Plate coral pulsing xenia showdown

[Goose3984]

I'm posting in this thread because I'm new to Plate Coral. I added a new pulsing Xenia to my tank and the frag dislodged (I think from my star) and fell unto my short tentacle orange plate. This happened sometime today anywhere in a 10 hr period. The plate is fine, but the pulsing looks very unhappy. My question is if the Xenia is going to survive I don't know if the plate is actually toxic or not I have sense moved the Xenia to a location that is knocked over will not fall onto the plate any suggestions on what I should do or just wait it out thanks

 

[Ron Reefman]

Just wait it out. My best guess is they will both recover but only time will tell. There is little you can do to help that you haven't already done..

Some corals will kill each other just for getting close (within a few inches even). Other corals will grow right into each other and be just fine. Corals are like people, sometimes you get great neighbors and sometimes you get ones who require regular visits from the police!

 

[Goose3984]

Ok thanks

 

[Goose3984]

Well 24 hrs later, the plate is fine, but the pulsing looks terrible. I can't seem to successfully upload a picture, I'll keep at , any idea how long before it's clear there's no chance?

 

[Ron Reefman]

Pulsing xenia is pretty resilient IMHO. Give it time. If it's been damaged by the plate coral, it may take time to recover and rebuild itself. If it were dead, it would just rot away in the water. As long as it appears to be holding it's own (and you want it) then keep it. If it starts to deteriorate and come apart, pull it. I hate to say it, but it's not like a frag of pulsing xenia is hard (or expensive) to replace. That said, I have a small colony on a mag rock up the back of my display refugium because my wife likes it. I think it's OK, but I don't want it getting out of hand or getting into my sps & lps reef.

 

[dendrite]

Pulsing xenia is pretty resilient IMHO. Give it time. If it's been damaged by the plate coral, it may take time to recover and rebuild itself. If it were dead, it would just rot away in the water. As long as it appears to be holding it's own (and you want it) then keep it. If it starts to deteriorate and come apart, pull it. I hate to say it, but it's not like a frag of pulsing xenia is hard (or expensive) to replace. That said, I have a small colony on a mag rock up the back of my display refugium because my wife likes it. I think it's OK, but I don't want it getting out of hand or getting into my sps & lps reef.

That may have been a providential accident, a deus ex machina, the hand of G-d saving you from yourself. My experience with xenia is they quickly become an intolerable nuisance bulldozing everything in its path. From a humanitarian view it would be nice if it survived. From a practical view, time for hospice.

 

[Nina51]

xenia can be funny...sometimes it thrives, sometimes it just melts away. i had a pretty fair sized xenia colony that did well for a couple of years and then suddenly just crashed and burned.

if you want something that isn't as touchy, try some anthelia but i'll warn you, you will rue the day you ever added it! LOL
<a href="http://s6.photobucket.com/user/Ninapearl/media/TANK%202016/tank_zps3ln50j1a.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/Ninapearl/TANK%202016/tank_zps3ln50j1a.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo tank_zps3ln50j1a.jpg"/></a>

 

[Goose3984]

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately I'm one of those idiots who likes xenia, I had a 150g reef many moons ago before children and marriage and all those fun obsticles, after 15 yrs my wife bought me this nano setup which brings me here now. I found as long as I'm diligent about management the xenia can be kept under control, but give it an inch and it will take 10 miles! The xenia appears fine, but after the incident it won't pulse, hopefully it gets over this if not at least it's not rotting away, thanks again for all the help.

 

[homer1475]

I purposely put my Xenia next to my torch in hopes the torch would keep it from spreading. Yeah that was a joke! not only did it tolerate the torchs stings(wilted up for a few days till it got used to being stung) it eventually grew over the top and strangled out my poor torch.

 

[Optionman]

my xenia has gone from a single frag to over a square foot of invading weed in 90 days. as much as i love the pulsing, i wish i had never put any in my 175 gal set-up. same goes for kenya tree.

 

[Mad_Reefer]

I found xenia and kenya tree can help with nutrient export like a macro algae. When I had my 180, I tossed a lot in the trash. I kept them in both the sump and display.