Need help with Xenia, advice?

[Icefire]

I got 2 stalk of Xenia from a local reefer. One closed the whole first day but after that, it's very nice, actually have a new 1" head in less than a week.

Now the other was Very Very open on the 1st day, but in the night it went all weird. It was soft, like melting, polyp extended but closed/without life.

Now 1 week later, the polyps are extended 24/24h but closed. It began to attach in some part of the stalk.

It has a weird yellow stuff on it.

So leave it like that? remove the yellow stuff? frag all the heads on it?

First Day:

Next day:

1 week later:

1 week later macro:

 

[Icefire]

1.025
11 alk
8.3 ph
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
2 month old tank with Coralife salt

Here the other stalk in great health:

 

[Ding2daDong]

I think its getting to much light. I would move it in a higher flow area with less light.

-Matthew

 

[Icefire]

Well it's near the sand, 30x turn over in tank.

It looked really worst today, with a hole in it so I fragged the heads and ditched the base.

 

[55semireef]

That yellowish stuff is die off. Sometimes my xenia gets that too. I really don't know why though. Anytime I see that yellowish stuff I cut if off. I know its die off becuase I smelled it and I almost threw up to be honest. Its a really bad smell.

 

[LSD_Zeppelin]

those are some great colors though, what kind of xenia is it?

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

xenia like alot of light, I have mine in 20 tall with a 250 watt mh. The light is 10 inchs above the water,and the xenia are at the top of my live rock.

 

[eddie c]

i have mine at the top under 432 watts of t5 lighting in a very high flow area in a 75 gallon tank, and it grows like a weed, but i have a high level of nitrates which seems to be a key factor alot of people who have been unsuccessful at keeping them have low or undetectable levels

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

The silver xenia don't seem as hardy as the red sea pom poms.The silver has always been a problem for me, but the pom poms grow like crazy.

 

[plummike]

Some of mine crawled right up the glass to get closer to the lights 250MH 14K's. They do well on the sides, bottom, and top.
I never had the yellow areas but have had times where it seemed like they were dying. In a couple days they were fine. Strange things.

 

[Invisible Reef]

Phosphate

Phosphate

How much phosphate is in your water? I have noticed that if phosphate gets high Xenia are not happy. Do you have an algae scrubber and/or refugium to uptake excess phosphate? After I added mine my Xenias started to do well. Other than that Xenia are very fickle. Sometimes they just die for no reason after doing well in the same spot for months or years. Make cuttings and get them in seperate places to prepare for that. That's the only thing you can do.
Does anyone know what the lifespan of Xenia can be? Everything has a life span.....

 

[kensilvey]

Looking at the picture the water looks a little cloudy and what kind of rock is that they are on does not look like typical reef rock, kinda looks like a stone out of the back yard, tell me thats not so.

 

[marcus01]

My zenia has gone mad. There about 5" away from my 150w 13k, they have split and the new section has place its self higher up the rock to get closer to the light..i have 0 nitrate and all my other levels are cool to

ALL THIS EXCITEMENT AND ITS ONLY BEEN IN MY TANK FOR 2 WEEKS, I GOT IT OFF AN ONLINE GAFF....

 

[kensilvey]

Try INSTANT OCEAN salt CORALIFE products are not what they use to be back in the day!!!!! Do you use r/o water? Check phosephates and nitrate build up?

 

[kiran523]

One thing said about Xenia (as well as some others) is that the more the handling of it, the more mucous that it secretes. the mucous if not washed off with saltwater can cause a proliferation of bacteria on the coral causing rapid tissue necrosis (the smelly stuff). You can try using an antibiotics (i.e. chloremphenical ). but you must be careful because excess/undue usage of antibiotics lowers the immune system of your tank making it more vulnerable to future infections. I have no idea of whether you can do an iodine dip on xenia or not. maybe others can help you.

 

[gant]

When it comes to xenia, "when in doubt, throw it out." I trim mine constantly to give away or discard. Don't get me wrong--I like it--but there's no sense in having a cheap coral die and trash your tank. Plenty more where it came from.

 

[RLaRock]

I'm in no way an expert, but have been raising Xenia for about 3 years now and have learned a little.

Xenia is a weed, and it will always proliferate provided it has relatively stable conditions. I have grown them under standard fluorescent bulbs up to compact fluorescent with no issues. They do well in Nitrate levels from zero to 20 ppm and seem to always move through the tank to areas of highest light and water flow. Sometimes it looks like the poor Xenia will be ripped from their anchors, but they seem to love high water flow.

However, Xenia are easily shocked. That is what appears to have happened here. Most things I have read recommend a LONG acclimation, 45 minutes or more under a slow drip. Too quick a change in their water conditions causes the Xenia to disintegrate and crash.

I had a similar problem with a colony of Silver branch. In this case, the water temp rose above 82 degrees for about an hour (from the normal 78 - the chiller blew its fuse). This caused the entire colony to crash, exactly as you described. Yellowish areas of decay, arms that withered and fell off.

In this case, I watched the water parameters, but left the Xenia in the tank. After significant die off, the Xenia suddenly began re-growing from a hundred little patches of flesh. After a month, the colony was back twice its original size.

Be careful though, because this will push a lot of ammonia into the water.

I also read somewhere that Xenia can crash periodically for no apparent reason. The suggestion was to have mixed species of Xenia to help prevent this.

All in all, it looks like the Xenia was shocked. I would remove it to a separate tank (unless you are sure your current tank can handle the bio-load) filled with water from the current tank. Try to keep the temp the same and see what happens. If it is able to recover, I think you will find it is much harder in the future.