Xenia & Zoos melt in my tank....

[aka_BigRed]

I seem to be unable to keep Zoos or xenia in my tank. I had a colony of Xenia that was growing/splitting like mad about 9-12 months ago when I had an RBTA go for a walk and he stung about half the xenia colony. I got the dead stuff out right away, a month or so later the remaining stuff slowly stopped pulsing and withered away. I can't seem to keep the stuff the now.

My water params are fine (no nitrate/nitrite/Amonia/copper), pH is 8.3, and temp is 80°

Seems like most soft corals I've tried (xenia, zoos, star polyps, etc) don't last long and melt away. I'm really bummed because I really like the soft corals, but they don't last in my tank. I've got T5 lighting, and other stuff does well under it (2 RBTA's, couple stonies, monti cap & digitas, favia, mushrooms, frog spawn, etc)

For example, last week I got some Pink pulsing Xenia that was pulsing great in the guy's tank I got it from. I got it home, aclimated it over a couple hours with drip method, and the next morning already it had completely stopped pulsing. Luckily my co-worker has a reef tank so I brought them over to his tank to save them, and they perked right up. They look great in his tank!

After the last attempt, I'm doing 25% water changes every week for the next month or so to try to completely rid my system of whatever seems to be causing the problem (either too much of something or not enough of something else)

Is there something I can test for that would be causing all my softies melt?

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

are you running carbon?

perhaps there is some sort of chemical warfare going on with one or more of the LPS that is killing the softies?

perhaps your water is too clean for the softies to live in, with all zero's you must be running a skimmer, filter feeding sofites might not have enough food..?

i dont know i am realitively new to the hobby, but it seems odd that only the softies are dying off...all of mine seem to be bullet proof..

 

[roader247]

I have some xenia and zoo's in my tank both are doing great what is your PH xenia seems to like higher PH let us know how it goes.

Mark

 

[Icefire]

Xenia/zoo like less clean water, ph 8+

 

[aka_BigRed]

pH is 8.3

I know I read that they like "dirty" water, but they shouldn't completely stop pulsing over night. The last batch I had acclimated went in my tank late evening, and by morning it had completely stopped pulsing.

The speed at which it degraded is what concerns me most .

 

[cristhiam]

IMO ph is not the issue my tank goes from 7.9 - 8.4 (end of the day) I have xenia for over 3 years now. Are you adding any chemicals to the water? what salt are you using? what is your salinity? nitrates?

 

[cdangel0]

Keep in mind that when drip acclimating the temperature decreases drastically. Xenia can be extremely finicky sometimes. If the temp dropped too much dure acclimation it may send the xenia in to shock which may takes days to recover from.

 

[aka_BigRed]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9455372#post9455372 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cristhiam
IMO ph is not the issue my tank goes from 7.9 - 8.4 (end of the day) I have xenia for over 3 years now. Are you adding any chemicals to the water? what salt are you using? what is your salinity? nitrates?

I use reefcrystals and run 1.023 salinity using a refractometer. I've also confirmed accuracy with my backup swing-arm hygrometer. As mentioned earlier, the "big 3" readings (NO3,NO2,NH3) are all 0.

The only thing I add is kalk & top-off RO/DI water. My water changes are also done with RO water.

Originally posted by cdangel0

Keep in mind that when drip acclimating the temperature decreases drastically. Xenia can be extremely finicky sometimes. If the temp dropped too much dure acclimation it may send the xenia in to shock which may takes days to recover from.

To save them, I sent them over to a friend's tank that same day where he acclimated them and they were pulsing great again later that night (the actual frags that completely stopped pulsing in my tank 12 hrs earlier).

When I drip acclimate, I put them into a bucket and float them in my sump to equalize the temp as well so they don't have a drastic temp drop while acclimating as you point out.

I don't think it's pH since I tested the water of the guy's tank before acclimating and his pH was 8.2 and mine was 8.3 (each taken twice with same pH meter to confirm accuracy, and I also allowed the pH probe to thermally stabilize to be certain temp wasn't affecting pH reading)

 

[cristhiam]

I see, the only think I see is your salinity is on the low side I use RC too but I keep my reef at 1.026 using a refractometer too, also I use kalk 24/7 for top off.

