melting xenia

[alteredego]

I dont know what i'm doing wrong, I have failed at keeping xenia three times now. the water qual is not perfect but very healthy, i'm running pcs and 3 hours of Mh. bi-weekly water change. Any ideas? I always hear of this stuff actualy taking over a tank if not pruned. I'm missing something.

[alton]

Xenia loves pollution. Your water is probably too clean? If you have filter fluff in your over flow take it out. Xenia likes nitrates and phosphates. I have grown it in 2 watts per gallon and 4 1/2 watts per gallon. So lighting is not an issue.

[jroescher]

I read an article somewhere that xenia is sensitive to high temperature. If overheated, it's course is set to die off, but it doesn't happen for several weeks. I don't remember what that temperature is. My tank gets to 82 pretty frequently and my xenia thrives.

[alteredego]

I can't imagine my water being too clean. I've got a 2 foot shark and triggers and others. my ammonia is very near 0, nitrites near 0, nitrates a little lower than 10. I havent tested phos yet but i do run phos ban. may be i over did my filter system: 125g filled with deep sand 200lbs LR, hunderds of bio balls, skimmer and a good sized chunk of bio slab. with about 3000+ GPH through it. I will try to take out some of the filter fluff.
I normaly run my tank between 76-78deg. This last batch was doing fine it seems for about 2 weeks then just kept getting smaller and smaller until gone completely.

[TexasTodd]

The coral definately doesn't like heat.

Are you dosing iodine? Try some Tech-I from Kent per label.

They also like a fair amount of light....might try more than 3 hours a day.

Todd

[saltcreepette]

dont know about you, but my xenia started to melt/whither and I later observed my foxface nipping/eating it.

otherwise, ive seen it seem to wither for no apparent reason, and other times it does great and thrives. I dont think its really known what the reason it sometimes just dies (as per Borneman's book Aquarium Corals, anyways.)

[DeAngelove]

I'd take out/reduce the amount of PhosBan you're running on your system and see what happens.
Xenia does tend to like not so perfect water parameters, and your's sounds pretty close to perfect. Be very careful if you decide to dose iodine... its really easy to over dose.

A good rule of thumb as far as a reef tank goes
*If you're not testing for it, you really shouldn't dose it! *

Just my $0.02....HTH!