Help, what is happening with my xenia????

[alexmarto]

Hi, saturday afternoon i went to my lfs to bought a pumping xenia.

After aclimatising it for almost 3 hours, i placed her (him?) in the tank. Almost imediatly it started pumping, even the closed polyps were shwoing some pumping action.

She then expanded beautifully and the pumping action was amazing.

Sunday all was well, lots of pumping and huge polyp expansion.

Sunday night, all of a suden and right in front of my eyes, the polyps started to close very fast and never opened up again. The pumping now is almost inexistent, only two tiny daugther colonys remain open and pump, but not rytmically.

This is my first xenia and i have no experience with this coral.

I'm in this hobby for almost 7 years and i've kept various types of corals for a long period.

My tank is 40 gal. It has one lobophytum that is doing great, a smal colony of zoanthids and a also small colony of pachyclavularia violacia.

The xenia is far away from all the other corals and did not touch them.

The other two animals in the tank are a very small yellow tang (bigger tank in two weeks from now ) and an amphiprion melanopus.

Nome of them is touching it.

I keep my pH in 8.1-8.3 (american marine monitor) whith regular aditions (dripping) of kalkwasser.

i have a 60 lbs of live rock, one red sea skimmer and 150W ab 10000K HQI light.

I introduced the xenia right after winning the batlle with cyanobacteria, just with skimming!

So, is this the xenia normal beahvior? I'm very worried about this issue because theis coral costs a LOT of money in my country.

manklit

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry to hear this, manklit. I have no answers for you but will help keep your thread up so someone who may have answers will see it.

 

[mountainbiker619]

it will appear as though it died..but it will grow again...just the way Xenia works.

 

[alexmarto]

Are you sure? It is closed for more than 24 hours now...

manklit

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.
I have a few Xenia patches (skin left on rock after I peel off the weed) that regenerate back into a full colony within a few months.

However, if your Xenia decomposed completely, it is truly dead, and it will not come back as what MB619 said, but right now, it is not that stage yet.

They are a bit tricky, and once established, they will take off like grass right after springtime rain. Good luck.

 

[attempt]

Have you checked your iodide levels? i think it should test between .06 and .08 (you will need to read the instructions on the test kit)
From my understanding xenia needs iodide to cause the pulsing action. They also deplete it from the tank rather quickly. Perhaps your xenia have used all they could from your tank and a simple regular dosing would solve the problem. be careful though overdosing can burn your corals.

 

[The Pirate]

Have you checked your iodide levels? i think it should test between .06 and .08 (you will need to read the instructions on the test kit)
From my understanding xenia needs iodide to cause the pulsing action. They also deplete it from the tank rather quickly. Perhaps your xenia have used all they could from your tank and a simple regular dosing would solve the problem. be careful though overdosing can burn your corals.

Very true! Iodide is also helpful in keeping good colors on many of the SPS's.

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.

They also deplete it from the tank rather quickly.

Unless there is someone adding iodine to my tank, I have not done any water change for two years, and I only doing top-off with RO/DI and running a calcium reactor. My Xenia is pumping like mad. :?

 

[The Pirate]

hi.

They also deplete it from the tank rather quickly.

Unless there is someone adding iodine to my tank, I have not done any water change for two years, and I only doing top-off with RO/DI and running a calcium reactor. My Xenia is pumping like mad. :?

You may be adding Iodine into your tank without even knowing it depending on the food you feed your fish :roll:

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.
There is no fish but a mandrain and a purple tang. I feed neither of them.

 

[The Pirate]

hi.
There is no fish but a mandrain and a purple tang. I feed neither of them.

Can you test for Iodine? If so what is the level?

 

[Joey French]

I don't think I would worry about it...(taking a look at the xenia farm in the tank :roll: ) it is a fairly hardy coral, minus the meltdowns, which, I have had every species I could find, with no addition of anything,(minus the food ingredients), and never had any meltdowns at all. In fact, once it comes around, keeping it's growth under control will be a bit of a chore. However, if it is expensive in your country, then maybe you could frag some out for credit at the lfs.
Not to get off the subject, but I don't think it is anything to concern yourself with, it's probably just getting used to your tank conditions. One thing that caught my eye was, what was the lighting in the tank you bought it out of? Is there a possibility that it might be adjusting to the MH in your tank, if it had lower lighting in the lfs tank? I would think that would be an explanation moreso than iodine or trace elements. How's it doing now?
Joey

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

Can you test for Iodine? If so what is the level?

hi.
I never test for iodine. My point is against the hypothesis that iodine deplete quickly, and dosing it is necessary for soft coral (particularly for Xenia) and LPS.