 

[Piazzon12]

I believe xenia need Iodine. If you arent supplementing, that might be whats missing

 

[aka_BigRed]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9456197#post9456197 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Piazzon12
I believe xenia need Iodine. If you arent supplementing, that might be whats missing

I've been reading that, and there seems to be some camps that say dosing I is good, and some that say it's not needed. I'm going to try it here and see what happens.


How about the zoanthids - they really like/need iodine too?

 

[cristhiam]

With regular water changes you don't need to supplement iodine, I never had and I have way to much xenia. Also you have to test for it before dosing or it can cause problems.

 

[cristhiam]

Ask your friend what is his salinity?

 

[cristhiam]

Here is some info in Iodine
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/chem.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2003/chem.htm

 

[saltyreefguy]

you mentioned 80dgs temp. that maybe abit high for the xenias...

 

[Doni]

Agreed. You should raise your salinity to 35ppt. You don't mention the type of xenia. I have had the elongata and pink pompom varieties over the last several years and have determined that they behave very differently. I have had very large colonies of pompom melt for no apparent reason while the elongata continued to split and pulse like crazy.... and visa versa.

My guess is maybe chemical warefare, some sort of water deficiency or abundance of something... or a bacterial infection.
...so in short, I have no idea what causes the 'melt downs' but the different varieties react differently.

 

[omni2226]

Too many types of critters in the same space.
Nems and softies and Lps all mixed up.

If it were me (for what thats worth hah!) Id make a choice.
Nems. Softies. Lps. One of the three not all together.
You could keep the softies and a nem. Or the Lps and a nem.

Most peeps who keep a garden type reef have skimmers and filters that are rated four or five times bigger than the system to help deal with alloepathy.

The again I may be spouting hot air and have no idea what I am talking about.

 

[gant]

What makes xenia tick is one of the last unsolved mysteries of nature. I have sps, lps, softies, nems, and a clam all in a 29 (with no sump/fuge) and no skimmer. My levels are all over the map, but the xenia grows like a weed (temp has spiked up to 84 before).

It works in some tanks but not others. One thing we don't know about xenia is that it doesn't travel well. Don't drip acclimate for two hours. Just throw the junk in your tank and see what happens.

Xenia also seems to have built-in die-off mechanisms. Colonies in the reef die off for no apparent reason, which is good because it might otherwise choke out the reef! You may have gotten some xenia at the end of its life cycle. I trim mine and give it away regularly in hopes to avoid the die-off. It's just a theory though.

You might give a couple rubble rocks to friends who can throw them in a sump and let xenia grow on them. Then take the rock and throw it directly in your tank. Good luck.

 

[LockeOak]

My xenia seems to be very temperature resilient, it's a 10G that due to changes in room temperature and heater switches has at some point been anywhere from 77 to 85.5 degrees for a few hours. It swings 2-3 degrees daily around 80 degrees. The xenia hasn't skipped a beat, is growing pretty quickly. Right now it seems to be moving more than growing, I put a few frags in some lower light areas and they just climb up the rocks (leaving a trail of tiny polyps as they go), they appear to be able to move themselves up to 3-4 inches a week to get to stronger light. They also put out longer polyps when they're shaded as well. Of course, there could be all sorts of allelopathy going on in your tank, all that's in mine are a few zoanthids, xenia, a kenya tree and a green slimer. No LPS (yet). I do dose iodine, but only at half the concentration the bottle recommends (2 drops a week).

Basically, I don't think pulsing xenia are terribly responsive to temperature.

 

[scapes]

well, I'm so glad I'm not the ONLY one who can't keep xenia's or zoos in their tanks. I have an 80g that is 1.5 years old w/ three 48" white actinic and one 48" blue actinic bulb. I can keep everything but these two. I have like 11 clams, shrooms, hammer, frogspawn, candy cane's and brains, but can't keep a darned zoo to save my life.

Now, I also have a 55g w/ 8x54 t5's that is about 6 months old now and they do GREAT in that tank. I have all mixtures of stuff in that tank too and they do wonderful.