Need Help Fast With Xenia

Hey Guys,

Well I have a big problem. I got some pulsing xeina, and two rocks with some some small polyps/mushrooms yesterday. I am having a big problem with the xeinas. When I got home I floated them for about 45 min, then put alittle water from my tank into the bag with a little cup. Then waited about 10 min, and put alittle more water in the bag. The xeinas were looking good and pulsing like crazy so I thought well it must be time to put them in the tank. So I picked them up by the rock and put them on the bottom of the tank(this is were they had them in the stock tank with less light then me). The xeina looked really stressed out, but nothing that I thought I needed to be worried about then. But today when I got up the xeina were kinda shriveled up with the hands really small, and the whole coral was small. I got really scared, and tested the water again. As following: nitrate 20ppm, nitrite 0ppm, alkalinity 300-305, and ph 8.4. I have a 15 gallon nano tank that has been running for almost 5 months. There is one 170gph power head for flow, and the xenia is in moderit-high flow. The temp is 80-82. And I have an auqa-tech 30-60 power filter as filtration. The lighting is with 80 watts of power compacts, Daylight 10k/6700, and actinic 420/460. I do weekly water changes so I realy havent thought about a skimmer. Could this be the problem. The mushrooms and polyps are open and doing great. I also have a few tube worms, and featherworms that come on the rocks that are open and looking great. What could be the problem, I just spent about 50 bucks and really dont want anything to die. And help will be great,

Thanks,
Birchell

 

xenia can and does act like that when you frist put it in a new tank (and after its established too on shorter intervals). It also does ok in your mild nitrate amounts without much concern. Give it another day or two, it will most likely come around. Are you measuring yoru salinity too? From the soudns of your other stuff it's most likely fine. After a few days you may want to start worrying.

Keep in mind that some tanks too, just do not seem to work for xenia. It's wierd like that.

HTH

 

thanks for the quick response. i really hope the xeina will pull through. it is no just kinda laying there with its small arms out, and has turned white. i will give it a few more days and hope for the best. the other frags are doing well so it must just be an xenia thing. thanks again

 

here are some pics, ther are kinda hard to see but you can see the xenia is small and laying over the rock i bought it on, it was about 1-1/12 inches tall when i got it. my SP is 1.024-1.025

 

xenia can take anywhere from 24 hours to a couple of days to acclimate...i wouldn't worry to much about it. just keep your parameters in check, if the xenia remains "shriveled" for a short period of time...i wouldn't worry about it, more than likely the coral will pull through. if the xenia looks as though it is starting to "melt".....well, let us know at that point.

 

well it melted. i got up today and it was a little pile of mush. i quess i will just have to try again. the rest of the polyps and mushrooms are doing great, so it must have just been something with the stress. now i just have a little purple rock with little white featherdusters on it.

 

stress shouldnt have caused that. something wrong in your tank. xenia is a very hardy coral. if it looked good and was pulsing when you bought it should not have been dead in 2 days.

 

Some Xenia while very hardy when established in a tank can very VERY hard to acclimate- I've shared pain and loss in the past-