"coaxing" xenia to grow on glass

[CloruroDiSodio]

Hi gang,

Just bought some pulsing xenia over the weekend, so far it is doing great pulsing like crazy and really filled out. I'm fairly new to the coral part of the hobby, so far I only have an open brain coral that I bought about a month ago and the xenia. Anyway I would like the xenia to grow and spread up on the glass towards the back of the tank, I think this would make a neat backdrop. Any ideas on how to do this? I was just a little reluctant with putting the live rock that it came on towards the back corner (and hoping it spread to the glass) since it would not have ideal flow or lighting back there.

thanks a lot

 

[lehireefer]

Just give it a little time, you will soon have xenia all over the place. The xenia I used to have would spread to the nearest anything that wasn't already occupied! When it does spread all over the back glass you ought to keep a close watch on it as it will overtake everything!

 

[CloruroDiSodio]

ok thanks. How / where do you "prune" it without killing it? I could just take portions of it back to the LFS once it spreads too much

 

[lehireefer]

You have a good LFS, none of ours will take xenia. You can't really kill it. Wherever you cut it, it just grows back. I am not trying to be mean here, but I finally took all of it out of my tank because it was trying to overgrow some palys and some acans, it will also out compete most zoos it comes in contact with as well. When I did cut it away from the rocks, there is always some leftover. I had to take aptasia control to remove it completely. Any of the torch corals or hammers and frogspawn will also kill xenia if they come in contact with it.

 

[robot2222]

in my experiance if you place near the top and lean against the glass it will spread to the glass. if it cant grow any higher it will spread.

 

[extremeshocks]

Just lean it up lightly against glass. It will spit then grow on glass or whatever its against.

 

[captstinky]

I second extremeshocks. As far as pruning without killing-don't worry- just use sharp scissors or a blade and try to catch any floating pieces...