Xenia - growing insanely

[kevinsimons]

Surgery completed - thanks all for the advise. Are these cut-offs salvageable? If they're glued to a rock will they grow? I hate to just discard the stuff - it IS a living animal...

[Doc]

if you have patience, you can try to slip a rubberband around the stalks to a piece of rubble and hope they grow onto the rock, or you can be lazy, like me, and sandwich the xenia between two rocks and place them in a low-flow area of the tank. it takes about 2 weeks for them to attach all the way.

-Doc

[Doc]

although, in all honesty, since it grow so damn fast, throwing them away is just fine. the stuff is almost indestructible. it will replenish itself so fast, you will not know what to do with it all.

-Doc

[yote]

Use either one of Docs methods to attach it to a rock.Let it grow a couple of stalks onto that rock.Take to LFS and trade for store credit or other.

[michelle]

okay, i'll bite....Naomi?

[fatman]

Bridle veil works great. Cut it in strips about 1/2" to 3/4" wide and 1 1/2" to 2" long . Glue one edge to rock, drop down the Xenia, pull over the veil and glue the other side down. Use gel super glue. The Xenia will grow right through the veil material. GARF info on propagation, which I have used many times, even for mushrooms and leathers. They have pages and pages of good, widely practiced fragging and other propagation info on their site. Sell coral frags at around 5 or 7 for $100, varies at different times. Many, many generations old horticultured corals. Some really beautiful. Geothermal Aquatic Research Foundation. In healthy systems Xenia can grow so well some coral propagators use Xenia as an organic export median grown in large sumps fed by coral mother colony tanks.