Localized Xenia Extermination

[atlantisaquatic]

I was wondering if anyone could give me some good solutions for eliminating xenia (red-sea pompom, I think) in localized areas?
Tank's a 92 gallon corner, 800w of halide lighting, tons of flow, sporting a 20g refugium sump. I do run carbon intermittently, especially when fragging the xenia.
I have numerous SPS (acro's, monti's, milliporas, etc.), a few LPS (frogspawns, chalice, candcane), some croceas... and of course, a massive colony of red sea pompom xenia.

What I'm hoping to do is exterminate localized areas of growth (as a result of budding off and resettling) with minimal water fouling. I have heard of moving more aggressive corals next to them and kalkwasser injection... but my frogspawn has the spread of a dinner plate and some of the xenia has colonized right next to some acros and a Montipora undata... thus the "minimal water fouling".

Any advice would be appreciated...

Thanks!!!

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Pulsing xenia, different from the small pom-poms, can quickly take over a tank. It doesn't really hurt any corals and is a great filter feeder cleaning the water.

Be that as it may, any wrongly located xenia, pom-pom or pulsing xenia, can be a pest as in eye-sore. Can be killed by hot water, Kalk, joes juice, Hypo injection with any suppliment, etc. It can hide but it can't run. Try the mildest approach first...

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Don't forget that pom-poms are desirable and can be sold , traded, or Pay-it-forward to others.
In lieu of extermination, many even in your part of the world might love some added to thier tanks.

 

[atlantisaquatic]

Thanks Mike...

Hey, I really appreciate the help here... I do want everyone to understand that the xenia I am able to frag off is being just that... fragged off for others. I am not into the wholesale slaughter of corals... I am just trying to protect the other corals in the tank and prevent its massive consumption of my substrate. Some of the "poorly located" colonies are either in a place that is impossile to acess or the stalk is held to closely to the substrate to snip/slice off.
I am assuming that this xenia is a redsea pompom by the words of a respectable member of this forum who has the very same xenia... and by the fact that Barrier Reef in Renton is selling the same coral as "red-sea pompom". There's a long backstory also, but I'll save that for elsewhere... but check out the pics below...

Mike, just how benign is this stuff? Will it not overgrow corals? Toxic in close proximity to SPS? I have it budding off and growing like MAD... I had the same discussion about it not being a weed with someone else too... but "desirable" or not... this stuff is plenty abundant in my reef.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Mike, just how benign is this stuff? Will it not overgrow corals? Toxic in close proximity to SPS? I have it budding off and growing like MAD... I had the same discussion about it not being a weed with someone else too... but "desirable" or not... this stuff is plenty abundant in my reef.

Totally benign. I have had it growing against, in, over and through about every coral you could name. I am a big fan of it in the reef. It can be scraped off also. Have never intentionally needed to kill any and have sold plenty of mounted and given away 4 times that.

 

[atlantisaquatic]

Right on... thanks for sharing your experience... that does ease my anxiety a bit.

 

[SeaMonster]

have you tried gluing it to the back wall?

 

[atlantisaquatic]

Nope... didn't need to... grows there too...:shock:

 

[achu]

I had loads of the red sea xenia for around 6 years or so in a 20 and then a 29 gallon reef tank (until mysteriously 3 weeks ago, I had a mass dieoff... nothing changed in my tank... they just stopped pulsing one day and melted away. Nothing else in my tank was affected. Very bizzare considering i've had the same stuff for 6 years straight with no problems.)

There are a few ways I always kept it in check because it can overgrow a 20 gallon in no time!

I always kept it in the absolute darkest corner of the tank. If I didn't have one, then I'd keep it on a rock in a dark cave. I noticed that is growth slows considerably when there is no light.

The other thing about xenia is that they like to grow up towards the light, so I have also kept it in the highest darkest corner (which is what I do now). This way, when it grows, it doesn't grow onto any neighboring corals, and they are very easy to scrape off of glass. I've also let them grow onto my powerheads where they hide the powerhead

Last of all, when they do start growing "out of bounds", I frag, frag, frag and give away all of it for free! There are lots of folks out there that want the stuff (especially when it they are free!!)

Best of luck to you. Yes it is easy to scrape, but it is a pain and it can take over a tank if not kept in check.

 

[sharps]

atlantisaquatic, i think what you were worried about is what i have heard the toxin from xenia can have on hard corals. "They can become a nuisance in tanks with slower growing stony corals. When injured or dying, they can release toxins. Carbon filtration and prompt removal of injured/dying species can help control any ill-effects of this toxic release." From asira.org

I also lost my xenia colony 2 weeks back but i think this was from high levels of phosphate while i was away and using an automatic feeder.

 

[bbehring]

I have simply cut the stalk out and then used my scissors to scrape the rock where the frag was. This is time consuming, but has worked for me. Best prolly to use the supplement injection attack.

 

[sharps]

you want to avoid using metal utensils and tools in the tank though right?

 

[atlantisaquatic]

you want to avoid using metal utensils and tools in the tank though right?

Stainless tools are usually fine... anything that won't oxidize. I use surgical steel frag tools in my reef fairly often and they have shown no signs of rust... no ill effects in the tank either...