Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh ! Let the fun begin!

[aja19919]

Thanks Senji. Yeah I found him/her. she/he is in the corner of the tank behind some rocks.

 

[kpiotrowski]

the xenia with divide so best to place it on a rock that doesn't touch anything but sand to keep it from overtaking the tank. you can put some rock rubble in a small bowl to shelter it from the current and it will attach itself. with leathers you should sew them on cuz they can release themselves from glue.

 

[aja19919]

I sort of want the xenia to take over that one rock and the salesperson said I would have to trim it either with scissors or tweezing. Is there a fish that like to eat xenia?

Thanks for the tip on the leathers. I see those are another good beginner coral. How do you "sew" them on rock?

Also, I got the API Reef Master Test Kit and someone said on another post that it was crap. What test kit should I get? I haven't opened it yet so maybe I can return it and get something better.

I now have some bubbles 'growing' in the tank. They weren't there before. Any idea? A few on my outflow valve and a few in one corner of the tank.

 

[josh88]

Personally I like xenia's same with GSP. and if it gets out of control not hard to frag off. When you say bubbles are the red or green, a pic would help to.

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[kpiotrowski]

if you want a dense matt of xenia then it needs to be isolated as I stated, othewise its going to go where it want to go....all over the place.

 

[user 26995]

You will want to try to get the bubbles out of the tank without breaking them. They are an algae that can take over an is unsightly.

The xenia, you can peal them off the rock. cutting them with scissors will be a mess. And nothing is going to eat them.

The leathers, yeah, glue does not stick to them but if there is any rock rubble or sand attached to them, the glue will stick to that.

otherwise, you can use a needle and a heavy thread and actually run the needle and thread thru the leather and then around a piece of rubble rock. Do that 3 or 4 times to hold it to the rock and it will attach itself over time. You can cut the thread later and pull it out. The leather will heal over, and you will never know you put holes in it.

API test kit can be hard to read. It goes bad sooner than its dated for too. IMO. When they are new and you are testing for the basic ammonia, nitrates & nitrites and pH, the kit isnt too bad, but once they are opened they dont last long. They are not real accurate on the nitrates either. They will read 0 when you actually have up to 10-15ppm. Thats been my experience at least.

 

[mfinn]

Another way of attaching leather corals to rock is to take 2 small pieces of rock and trap the leather stalk between them and use a rubber band to hold it all together. After a couple weeks the leather should be attached. That is if the leather coral in question doesn't already have a chunk of rock attached. If it does, just wedge it in a rock and let it grow.

 

[kpiotrowski]

here is what xenia does, first pic it got onto a power cord so its somewhat isolated. if it gets on free rock there is no telling where it goes and its stringy and thin.

second pic is of it on a long piece of tonga branch with nowwhere to go, so it fills in.


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[josh88]

Oh wow, that's insane. And that's what they do if their not isolated to its separate rock? Yeah I'm cool with it in the tank, but not like that

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[senji]

the kits to buy are elos or red sea but i prefer hanna checker as u don't have to mach colors and have a digital readout and cheaper in the long run too all you have to do is buy replacement reagents instead of the whole kit like the color tests.