Whats Up With My Xenia?

[GAB99]

well now that the cyanos gone with the wonderful help of the chaeto i am now focusing my attention to my now horrid looking Xenia, i tried to catch my clownfish to measure them and i moved the scaping around a bit and i couldnt quite get the xenia back to its spot under the outflow of my HOB, now with them help of my clownfish which cant seem to leave it alone instead of 4 trunks with around 10-15 heads on each and then signs of even more growth, its 4 trunks with 1 that has nothing on it, 1 that has 2 heads that are pathetically small, and 2 with a 50/50 mix of 5-10 heads looking like crap, i have 2 heads actually pulsing


the base of the heads (where they connect to the trunk) are a pale white, unlke the normalness of the ret of it

do they really deteriarate that bad under less flow?

i do dose a product called fuel to help them, but its only helping the zoas

the lights are not even a month old 50/50s

stats are fine

there is nothing sorrunding it besides the occasional snail or hermit

please help,i only have till this friday to get help before i log off till i start my 200+ journal in june.














also, for the move im probably not gonna be able to RV the animals across (typical) so now i have to figure out a way to get the fish stuff across the US, any help with that please? $ is no object (it better not imo or im gonna get ticked at my parents hehe)

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Xenia once established in a tank will grow pretty much anywhere (I have some at the bottom of my tank in no flow and some right in front of a korilla 4 (4600LPH directly blasting it) and both still grow fine.

It can however be sensitive while its getting established and IME a gentle flow so its slightly swaying gives the best results (so the flow from a HOB filter was probably just about right).

One other thing as well is that when xenia grows it shrinks up to just the trunk and tends to change colour (mine turns grey). The trunk then tends to attach its side to the rockwork and grows new heads which separate into new colonies.

What is the "fuel" you are dosing? I would highly recommend not dosing anything anyless you know exactly what is in it and are testing the water to make sure your not overdosing anything. If it is just a coral food then that is ok, Xenia wont use it (as far as we know they don't really filter feed, they they can use nitrate and maybe phosphate to grow quicker). The Zoa's will like it though and it will help them grow quicker. Just dont over do it though as most soft corals dont really need feeding and its very easy to mess up your water quality when over doing it with feeding.

 

[steelhealr]

Many professional aquarium keepers will keep a single xenia as a sign of water quality. A closed xenia, IMO, implies something in the water column is off. The fact that there was cyano, IMO, confirms that. Corals in general should only go into mature tanks when they are nano or larger tanks because the volume absorbs insults. Water changes help SH

 

[GAB99]

my tanksbeen set up since Jan so not yet mature, its been in the tank for id say roughly 2 months so idk if thats established, it started out as 1 trunk, then spread to a high of 6, and now its dieing back

One other thing as well is that when xenia grows it shrinks up to just the trunk and tends to change colour (mine turns grey). The trunk then tends to attach its side to the rockwork and grows new heads which separate into new colonies.

i dont really understnad this part barney??

the fuel "ignites coral growth"
its a carbohydrate, vitamin, fatty acid and amino acid supplement for corals, btw this is my dad's fault i have to dose this hehe

 

[GAB99]

i think its starting to grow back as last time i posted there were some heads that were too underdeveloped to pulse and now all of them are pulsing, overall a total of 15, and the one that has no heads has 5 tiny little buds now so hopefully itll come back from the brink

fyi theres no visible cyano left, well, 1 tiny spot about o <---that big on the glass

ill probably continue to monitor it over time make sure its nice and healthy.


if its ok to ask another question regarding zoas, 2 of the polyps have attatched themselved to the ain rockwork finally, should i cut the string connecting them to the rest of the colony, ill only do it if there is some sort of benefit