over on the new rock.

A couple of things; if you have any cleaner shrimp take them out if you can as the drug will shock and kill them. It did to mine but it allowed me to get some peps which I wanted anyway.

If you do above, and maybe an extra one or 2 water changes you will be fine.

[SirVilhelm]

I was just doing some reading and it seams that I would peel the xenia off the rocks. Has anyone tried this?

[winnermc]

I just peeled some off 3 weeks ago during my last water change. This method works best for me to keep it under control without destroying all if it, unless that's what your goal is. If you just want to keep it under control you just have to spend a little time pruning it every few weeks.

[SirVilhelm]

How do you start the peeling process? Razor?

[winnermc]

Sometimes they're really loose and you can just pull them off. Other times you can just scrape them off with a razor blade where they're attached to the rock.