Pulsing xenia only pulses at night

M

markahsf

New member
I have a nice sized bunch of xenia on a rock I received from a fellow reefer. It's extremely healthy and pulses during the day but at night when the lights are off, it pulses like crazy.

Could it be too much light? Change in pH or alk?

I have no problem with the amount of pulsing during the day because it still looks amazing but I'd like for it to pulse the way it does at night.

I know xenia has all these crazy factors and nobody knows the exact way to make them pulse.

Thanks!!!
 
pulsing seems to be related to ph from my experience. When my Xenia started to not "wave" very much it was due to a drop in ph. when i buffered it back up they went back to pulsing away. too bad my file fish cleared out the 100 plus stems I had. still one of my favorite corals when in a large colony
 
Pulsing Xenia pulse to move water. If the water flow is sufficient, they won't pulse. So out them in a very low flow area for them to pulse all the time.
 
Really ? When my lights go out for the night all of mine close up into little puff balls. In the morning and time for lights to slowly turn on, they are waving like crazy. I didn't know they stay awake at night. The only time I have ever seen that was when I had the room light on and they woke up and pulsed around until the lights went out. Is that a normal thing for it ?
 
My pulsing xenia stop pulsing at night.

So the reason they pulse is to get water moving around their polyps, which brings more CO2 for photosynthesis. At night, they can't photosynthesize, so they don't need to pulse.
 
The reason they pulse is to get water moving around for more oxygen. Under low flow, there is less dissolved oxygen/ml, so pulsing increases. Likewise, there will be more pulsing at 80 degrees than at 75 degrees because warmer water has less dissolved oxygen/ml. Lights heat up the water so pulsing will increase. I don't think they photosynthesize because otherwise they would be green.

Look left. Above "2011" there is a square foot of Pulsing Xenia. Above the yellow tang over "Date" there is a square foot of
Pompom Xenia. Over the "Feb" is a colony of Blue Xenia.
 
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So the corals that we all keep, that aren't green, don't photosynthesize? Sorry, that's simply not true. Xenia are entirely photosynthetic, in that the do not eat anything. They have no mouths. The absorb nutrients from the water, but not calories.
 
What I was trying to say in my previous post, rather inartfully, was that I don't think corals photosynthesize. Rather, the symbiotic zooxanthellae algae within the coral photosynthesize. Zooxanthellae contain pigments like chlorophyll A and C2. Chlorophyll absorbs light in the red and the blue regions of the visible light spectrum, but green light is reflected. The color of the coral belies the color of the zooxanthellae. Xenia are not photosynthetic, the zooxanthellae within the xenia are. "Photosynthetic corals" is really a misnomer.
 
As you can see guys, everyone has a different experience with pulsing xenias pulsing, it has been implanted into my brain that no xenia is similar, and not all pulse, and difference in tank parameters can change it, but not always.

I think its great that you guys have found a way to control their pulsing, i think its pretty awesome! play god with your corals!!!!
 
fatfishy said:
Give it a REST waste of space posters know nothing but post for the hell of it.

No ONE knows anything about Xenia. Some times they pulse. Some times they don't. Why they pulse NO ONE KNOWS ! Why they thrive or melt for no reason ? NO ONE KNOWS !

Stop posting bogus information all over the w.w.w. regarding Xenia.
Click to expand...

Well maybe you dont know, but why xenia pulse is known. See the articles below, first one summarizes it quite well and the second one is the primary research article. It funny when people make these kind of over reaching arguments without any supporting evidence.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/why-do-soft-corals-like-xenia-pulse

http://www.pnas.org/content/110/22/8978.abstract


For the ops question, they pulse to increase the water flow around the entire colony. So they dont need to pulse if the flow is already high. Pulsing can aid both the import of CO2 and O2 and can also help with the removal of excess oxygen generated by algae.

Other factors like pH or temperature might also play a role in this either directly or indirectly. Low pH indicate high dissolved CO2 in water, which might reduce the need for xenia to pulse. Solubility of gasses in water (both O2 and CO2) decrease with temperature. So pulsing might increase in response to temperature to compensate for this. Temperature effect might also be an indirect outcome of higher metabolic rate at higher temperatures.
 
fatfishy said:
No ONE knows anything about Xenia. Some times they pulse. Some times they don't. Why they pulse NO ONE KNOWS ! Why they thrive or melt for no reason ? NO ONE KNOWS !
Click to expand...

Do you have an article you can share where studies concluded that "no one knows"? All I see is bad grammar and yelling. Hardly supportive of your statement...wouldn't you agree?
 
markahsf said:
I have a nice sized bunch of xenia on a rock I received from a fellow reefer. It's extremely healthy and pulses during the day but at night when the lights are off, it pulses like crazy.

Could it be too much light? Change in pH or alk?

I have no problem with the amount of pulsing during the day because it still looks amazing but I'd like for it to pulse the way it does at night.

I know xenia has all these crazy factors and nobody knows the exact way to make them pulse.

Thanks!!!
Click to expand...
When mine stops pulsing I know my PH has dropped. Someone else suggested this on a post and when I got it back up it started pulsing like crazy.

Sent from my Z983 using Tapatalk
 
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