Xenia "Melting"

[hansnfrans]

I have had my xenia at the top of my tank for about 2 weeks now. Everything was fine until yesterday when I found one colony dying, while another colony right next to it was fine. I have 150w MH and 132w of PC over the tank. The xenia that died was not really recieving direct lighting from the MH b/c it was so close to the top of the water and the PC fixture was blocking the MH light. So basically, the dead colony was sitting 2 inches from the surface and getting 42w of PC lighting for 12 hours per day.

I got worried that I was frying them, so I moved a small colony from the top, to the bottom of the tank and it looks worse today than it did yesterday!

 

[PSam]

In my experience, Xenia is weird like that .

 

[RRafael]

from the move it may take a day or two to livin back up

 

[Racenrich]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7390929#post7390929 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by PSam
In my experience, Xenia is weird like that .

I'll second that....as i have some that i cant rid of. Some days it looks fantastic and then on another day it all looks like hell....weird stuff....kinda up there with aptasia...its a plague, IMO.

 

[hansnfrans]

fishfood23- when I say it is melting, I mean that it is basically limp, necrotic tissue, past the point of bringing back to life.

 

[Whaledriver]

The thing about zenia is that its very sensitive to a lot of things. First you have to watch you ph. If ph says below 8 you run into trouble. This leads to the testing of water to find what the Ca,alk and Mg are since they all can effect the ph to some extent. Next you might test for iodine and strontium but these can be maintained by water changes most of the time. Finally zenia just dies as a way to distribute polyps around sometimes.

If it is dieing just because it is new you should give it alittle flow and hope for the best. You will be surprised how a dead looking one will recover.

 

[EdBurhop]

I had 2 colonies die off 2 months ago. About 2 weeks ago, they came out of nowhere back to the same spot and I have a little baby colony growing... very strange stuff.
Ed

 

[lizardking38]

I have had my xenia "melt" when I had a temp spike above 84F last summer. I have heard other people have this problem too. Also, do not move it around much as it will stress it out and give less chance for recovery.

 

[Ladipyg]

I use my xenia like a canary in a coal mine...if it starts looking funky I know I need to double check some of the water parameters...

 

[MBasile]

i heard in some cases it wont do well if there isnt enough nutrients in the water cause they grow so fast........but i think your skimmer would have to be insane for that to happen.....

 

[mbierzyc]

i wish my xenia would die ...

 

[hansnfrans]

lol, "not enough nutrients"? That certainly isn't the problem in my tank.

 

[newnano]

i wish my zenia would melt.