Xenia

I was just reading in my aquarium corals book and it said that wild xenia will likely die, and that captive breed xenia will do much better. I was wondering if the captive breed type was easily available and what your experiences were with this "pulse coral". Also, what species would you recommend. Any thoughts?
P.S. I did read about it on the coral of the month thread.

 

Most of your Xenia's that you find in your LFS are captive bred. Their wild counterparts do not ship well at all. I myself prefer the Bali Xenias, they don't pulse as much as other Xenia's, but they have more color. They are hard to find, I ordered mine from GARF a few years ago and have since fragged it into 2 colonies that spread kinda quickly, I keep the LFS's around in stock with them, lol. Any questions, shoot me an email, Im not on here as much as I use to be, but its that time of year, busy busy busy.

 

This is the kind i have



They are called Pom Pom Xenia, or thick stalk xenia or pink xenia and im pretty sure they have more names. They grow fast and pulse like crazy. They are captive breed.

Marc.

 

I got a few frags of the same xenia pictured above. They do have a million names but you will find them under pulsing/pumping xenia ongoogle. They can be a finicky coral. I started mine in the lower part of the tank in high flow (they slime alot when moved) area. Once opened and acclimated to your tank then move them to an appropriate place. They like a moderate flow area, they prefer a sg of 1.024 - 1.026 (mine didn't pulse when it was lower) and since I started adding reef plus (vitamins and small amounts of iodine) they are doing 100%better. I finally placed mine up on the top of my tank but I have alot less lighting. They don't require target feeding, they are pretty easy but I have read the opposite as well.
They can grow rapidly so watch where you put them...u may have to trim in future. I think the pumping xenia are beautiful, same with frogspawn and ricordias.

 

I have a xenia farm in my 300. Literally, the stuff grows like weeds and I'm pruning, transplanting and giving it away all the time. Funny, it doesn't like my office 210. I think the 210 runs just a little too hot. Xenia is very temperature sensitive. It really hates the heat and rapid changes. I lost a whole crop during a water change when I didn't check the temp of the new water.