Xenia dying off

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gshelton

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Joined
Oct 26, 2009
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13
Location
Woodinville, WA
I have a 40 gal established tank (about 1 y.o.). Over the last few months my pulsing xenia (which had been threatening to take over the tank) has started dying off. Nothing new has been added to the tank. Water parameters are decent (calc. 400, alk 8, ph 8.4, NO2, NO3, Ammonia all 0). Any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
What is Mg level?

Did you do any cleaning or painting recently?

If these are the water parameters when the xenia was doing well, then the only thing I can think of is some pollutant and/or poision has enter the tank.
 
I have an Elos Mg test kit..if you like I can test it for you..let me know.

I'm in Bothell which is fairly close to Woodinville.
:)
 
You might also want to check your iodine levels, or if youre not already, you may want to start adding some to the tank. I have read in various places that sometimes xenia is known to crash if there isnt enough iodine in the water
 
from my experience I could never keep exenia as I was always running a unls ultra low nutrient system and it would die off. Iodine test kits I believe are not all that accurate I dose my system 3 drops a week of brightwells iodine supplement I did not bother doing a test nor buying a kit for it from all I read it was worthless to do so. but also read many folks have be ok with doing a drop a week depending on the system I have 300 total gallons roughly i did 1 drop a week on my 100 so I figured 3 drops. but I cannot say if it helps or not nothing changed good nor bad.
 
do u have kids?i have a nano tank before full of xenias..all of a sudden it starts melting for some reason...i have no clue of whats going on...then my blenny didnt sjow up for days and so we look for him,rearrange rocks then we found a NICKEL,its starting to get brown like rust color....
and we already know who to blame....
 
I had the same thing happen, Xenia's taking over tank for 3 years then they just all disappeared. Nothing changed, that was about 6 months ago, then about 2 weeks ago I found a fresh stalk growing, if you are doing water changes on a regular schedule, then you probably do not need to add iodine
 
Yea I'm going to agree with arman & lvsuckerfish that its probably a lack of Iodine and/or Strontium. I have kept Xenia in my systems for 25+ years and dosed both of these elements regulary. They also tend to like a little nutrient content to water so if your system is to clean you might try adding a Phytoplex addative. IMO Xenia make one of the best PH probes for a reeftank as they will noticably change pulsing action as PH drops below 8.0 thier coordination rapidly deteriates.

Todd
 
From my experience.....when my xenia starts dying off....that means my water is very healthy or clean. I don't know why....but when my SPS grows....my xenia dies.
 
ReefLogic said:
From my experience.....when my xenia starts dying off....that means my water is very healthy or clean. I don't know why....but when my SPS grows....my xenia dies.
Click to expand...

+1 I have noticed this too. SPS love low nutrient conditions and when my SPS take off my pulsing xenia doesn't. The way I have been able to keep it up and alive is making sure to keep it in a relatively low flow area so any nutrients in the tank bind up in that area. I have a lot of success with that method and I have done this in several tanks and I have noticeably seen a difference in the health as opposed to placing it in other areas of the tank.
 
Interesting thought about the flow. It is in a high flow area now. I think I'll try to move it and see what happens.

I'll also keep a look out for nickles!
 
I actually am very fond of xenia filtration...designating a section of sump/refugium to xenia
 
All the Xenia strains that I keep (total of 6 different ones) all like Iodine. I found out the hard way years ago with my first Red Sea Pom Pom Xenia that if you don't dose Iodine then Xenias will probably not do well.

Also Xenias that are a strain closest to the wild caught tend to be very tempermental and may not do well. I've found the farther away from the original WC specimen that you can get the better off the Xenias will be.

Hope this all makes sense. Good luck.

p.s. almost forgot to mention that Xenias like dirty water, hence the reason that some like to use them as a filter in refugiums and sumps.
 
Last edited:
good thread I've learned more from this thread than my books that reference xenia, thanks.
 
TJL said:
Yea I'm going to agree with arman & lvsuckerfish that its probably a lack of Iodine and/or Strontium. I have kept Xenia in my systems for 25+ years and dosed both of these elements regulary. They also tend to like a little nutrient content to water so if your system is to clean you might try adding a Phytoplex addative. IMO Xenia make one of the best PH probes for a reeftank as they will noticably change pulsing action as PH drops below 8.0 thier coordination rapidly deteriates.

Todd
Click to expand...

Hi Todd,

Great info and spot on with the PH info. I've seen my Xenias slow their pulsing when the PH drops and sometimes droop too.

I do regular weekly dosing of Seachem Trace and Seachem Plus for my Xenia tank.
 
 
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