help! xenia falling apart!

[weeftard]

i bought an awesome colony of xenia last sat. its four big stalks of plain old xenia. I did an hour long drip acclimation because i hear it can be sensitve to ph changes. Today the bottom stalk has been dropping heads all over. It just started today, yesterday it was sulking and the heads where closed up. today it is spitting them every where. params are as follows amonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 15 i know its a little high, i just started my refugium 2 weeks ago with cheato and tons of live sand a rubble rock, dkh 9 cal 500 ph 8.2 Im wondering if its just walking some where it likes better or if its something i need to worry about. i have it under 250w mh. Like i said it has looked great all week and now falling apart, any one think i should dose some iodine??
help me out i really dont want to see this wither away.

 

[thegrun]

Xenia is one of those corals that grow like a weed for some (to the point of being a nuisance) but others cannot get it to grow. There are hundreds of theories, but I haven't heard of one that is definitive. Some claim it likes dirty water, but it grows well for me in a clean largely sps tank.

 

[Shane Hoffman]

I have 2 huge colonies of xenia. On 3 occasions in the last year I have had whole colonies melt away with no apparent signs of stress (from fish, inverts, or chemically). My parameters on all 3 occasions were all spot on. I tested for trates, trites, calc, alk, mag, sg, amonia, and phosphates. All 3 times it happened the xenia had already spread to another rock and the rock it spreads to continued to thrive while the mother colony melted away. I have given up on trying to figure out why. Matter of fact it has been several months since I had a meltdown and my xenia is spreading well so I assume any day now I will have a colony wither away.......

 

[weeftard]

thats crazy, the other thing is i have a small pulsing pom pom xenia thats grown from 2 stalks to 4 in 2 months and looks great never had a problem with it. Think i should do any thing to try to stop it or let it take its course?

 

[travis32]

I have xenia coming out of my ears.... I've completely pulled them off a rock they almost covered. To the point that the rock was bare, no xenia sprouts on it anywhere. Less than a week later, small baby xenia were growing. Now, close to 3 weeks since I trimmed them back, the whole rock is as covered as it was before I trimmed it, if not more covered!!! I give up. I'll let it grow.. Also the result of me trimming it back... I've now got 2 or 3 baby xenia stalks growing in my sand bed..

I wish I could help you, the best I could do is send you colony after colony until you get one to grow. For me I'd compare them to dandylions. Pretty to start with, but, once they take over, they aren't so fun!

 

[jvr1102]

Xenia is very sensative generally to high calcium levels. Anytime my caclium would get above 460 they would shrivel up and die when cal gets near 500. My money is that your calcium is to high for them

 

[billabong08]

Xenia is a hit or miss. I originally got a stalk of xenia like 2 months ago and it has been growing well. Then about 1 month later I bought another stalk of xenia and it shriveled up and disappeared. Maybe it will pop out of no where lol.
I have heard of people trying to get rid of them because of how fast they grow and I have also heard of people cant get them to grow.
Maybe it just its the luck of the draw. All you can do is hope to get a good stalk which is impossible.
Good luck.
Maybe you can give them some time.

 

[bunzaroo]

I will give mine away if you want some!!! Mine spreads like crazy, my nitrates usually hover between 10-15, and calcium is in usually 520-540. I usually have to trim back every 3 months or so, It's even growing on my back glass. My 2 clownfish started hosting a huge colony about 3 months ago. Mine took off when i changed from Pc's to T5's.

 

[weeftard]

i really think that with my local lfs any thing you buy is hit or miss. i kept thinking i had some problem keeping lps corals i was going nuts posting on here every day trying to narrow down the cause. I go back to the lfs every peice that i had bought, was either dead or dying in there own tanks the same way they did in mine. I just think its hit or miss with them. Now i only try to buy what is A. new in their tanks B. shows good tissue/polyp extention. Is there any negative thing that can happen to my water if the xenia melts away completely??

 

[joeyt66]

Ive always found higher phosphates is what made mine happy

 

[weeftard]

Well that would be a good reason mine is falling apart i have very low phospate. I run gfo in a phosban 150 and the last test i did it was undectable. but im trying to keep it away for the few sps i have i only have three peices that havent minded my elevated nitrate but i dont have any thing serious just a birds nest and acropora but they look great and have awesome extention and growth. maybe i'll take it off line for a while or change it to a carbon reactor.

 

[weeftard]

well it's not looking good at all for the xenia only 1 out of 4 stalks is left. i did a medi-coral dip last night for about ten mins. I would be happy at this point to save this last stalk. any one got a last ditch effort i could try?