Is my xenia dying???

[juansdca619]

I need to know what's going on with my xenia. It started yesterday and has continued through today. Before yesterday it was perfectly fine. Full bloomage I guess you could say. And now it's been shriveled up like this for two days. Water parameters are good. They are all within range and everything else in the tank is doing perfectly fine. I haven't changed anything. Haven't added anything other than RO for top off. It's been in the tank for a month and never looked like this until just yesterday. Thoughts???

 

[kegogut]

Something mightve gotten in your tank. Run some carbon in a reactor.

Xenia is also a "dirty coral" like kenya tree or other sofites. Meaning if your water is too clean they will shrivel and die from lack of nutrients.

 

[juansdca619]

Oh ok. I'm new to the hobby. I only have a 20g long. Nothing fancy running on it. Just a hob filter and a koralia 240. I don't have a reactor. I am running the filter cartridges with the carbon in them in the filter.

 

[juansdca619]

And it's been almost two weeks since I last added something to the tank. It just started looking like this yesterday.

 

[juansdca619]

So how or what nutrients should I add???

 

[Mock]

You dont add anything. Just keep the water changes to a minimum, feed a little more and wait until you have a trace of nitrates then watch all your softies come back to life.

 

[juansdca619]

I have a tree coral (don't remember what it is but it's definitely not kenya) as well that now that I remember it changed in appearance a bit too. It's not extending out as much as it use to. But it doesn't look as bad. Could that be for the same reason??

 

[kegogut]

You dont add anything. Just keep the water changes to a minimum, feed a little more and wait until you have a trace of nitrates then watch all your softies come back to life.

This. When we say nutrients we means nitrates and phosphates.

When these are very low softies will suffer. When theyre high sps and other sensitive corals will not be unhappy and brown out.

IMO nitrates should be around 5-10, phosphates should be no higher than .025-.50 ideally

 

[juansdca619]

Ok. So just wait some time and see what happens???

 

[Nina51]

it seems that xenia can be hit or miss. some people get a tiny frag and it ends up spreading everywhere while others try their best to keep xenia and it just melts away.

 

[tc2007]

it seems that xenia can be hit or miss. some people get a tiny frag and it ends up spreading everywhere while others try their best to keep xenia and it just melts away.

Yeah, I got a frag some weeks ago and it melted in 2 days
I wonder if salinity has anything to do with it.

 

[juansdca619]

Yeah, I got a frag some weeks ago and it melted in 2 days
I wonder if salinity has anything to do with it.

I'm still waiting for mine to bounce back. But no improvement yet. [emoji53]

 

[rssjsb]

it seems that xenia can be hit or miss. some people get a tiny frag and it ends up spreading everywhere while others try their best to keep xenia and it just melts away.

And sometimes, both. I've had this happen several times - it thrives and spreads like crazy, then one day it just shuts down and disappears.

 

[scooter31707]

What type of lights are you using and do you have it at the top close to the lights. Try moving it down some towards the bottom and see what happens. I was told and have read that if they spread they are under too much light, if they grow upwards they are finding the light, so I guess you have to find that happy medium. I have mines about mid-way my tank under T5s and it's growing upwards, not outwards.