Shrinking Xenias !!!!

[Civicdemon]

SO A couple weeks back my Xenias where starting to grow really good, They where splitting like crazy and everything. During this time i was having a bit of a nitrate problem at about 20 to 30 ppm and had a grip of diatoms on the back glass and a bit on the sand beed.


Since then i have stoped stirring the sand beed and ben doing my water changes regular, also added a difrent light bulb to my fuge 65k so that my chaeto will actually grow and do its job. Now my test are as followed

Nitrate 5ppm or under
everything els test where it should be.

Now my back glass is looking cleaner with no diatoms anywhere, nitrates are down and my skimmer is not pulling nasty crud like before its just pulling brown water now not as bad as before indicating that the tank is cleaner.

So i have ben reading and most people say that the xenias will die down if the water is to clean ???? Is this true ??? Is there anything i can do to help it grow back with out bringing back all that nasty diatoms and nitrates ??? Maybe target feed it a bit like my birdsnest ???

Oh yeah one other thing i did since i was having the nitrate problems is the use of bio pellets in my reactor.

 

[ErinCahir]

I think you should wait until you have an actual problem with your xenia. I had a good size chunk in my big tank (which always had straights zeros). Mine had no issue.

 

[Civicdemon]

Well i think them shrinking up is a problem. Thats why im trying to see what it could be. i have also read that iodine might be the issue.

 

[daugherty]

well i will say xenia can sometimes be hit and a miss. they can do great one min and take over your tank or just die. just give them time they will prob bounce back.

 

[Bifferwine]

Target feeding won't help with xenia. I don't think there's anything you can do. In some tanks they thrive, in others they just can't survive for some reason. And when they thrive, they can grow and spread to pest proportions!

 

[FishyReef]

Xenia is one of the few "easy" corals that I haven't been able to get to thrive in my tank either. Low nutrients might be part of it. But honestly, I think there a ton of reefers out there who would be grateful to have their xenia shrink - it often takes over a tank and becomes a PITA for most people. My advice at this point is to give up on xenia and find some other corals to add instead!

 

[daugherty]

Target feeding won't help with xenia. I don't think there's anything you can do. In some tanks they thrive, in others they just can't survive for some reason. And when they thrive, they can grow and spread to pest proportions!

. But honestly, I think there a ton of reefers out there who would be grateful to have their xenia shrink - it often takes over a tank and becomes a PITA for most people.!

yes it will take a tank over i fought with it for over two years trying to get rid of it. i would scrape it off the rock and it would come back. i will never put that in a tank of mine again. a kenya tree is just like xenia but maybe worse.

 

[motorcyclereefer]

I loved mine for about 6 months and then it took over.

 

[Civicdemon]

Well then maybe its a good thing that mine is starting to shrink up lol. maybe my water quality is way better now. One other thing i have done since everything is i started to bring up my salinity from .023 to .025 i did, its almost at .025 now but that with a hidrometer, I Know I Know i need to get a Refractometer. Especially now that im trying to bring it up, i wana make sure i dont go to high.

 

[daugherty]

if you wanna see what they can be like check out my 75 build thread. i have always had my sg at .026