Xenia specific refugium

[The Gnome]

I was wondering if anybody out there who might own a xenia specific reef tank might know the benefits of these animals in a refugium. What nutrients might they provide to my cycle ? Do they produce an excessive amount of a certain element ?

I'm planning a 125g closed filtration system with a 55g aquarium as my refugium and a 55 g rubbermaid sump. The 125g display tank will be a species tank for an octopus ( O. bimaculoides ) and I was thinking of making part of the 55g a reef setup. This explains my curiousity about a species specific xenia refugium.

Xenia experts - lend me your thoughts !

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I'm no Xenia expert, but Xenia doesn't produce any nutrients or elements. In fact, they use them. Do a search on Xenia Scrubbers and read through Anthony Calfo's book The Book of Coral Propogation Vol 1. It explains Xenia scrubbers (and other scrubbers) into great detail. You might also want to hunt around here on RC about Xenia nutrient exporting. There is an article somewhere that compares Xenia to a macroalgae (either Chaetomorpha or Caulerpa). Needless to say, the macroalgae was better, but you would be surprised how well the Xenia did.

 

[Khai]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-12/rs/feature/index.php

Check that link out.

 

[Julio]

xenia are great to filter out phosphates and nitrates, but they don't work fast enough to process these elements so you are better off using other methods.

 

[MIKE NY]

I use xenia in my fuge along with chaeto. For some reason the chaeto doesn't do as well as the xenia, maybe because they out compete it or maybe low in iron etc....., but xenia are a good indicator of water quality. They seem to do better in "dirtier" water so when they are doing well and spreading my water isn't as clean as I want it.

 

[The Gnome]

Thanks for the advice !

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have a chaeto specific refugium. I will have a larger than normal bioload to break down, so I will need all the nutrient production that I can get. I will be keeping the 125 as an Octopus species tank with a whole host of echinoderms. It's said that cephlopods produce 2 or 3 times the bioload of a fish of similar mass.
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[fgarvine]

Good idea, but it is too slow compaired to Macro.

Gnome, if you need alot of export, I would shy away from chaeto. It grow sooo slow compared to some of the "salty stalk" macros like grape. Remember my mistake of not lighting for 24 hours a day though. Once I had a power outage that messed my ballast up in a fuge and it allowed the macro to sex. I had a nitrate of 80 from 0 in a week.

 

[chris-miranda]

im running chateo and lots of pom pom xenia in my
60 gallon fuge main tank is 100 gallons my levels are
all zero ive been using this method for at least 6 months now and it
is working great im only using a screw in type power compact bulb 24/7

 

[rustybucket145]

khai, Great article on the xenia/chaeto. I had no idea my xenia was working so hard to keep my tank healthy. I think it has earned a place in my sump!! I have some xtra xenia frags I will be placing in my sump this weekend to help with export. I think I will glue them to the walls of the sump.

 

[The Gnome]

I have decided to have macro in my refugium ... and I'm going to have nothing but xenia species in my sump. I have a 55 g aquarium that I'm using as my sump, and the space that isn't taken up by my skimmer and refugium, is going to be reef with an absurd amount of xenias. This should provide the levels that I need ... thanks for all the help !

 

[XeniaMania]

Interesting..

 

[XeniaMania]

Word of caution when using xenias for nutrient export. Similar to Macros sexing, when all nutrients are exhausted in a system, beware of the xenia crash.