Who's ate my Xenia?

A

Anonymous

I had five 3" stalks on one rock. During one night the rock was cleaned off. I couldn't believe how that could have happened in so short of time. The rock was as clean as like nothing was ever there. I'm not sure who could've done this? I have the following critters: 3 turbo snails, a handful of smaller snails, some small Crabs, 2 Blue-legs Crabs (one about 1" in size), an Emerald Crab, Yellow Tang, Perc CLown, Cradinal Fish. Unless I come up with something else, the Blue-Leg Crab(s) are guilty until proven otherwise. Something had a very expensive meal that evening!

Anyone have any thoughts?
 
I personally do not think it was the crabs. What are your tank conditions? Xenia can disolve pretty quickly if something is not right.
 
I have a 72g Bowfront; 60 lbs of livesand, ~75lbs of live rock; basic sump with skimmer; 2x65w PC's (in the process of upgrading the lighting.) On a weekly basis I add Calcium, Iodine, Magnesium; ever 4 days I add Strontium. I've been routinely adding the chem's since early April.

As of today: the ph=8.0, salinity=31.5, SG=1.0235, calc=460, Alka=3.5.
 
The Alk is in meq/L. I'm going to focus on the ph by reducing the time between water changes (6 weeks down to 3-4 weeks.) Increasing the water movement by adding a jet in the tank, and increasing the light intensity. I believe these are all positive actions therefore I don't think I'll be causing a new problem with these actions and hopefully increase the ph in the process.

Thanks for the feedback!
 
Funny, I also had a stalk of Xenia melt away over night, must be the Full Moon. :shock:

There are three different kinds of Xenia in this tank, the ugly Pom-Pom feathery brown kind, the more common blue non pulsing kind, and my favorite the blue and pink Pulsing kind (a frag from Ashlar) naturally it WOULD be the pretty pulsing one that melted, the other two varieties are spreading like weeds. I DID have a couple of events that may have caused this. My SG fell below 1.019 for about 24 hours because I had topped off with too much RODI fresh water, which is probably what caused it. I also noticed a little shrinkage in some of my LPS when the SG fell, but the Frogspawn and Hammer fluffed back up nicely when I added a little saltwater bringing the SG back up to about 1.020. The only things I've done differently in that tank is I've started dosing a capful of Purple-Up every night just before lights and filter goes off, to raise calcium levels and to buffer PH and alkalinity, and I've also been adding 4 tsps of Amquel Plus every night trying to get my trates down, which I believe are high because I've been target feeding DTs and Cyclopees to the LPSs every other night. Does anyone think any of these supplements could melt a stalk of Pulsing Xenia, or more likely just the drop in salinity.

Or was it the full moon 8)
 
What salinity do you normally keep the tank at? 1.020?
 
Marc: I just now saw this response. I usually try to keep that tank around 1.021 to 1.022 It's a small tank with a lot of fish and as of late, a bit of an ich problem, but I'm slowly evicting all the fish to another tank so I can keep the icky tank fallow and SG higher for the LPSs. Scott (Ashlar) was kind enough to help us out with his QT for Hypo and I've just set up a new FOWLR tank.

But now that I think of it that was a pretty big drop in salinity and probably what killed the Xenia. I've slowly brought it back up to 022 over the last 4 or 5 days and so far had no issues with the fish, well, other than them controlling my life and all.
 
@SumpDiver wrote:
so far had no issues with the fish said:
lol. Sometimes I wonder if I have pet fish or if the fish have a food slave. The schooling fish rapidly say "Hey, hey-hey... more food." But my gold banded maroon clown is more like "Don't make me get out of this tank. You KNOW what I want."
Click to expand...
 
@Matt wrote:
I agree w/Steve. Xenia thrives in some tanks and melts in others. It may actually be pH or Iodine related. said:
That explains my predicament too.

I had pom pom and elongata thriving for a few months.
Then I started dosing iodine.

After my last iodine dose my pom pom melted away. The elongata did not get affected. Thanks for the tip Marc. I guess no more weekly Salifert Iodine dosing for me...
Click to expand...
 
Gosh guys, I'm sorry you're losing Xenia. I have had all of the things you've talked about livestock, params, and dosing except I don't touch iodine.

I have a large mass of Xenia that seems to thrive over everything else...go figure. I even have a zoa growing out of one stalk!

I don't know the answer but if ya'll would like a piece of Xenia
I can start a frag for you, I just need to put a rubble rock next to it.

Is there anyone that knows how to frag it more quickly, I'm a bit afraid to cut it off. Does it give off toxins if cut?


Good Luck,
Gail
 
I have a velvet Damsel and one day out of the blue he just started eating off all the heads off off my Xenia. I was like NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO
 
Old thread but.
I have been dosing weekly with Iodine also and all of a sudden my Xenia's disappeared through the night. I had a frag grow from a lady bug size to over 2" or so in about a month then bye bye. All my other frags and corals are noticeably growing.

IODINE hmmmm what about the cleaner shrimp if there isn't any Iodine and I thought I read that Xenia requires it?
 
@mylittlesquishy wrote:
Is there anyone that knows how to frag it more quickly said:
My xenia creep off a rock and onto the glass. It then creep up to the top off the glass. I now just use a razor blade to gently scrape it off the glass. It just grows like a weed in my tank. I don't dose iodine very often. My tank does have a high nutrient level.
Click to expand...
 
@Alex wrote:
[I]@CIOofFish wrote:[/I][quote="My pulsing Xenia seem to thrive on Iodine. The higher the iodine levels said:
What is your Iodine level?"]

I try to keep it at .06 mg/l. It's difficult tho because iodine quickly disappears from my tank (I blame the xenia).
Click to expand...
 
do you hae an angel in your tank? i did and now he is in another because he ate all of my xenia, zoos, and a few others. the only things he left were those that either taste bad or are toxic to him. now i have to replace everything and i cannot afford to do it. so i try to catch people when they are donating stuff. i.e gsp, shrooms, xenia, etc. i miss my corals and belive me when all you have is 1 shroom a leather finger, a dime size piece of flourescent neon green gsp, 3 kenya tree frags, a toadstool frag the size of a quarter, a feather duster that is finally starting to grow back after teh attacks, and 3 small fish (2 bowtie damsels, and a dwarf lion) the tanks looks nasty (aka naked) so if anyone is going to be in the ardmore ok area and has some coral frags to donate by all means bring them my tank reminds me of NTC ( a wide open baren desert) :sad: .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top