My xenia suddenly turned, weird?

[thomze]

Yesterday, they was thriving, sometimes pulsing, they've been doing that for about 4 months or so, spreading well through out the aquarium, but today, they look like, yes.. take a look.. They still respond to touch (closing), my other corals are thriving? It's a 15(54liter)gallon with 3x24watt T5, 1500L/T Flow. Everyting is fine, it's not only the xenias on the pictures, it's all the way around in the tank. I've had a friend of mine testing the water quality with various tests, nothing wrong there, actually pretty great.. Is it normal xenia behavior to go on retreat like that? They were pretty big before, great and healthy looking.. :sad2:

 

[xenia2]

Every now and then my blue xenia act the same way, but came back big and healthy looking again. Don't understand why.

 

[thomze]

h m

h m

It's just so weird, they used to dominate my tank, now they are like.. very tiny

 

[PONCHDOG2000]

I had the same question a year ago. Mine thrived and I had to constantly cut it off of the rocks. Then suddenly, it all died.

I can't remember where I read the article but it was about several different types of Xenia. It said that this particular kind has a natural life cycle of over propagating then dieing off naturally and repeating the process all over again. So far, I am seeing this cycle once in owning my tank for 4 yrs. I don't know if anyone else has read or experienced this... Hope it helped.