Angry xenia

[labrown]

My xenia looks unhappy today, and I'm not quite sure why. Most everything else looks alright in the tank right now. I've attached pictures of what it normally looks like and what it looks like today. Any suggestions?

http://i333.photobucket.com/albums/m366/labrown12/MAAST/011A.jpg
http://i333.photobucket.com/albums/m366/labrown12/MAAST/079A.jpg

[alton]

What are your nitrate and alk levels?

[labrown]

Here are all levels:
pH: 8.2
NO2: 0
CA: 560ppm
KH: 214.8ppm (12 dKH)
PO3: 0
NO3: 5ppm
NH3: 0

[drgnbttrfly]

Mine looked like that when it nuked my tank...gah never again.

It didn't like the clean water when I did a big water change...and i lost a ton of inverts to the whole mess.

I would after that experience QT it incase it trys to melt on you.

[labrown]

Oh no! How long did it take to melt? Aka, how long do I have to get it to another tank? i have another tank that hasn't finished cycling yet. I am going to test the levels in the smaller tank to see if I can move it over just in case. I can't imagine my water quality is that great. We have an enormous tree coral that seems to be doing fine and I know those like dirty water too. Ugh, wish I was getting more advice on this...

[alton]

Xenia is a great coral, but like most softies it does not like perfect water. Add some junk to it, or over feed (just joking).

[papijames]

I have a question for you. Did you move your Xenia recently? The same thing happened to me when I moved the rock to an area of higher flow, then I moved the rock back to a low flow area and they reopened up in 2days. Very nice pink by the way

[labrown]

It hasn't been moved recently. We did add quite a handfull of frags about a week ago and have been adjusting our powerheads, but not within 48 hous of this happening. It just didn't open up yesterday morning. We moved it to our 8 gal biocube last night just in case it did die. We don't want to lose anything in our main tank. I'm going to try to add some gunk to the water to see if it responds to that. On ARC they said my CA and KH levels seem high. Does anyone know how to lower these? I've only read on how to raise them.

[papijames]

how did you get your calcium to get that high? I need some of your tank water :)
you should do a partial water change like 15% and see if that fix the problem. Don't worry too much things will get better

[Gilbert]

thats what always happens to my xenia after a couple of days of being in my tank. i was told that my water is too clean. i have killed lots of xenia trying to keep it in my tank, but have never had any bad side affects from it dying. LOTS OF XENIA!!!

[ErikH]

Xenia is great in some tanks and bad in others. It is highly sensitive to ph swings. What I have read is that xenia likes higher PH and Alk. Are you dosing CA? If so, stop until your levels come back down...

[Submariner]

Iodine and phyto (preferably live). I use DT and Purple Up (Iodine and Calcium). I have huge rampant colonies of madly pulsing xenia. If you lose yours I have some up for sponsorship in the Pay it Forward program. You can look at the pictures there that I will be posting in a few moments. Tanks doesn't have to be dirty, they just need to be feed and they also like iodine IMHO.

[labrown]

Iodine and phyto (preferably live). I use DT and Purple Up (Iodine and Calcium). I have huge rampant colonies of madly pulsing xenia. If you lose yours I have some up for sponsorship in the Pay it Forward program. You can look at the pictures there that I will be posting in a few moments. Tanks doesn't have to be dirty, they just need to be feed and they also like iodine IMHO.

Thanks I will try this first. If all else fails I am sure I will be coming to you for more. I really like xenia.

[texmex]

Does the purple up work well? I seen that at petsmart was thinking about trying it out.

[runamukus]

my xenia do that all the time. They'll be all out pulsing and happy, then when I stick my hand in the tank to move things around they'll scrunch up for a few hours.
When I do water changes, they'll scrunch up too, but they'll come right back out after 20 minutes or so. I would just watch it and see how it does, and only get concerned if it really bunches up and and you can see it losing its color. I had xenia melt away in a 29 gal once, but had no ill effect (my skimmer was on full blast too). I have too many xenia in my biocube 14 and 95% of the time they are happy, the other 5% is when I am doing something in the tank and they don't like it.

[drgnbttrfly]

The tank I nuked was only a 40 gallon hex...it was QT as the xenia belonged in the sump of my 125

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