Xenia dies within 24 hours!

[dnorton1978]

My guy at the LFS has always talked about this guy he stopped selling xenia to because he cant keep it alive more than 24 hours.

I actually got to meet the guy today.

He has a 125 gallon with wet dry. He keeps other corals just fine, such as green star polyp, mushroom, and some leathers.

He and the LFS owner claims the water is normal.

For lighting he has 2 sets of 3ft power compact rated at I believe 54 watts per bulb. 4 bulbs in each kit.

He has 4 maxi jet 1200's for circulation and one 900 maxi jet.

Any ideas as to what it could be???

He does not have a computer, so out of my own curiosity i decided to throw it out to RDO.

Thanks,

Doni.

 

[pwj1286]

Some people just cannot do it.
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Slovenian Forum

 

[Anonymous]

Not surprising. Happened to me at least four times, but all but the last one there is a small patch that was able to live thru and became a large colony in about a year or some. As they says, shinz happens :?

 

[Nautilus1]

Some tanks just can not keep xenia alive. SOmetimes xenia willl just crash in a tank where it was thriving. Nobody knows why. Shifting Alkalinity perhaps, but thats just a guess.

 

[dnorton1978]

thanks guys

 

[dnorton1978]

I always though of xenia as a weed that was near impossible to kill. I just thought the guy was unlucky, or dumb.. Thanks for the info.

 

[Meloco14]

Xenia typically either dies quickly, or thrives and becomes a weed. Hard to say why. I have heard certain speculation that they need slightly "dirty" water to survive, and some reef tanks are too clean. No proof to this that I know of though. It is just one of those unexplained mysteries.

 

[Nautilus1]

Yes, an unexplained mystery. I had a tank with thriving xenia, I was throwing it away. I moved the tank to the third floor, used all the same water and 2 weeks later it all died. Does anyone have a clue what dictates the pulsing?

 

[Anonymous]

I know mine pulsed more when I was supplementing iodine, but thats far from being proof positive :lol:. I found mine really disliked pH swings, and did much better when I started running a reverse lighted refugium w/chaeto in it, which stabilzed my pH.

 

[Anonymous]

Some would say to count your blessings, as it can grow into quite the pest.

 

[Anonymous]

I heard a presentation by Julian Sprung once, in which he mentioned that one of his systems coudn't keep a certain species of coral alive no matter how hard he tried. He believed that other corals in the tank had produced the right chemical mix to keep that species from taking hold (actually, in his case, this kind of allelopathy (am I using the term correctly?) killed off a thriving colony and killed any reintroduced frags of that coral). It could be that the species of xenia he's putting in his tank is just incompatible with another coral he's got already.

 

[trigger0214]

The wet dry makes me thinks nitrates? What are his/her levels?

In my experience, I have only lost xenia to nitrates....

 

[trigger0214]

The wet dry makes me thinks nitrates? What are his/her levels?

In my experience, I have only lost xenia to nitrates....

 

[Anonymous]

I heard a presentation by Julian Sprung once, in which he mentioned that one of his systems coudn't keep a certain species of coral alive no matter how hard he tried. He believed that other corals in the tank had produced the right chemical mix to keep that species from taking hold (actually, in his case, this kind of allelopathy (am I using the term correctly?) killed off a thriving colony and killed any reintroduced frags of that coral). It could be that the species of xenia he's putting in his tank is just incompatible with another coral he's got already.

Makes sense, a little coral chemical warfare going on.