Pumping xenia

[10001110101]

high ammonia will nuke it fast, it will literally vaporise.

but other than that it's about the sturdiest coral you can have.


I had some that got eaten by a peppermint shrimp... i'm guessing he left a piece buried in the sand...

anyways about 2-3 months later i was totally redoing my aquascape and digging around the sand for shells and such and somehow must have exhumed the xenia....

just looked like a little grey-purple ball but it sure enough had about 2-3 raggedy little polyps still on it... within a week it had 10-12 full sized polyps all pumping furiously.

amazing little coral.

it will also fix a very large proportion of ammonia directly... will grow under almost any lighting/flow conditions... but grows incredibly fast under very high light...

it fixes ammonia at a greater rate than caulerpa (about 4x) and nitrite/nitrate somewhat less than caulerpa.

will also remove heavy metals, as will just about everything in your tank!

[thebanker]

Originally Posted by dudley moray

are there star polyps near it ?

There is possibly something more to this.

I gave a frag of xenia to my dad, who had a new (<2 weeks old) JBJ picotope. The frag was healthy, pulsing, and fat. After living 2 weeks in the picotope, it was looking just as good. The colony would go nuts in the hour of natural sunlight it received every morning. The other corals in the tank - zoanthids, mushrooms, a monti, and a frogspawn - were also looking healthy. The tank went through a normal diatom bloom & cyano bloom. Several weeks later the GSP was added, and the xenia began a slow decline. They are within 2 inches of a large GSP colony. They've been looking worse and worse.

I know this is anecdotal, not experimental evidence, but I'm thinking that GSP and xenia are non-compatible in proximity. I can't attribute the xenia's rapid decline to anything else. To prove that the tank's water isn't unsuitable, the montipora cap I gave him is still doing well, it even has full polyp extension and a little stony growth.

Originally Posted by 10001110101

high ammonia will nuke it fast, it will literally vaporise.

it fixes ammonia at a greater rate than caulerpa (about 4x) and nitrite/nitrate somewhat less than caulerpa.

will also remove heavy metals, as will just about everything in your tank!

How have you come to these conclusions?

[Hephalump]

Here's a perfect example of the mysteriousnature of xenia. I got 3 stalks free from my lfs. I took them home and dropped them in my fuge. One thrived, is growing and pulsing. One landed a few inches away and immediately shriveled up and looks horrible, but hasn't died or grown in over a month. The third one fell down into the rocks and is spreading down inside, and looks fine but is not pulsing. That's 3 frags all from the exact same original colony, all added at the exact same time, no more than six inches away from each other, all behaving completely differently...who even knows with this stuff.

[thebanker]

Bump for an interesting topic I think about often.

[Klownfish]

Originally Posted by RokleM

Unfortunately, there is a lot of garbage out there about this coral. The short of the matter is, there is no definitive information I've seen that determines what it does or doesn't like.

My experience with primarily Red Sea Pink Pulsing Xenia, however similar results have been seen with elongated, etc.

Myth 1:
People claim that it needs either a) dirty or b) clean water.
The answer is, neither are right. I know 3 SPS guys with the MOST pristine tanks possible where it thrives. It also thrives in a refugeium or sump area collecting waste.

Myth 2:
People claim it needs either a) high or b) low light.
Again, both neither right or wrong. I stress tested mine in two of the most extreme opposites available. At about 1600-1700 PAR directly under a 400w MH less than 3" from the surface, it thrived. I recently had it under about 5-10 par of homedepot/lows spiral compact florescent bulbs in my fuge, it thrived.

Myth 3:
It absolutely needs supplements of *insert flavor of the month here*
I can't test it, I don't dose it, period. 4 different salts over the years with different levels of makeup, no manual dosing of iodine, iron or anything of the like... always thriving.

Myth 4:
It needs either a) high flow or b) low flow.
Back to the fuge comment, it was in little to no flow and thriving. It also thrives within inches of a Vortech MP40 on short pulse and/or a Tunze Nanostream at full bore, ravaged with current, thrives.

Myth 5:
It requires a) high or b) low salinity
I had some live rock I was "cooking" with my own strategy for excess of three months (clean water, filtration, no fish, inverts, food, or anything else to add nutrients to the water). I left the concentration relatively low at 1.010, and it grew. I have old rock from my tank that I broke down over a month ago now where it's growing, and it's been at 1.035. Xenia still growing and mushrooms are still alive.

Myth 6:
*insert reason here* caused it to a) melt b) disappear c) relocate d) whatever else.
Truth is, no one really knows why some people can't keep it. I've sold and/or given out close to probably 200 frags over the years of mine. I'd say about 50% have had success. About 25% couldn't get it to take and gave up. About 25% I've given pieces to multiple times (and even received it from multiple sources besides me) and just can't seem to get it to grow and thrive at all.



Just my information based on tests I've run. Take it or leave it, but the vast majority of "it needs *insert data here*" posts are quite frankly unproven, outright guesses, or just plain wrong. Until someone runs real scientific tests, it's all guesswork.

It loves me and my tank. I've kept Pulsing Xenia, Cespitularia, and Effoutlaria.

It thrives like a weed, and makes no sense or reason for what it does.

I can't kill it, even when I try

...And it smells like a dead rotting corpse.

.

[captstinky]

I have GSP and Xenia in a 40gallon. Both are growing at fragable rates. FWIW: I do run carbon almost constantly and skim using a 'cheap' skimmer...as I feel should be done in a mixed reef env't. The skimmer is essentially the only mechanical filtration on the tank.

[thebanker]

Originally Posted by captstinky

I have GSP and Xenia in a 40gallon. Both are growing at fragable rates. FWIW: I do run carbon almost constantly and skim using a 'cheap' skimmer...as I feel should be done in a mixed reef env't. The skimmer is essentially the only mechanical filtration on the tank.

How close are the colonies to one another?

[biecacka]

i do like the look of a few stalks in the tank. gently swaying back and forth..

corey

[shellsea]

Considering Xenia in a small fuge that will be hang on in front of sump. Grandkid eye level.
Will I risk the chance of it migrating into the return section of the sump and on to the DT?