Cespitularia keeping

[Drock169]

Does any one know the secret to keeping Blue Xenia (cespitularia) going?
I find that i'm always switching it between my 3 tanks to keep it happy. It seems like it always depleting something but i'm not sure what.
My other variety of Cespitularia is growing great in all of my tanks, but for some reason the blue variety has always done well then start to look rough.

 

[chiclet]

you know as a keeper cesp. is a pain in the butt, rarely will they look glorious without the most optimal settings. I have True blue , tan and purple cesp, african Blue variety is the most demanding. They need the cleanest water of all the xenia imo but still not skimmer clean. they need nutrients and more importantly are the most light demanding and flow demanding of the cesp. Its hard to find the right place, like you said you keep moving it, it need random hard flow, do you have a wave maker? It need high lighting, how high in teh tank is your? what lights? and do you run a skimmer? post some pics so we can go further and maybe solve your problem.

I currently keep a 6 gallon eclipse with 2 varieties of cesp 3 varieties of xenia and blue anthelia...... talk about close quarters...

fortunatley my 24 hqi does get the colonies and the higher light demanding blue cesp....

 

[Drock169]

To be honest, the true blue did best in a 14G biocube for me, but i shut that down a long time ago.
I usually keep it under 250 14K halides, with actinics, so I dont think lighting is an issue, I have a wave box in my large tank with 2 maxijet mods and a few other powerheads, lots of flow in there, I usually keep it in a lower flow area, and the 4G has a wavemaker on it. I run simmers on both of my tanks that are overrated for them, a ER CS-180 on the 125, and a Deltec MCE-300 on the 40, no skimmer on the 4G. High bioload on the 125, low bioload on the 40, no bioload on the 4. Feeding proportionally equally to the bioloads.
I've had my colonies for over 2 years but cant seem to make them happy fo the past year.
Nitrates in the 125 are ~5-10ppm, ~1ppm in the 40, 0 in the 4,
PO4 is 0.08, 0.03, 0.01 respectively.
Are you dosng anything? I used to dose Iodine when I ran my biocube, but havent done so since, I often wonder if thats what they are depleting.

 

[chiclet]

nope i dont dose anything at all... my point exactly though it did good for you " true blue did best for you" its just the species, itg can never be fully happy....

back to the problem... you say its not happy what does it look like? hurdled over.... polyps disfigured.....? post pics if u can. How long has it been in the current spot in your tank? is it reproducing at all? What is your phosphate level at? Also amm? Is the cesp in all your tanks? which tank is it doing best in, if so?

 

[gflat65]

I went through the beginning electric blue cespit blues for almost a year until it started just growing (not growing, then dying, then growing again). the frag would riple, then die back to half or less the size of the original colony. I put them in 40B cess pool, and they started growing like Xenia (not quite as fast, but a lot faster than before). It had no filtration (just falling water) and 175W Coralvue bulbs (I thought these were dimmer than Sunburst 12K's from way back...). They took off and haven't looked back. I gave a frag to a friend while I was in the grow die grow phase and he put them under 400W MH, about 4" from the water surface, and in it covered the top of his rock in very little time (only to be added to the list of daily specials for one of his angels).

All that said, mine started doing best when I dropped it in dirt and let it sit for months. I had the African Blue, but it grows faster than normal Xenia around here (both stores have it all over their tanks). It didn't make it into the cess pool, so I don't have any comparative observations. It began growing fast as soon as I brought it home, though.

This is my Electric Blue for reference.
Top down taken a few days ago.

Flash shot taken months back. These show more color under a flashlight than any other coral I've ever seen. When the sun would hit it through the windows in late afternoon, the colors in the tank really lit up.

 

[bph0013]

Gflat, very nice looking. We grow that variety at the aquaculture facility I run and have come to similar conclusions. It doesn't seem to like direct intense lighting. We had it directly under some 250 SE 12k Reeflux bulbs in a Lumenbright reflector and it started dying back/didn't seem real happy. We put it under T-5s and it got a lot happier and started growing again. I've found when they start dying back if you can do a Coral Revive dip on them it seems to stop the process and they recover. They definitely like flow.