Xenia and seaweeds have more concentrated iodine level than NSW, so obviously it is absorbing it from the water. However, it just not very logical that whenever someone have any problem with Xenia, the first thing that some of us mention will be iodine. Ii am a bit on the extreme side, but with regular water change, I doubt that there is any legit need for dosing iodine.

I had asked people in the reef community to experiment with radioactive iodine to test the incorporation of iodine from additives, but after many years, no one take any interest in it. I guess even if the experiment proof them wrong, they can always say the isotope effect of iodine screws up the experiment :roll:

 

[Unarce]

manklit,

I can't help but laugh each time I read your username. It has an indirect Deuce Bigelow referernce to it. I don't know if that was your intent.

Sorry to hear about your Xenia. It's been several years since I've had soft corals, but I thought I'd chime in since you still haven't really found out what may have caused their demise.

Supplementing Iodine is very helpful but not required to maintain Xenia health. Regular water changes is sufficient. Iodine increases mucus production in Xenia's, therefore increasing their ability to feed and enhance their growth. Xenia's won't do well in a low PH environment and especially suffer through heavy protein skimming. I understand this method was used to help rid your tank of cyanobacteria and may have completely removed the nutrients your Xenia needed. If it is not too far gone, try buffering the system to boost your PH and replenish the nutrients. I hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[Anonymous]

I had a huge xenia farm that (thankfully) collapsed suddenly and then slowly over a year shrunk to nothing. The day that was initiated we painted the floor in the room and I shocked the tank (and myself) with a busted powerhead. Rest of tank was fine- do you have any sudden fumes or electrical problems?

I'm with Robin on the iodine issue. All you can do is make sure all parameters, particularly alkalinity are excellent and hope for the best.

 

[alexmarto]

Thanks to all for the replies!!!

The condition of my xenia is the same after this time. Polyps closed and almost no expansion. I have never suplemented the tank with iodine. I just feed the fish with nori (the tang) and granules (the clownfish).

The light is exactly the same as it was in the lfs but it is a lot closer to the coral than was in the lfs. I'm gona try to put the light a litlle far from the coral.

pH as i said 8.1-8.3

No suden fumes (as far as i know or smell ) and no shocking either.

I'm still waiting to see what happens.

@reefnutz, what's a Bigelow?????


manklit

 

[crazygirl]

I noticed with mine that it it was in a direct flow or power head then it would shrivel up. If this is the case move it so it gets flow but not aimed directly at it. It will take it a few days for it to come back but it will. Good luck

 

[Unarce]

Deuce Bigelow is an american comedy:

Rob Schneider co-wrote this tale of an aquarium cleaner who, while fish-sitting for a successful gigolo, answers his business phone and decides to take some of his business. Adam Sandler, a Schneider pal and fellow Saturday Night Live alum, has a cameo role and co-executive produced. Don't expect a sensitive drama here — Deuce is sure to boast a tankful of body-part and -function gags.

-movies.com

Your username is a derivation of Deuce's gigolo title, "mangina". Amazingly, the sequel will be out sometime this year. Again, consider the nutrient depletion of your tank. Perhaps the Xenia was full and vibrant during the first day and a half because it was trying to feed. I don't believe the lighting would be much of an issue since yours is similar to the supplier.

 

[alexmarto]

I am observing an increase of the shrinking after i added garlic soaked nori to feed my yellow tang.

I don't have access to the garlic suplements that you use to talk about, so i have to make some out of smashed garlic. I extract the juice from it and then let nori soak in it for 30 minutes.

I introduce nori in the tank, fully impregnated with the juice. After some minutes the skimmer starts to foam a lot more than he use to and the skimmate smell... GARLIC. My wife doesn't like it very much!!!!

My tang is covered with tiny white dots. At the beggining i thought it was oodinium but more than 72 hours after the initial symptoms, he's still alive and eating like a pig. For what i've read, a fish with oodinum doesn't lasts that long. Is it true?

Anyway, i don't remember if the shrinkage of the xenia started when i added the garlic for the first time but i have to assume that that might have happened.

Do you think that one thing is connected to the other?

thanks

manklit

 

[Unarce]

manklit,

I'm not sure if you were referring to me about garlic, but I haven't seen any adverse affects with my clams or hard corals. Tangs, although susceptible to white-spot disease, handle it very well and will feed normally. Before I discovered Kent Garlic Xtreme, I placed pieces of crushed garlic on the grill of a powerhead. My tang even fed on the small pieces garlic. It has to be dealt with inside out. Rather than weakening the fish with FS baths and medicine, I found it best to maintain a stress free environment with excellent water parameters so that the fish can fight it off itself with the aid of allicin (garlic extract).

I don't think garlic had any affect on the Xenia. Again, I'd get no reaction from my corals or clams with the exception of my fish going nuts in search of food and the scallops in my sump.