Question about Xenia

[Mr_Cool]

Ok. So I've only dosed the iodine twice. The instructions on the bottle said to give one capful every 4 days. It was a Kent Marine starter pack with Calcium, Strontium and Iodine. I guess I'll just toss the Iodine.

Still waiting to see how the low flow works. I'll keep you posted. Thanks.

[GaryP]

What about light? They need lots of light. They are primarlily photosynthetic.

[Ross]

About xenia not tolerating higher temps, that is totally false in all my experience. My tank would reguarly get up to 86 and xenia grew like crazy.

[cpreefguy]

Xenia is an awesome pH indicator, one reason it doesnt ship well. Check your pH and make sure it is not fluctuating too much. HTH

[GaryP]

Ok. So I've only dosed the iodine twice. The instructions on the bottle said to give one capful every 4 days. It was a Kent Marine starter pack with Calcium, Strontium and Iodine. I guess I'll just toss the Iodine.

The best rule of thumb I have ever heard is "if you can't test for it, don't dose it." Especially something as potentially toxic as iodine. I used to dose iodine as well. I stopped and never noticed a difference. I think light makes a lot bigger difference in Xenia growth. The last time I read something about iodine and Xenia they came to the conclusion that Xenia does absorb iodine, but it doesn't necessarily need it. It also absorbs a lot of toxic heavy metals. That's one of the advatages of something like a Xenia fuge, it acts like a water purifier. That doesn't meet you want to dose lead, chromium, mercury or cadmium to your tank though.

In my experience, the key to growing Xenia is light, pure and simple. The more the better. It grows like a weed in one of my tanks under MH, and I can barely keep it alive in my other tank under fluorescents.

[Shark_Bait]

About xenia not tolerating higher temps, that is totally false in all my experience. My tank would reguarly get up to 86 and xenia grew like crazy.

Don't know about totally false. My tank got to 86 once and the xenia was the only casualty. It melted. So maybe you just has a resistant variant.

Xenia is an awesome pH indicator, one reason it doesnt ship well. Check your pH and make sure it is not fluctuating too much. HTH

This is another good point.

[JimD]

About xenia not tolerating higher temps, that is totally false in all my experience. My tank would reguarly get up to 86 and xenia grew like crazy.

You might want to do some research before expressing your experience as factual data, heres a start....

http://www.aqualinkwebforum.com/grou...6080522/inc/-1

[GaryP]

Sorry Ross,

I'm going with Jim on this one.