My crazy pulsing Xenia

[GaryP]

fishhawk,

You are correct, but remember our corals come from a wide range of environments. Some may acclimatized to shallow lagoons where temps are high, but some may be deep water corals where temps are much lower. By keeping temps in the 78-82 F range we are providing an environment that is suitable for most corals.

Some corals are left exposed to the air and equatorial air temps during low tides in many shallow lagoons, but I don't plan on trying that in my tanks.

Gary

[AlexKilpatrick]

Your frequent water changes may be helping a lot though. What type of salt do you use? Most salts like Oceanic and IO have trace elements of iodine in them anyway. I've never put any xenia in our tank, as it's equivalant to marine aquarium crabgrass (easy to grow and spreads like wildfire). We pretty much stick to SPS and LPS...and zoas (can't help myself with those things - the wide array of colors is just too addicting ;) )

Good luck with the nano
Got any pics of the entire tank?

Wendy

I'm using Oceanic salt. I have always loved Xenia because it is so active (even when it isn't pulsing). It is a good sink for nutrient export, and if it grows too much I hope I can just sell it to the LFS.

The tank is basically just one big rock right now. I have pink, green and yellow zoos (just small frags), the xenia, and some big green mushrooms. I'll try to send a pic tomorrow when the lights are back on.

As far as water changes -- they are my new philosophy. I am planning to do weeklies on my 175 as well, once I get it set up. I think water changes fix a whole host of problems, and if you get an efficient system set up, they aren't much effort.

[::pete::]

As far as water changes -- they are my new philosophy. I am planning to do weeklies on my 175 as well, once I get it set up. I think water changes fix a whole host of problems, and if you get an efficient system set up, they aren't much effort.

I agree and have been doing weekly water changes for the past year.

[CD]

and if you get an efficient system set up, they aren't much effort.

Heh...that's the key right there. Our water changes used to be a PITA until we got a couple of those big white plastic barrels that TimM is selling over in the for sale forum. Now, it's a *breeze*, and takes all of about 20 minutes. We normally do our water changes about every two weeks, but step it up to once a week on occasion - like when we added our Hippo tang, I was having to overfeed the tank for about a week to get her to eat. Had a small cyano outbreak after that, but it's almost gone now.

Wendy

[Andrew]

For Zenia, I believe adequate alkalinity and nutrient levels are much more important than slightly high temp. or iodine additions IME. My tank averages 82 - 84 F* and sometimes up to 85 in the summer, and 78-82 in winter with no adverse affects by zenia. I have never added iodine, other than what's in my water changes (every few weeks) from Kent salt.

(Like Gary said some can't keep it alive and others can't get rid of it)

Hope this is helpful.

Andrew

[Ram_Puppy]

well, you all know my temps have been skyrocketing lately do to the addition of a MAG 5 in my little 30 gallon tank (that is changing tomorrow!) but for 4 weeks plus now my little pom pom xenisas have been pulsing like mad, and growing faster than usual in a tank that is hitting 88F every day, Yesterday it hit 90F (At which point I turned off the halide and cranked down the AC in the house even further. but the xenia has actually grown in two new spots recently, time for a fragging.

[Ross]

my tank gets up to 86 sometimes and xenia is going crazy.....