Xenia

[lash]

Hi all,
my first post so please be gentle.I went to my lfs where i found a nice lr covered in xenia for £40.00,i was quite warming to the peice till the assistant told me to steer clear as it would take over my tank,so question is ,is it good or bad to have.Current set up Juwel 400ltr,2 X Koralia ph,Fluval Fx5,Turboflotor Blue 1000 skimmer,2x Clowns,1 x fox Face,1 x Sand shifting Star,Cuc 2 x Shrimp,5 Snail,5 x Blue Hermit Crab,All params are good.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Firstly Welcome to the forums

They where partly true. Xenia under the right conditions can grow and spread extremely quickly and if your not careful it can overgrow most other corals in a short space of time.

However that being said its not overly difficult to control its growth. You can keep it on a rock above the others so it has difficultly spreading off the rock, you can keep some LPS near it (such as torches, etc) which will tend to sting it if it gets to close and you can just frag it.

It also tends to move and spread in the direction of the water flow so having it on one large rock and then turning the rock occassionally tends to keep it constantly moving to the centre of that rock.

I really love my pulsing xenia and while it has grown loads since I got it I have managed to keep it confined to just 1 large rock so far.

Last thing is the £40 is pretty expensive unless it was a massive bit of rock. If you look around on a few forums you can often pick xenia frags up for free or for very cheap (because it does grow so quickly you dont need much of it and it will soon grow).

Personally I would say its well worth getting, yes it can be a bit invasive in some systems but if you dont mind doing a little "pruning" every so often it is very pretty (and if you dont have a lot of corals it can be useful to quickly fill up large spaces).

 

[Trod]

Agree with Barney, as long as you keep it under control, its a lovely coral to have, its got great movement and looks pretty. I love mine

and welcome to the forum

 

[lash]

Many thanks for your prompt response.,will go back and see if still available ,it will fill a large area of my tank.