I got some Xenia day before yesterday. It looked great yesterday and then this morning it just fell apart. It's arms are flying everywhere and there's not much left but white thing's. Is it "shedding"? I read somewhere they will do that but this is a LOT of shedding if it is. I drip accumated it. Is it dead/dying? I have a mess in my tank,
I am not an experienced aquarist. I've been told that xenia isn't truly dead until the last smudge peels off the rock. Some time ago I had some xenia mailed to me and it did a very similar thing as yours is doing. Mine ultimately died. I understand now that the system I was keeping at the time was totally out of whack and maybe that killed it. Or maybe it was the shipping that killed it. I'm not experienced enough to give you more help than the pat answer 'less light, more carbon, and a waterchange' until it settles down. Hopefully one of our gurus will speak up.
Thank you! I had to take them out because of the mess, was afraid that they were dead and contaminate my tank. Tests were as follows Gravity 1.025 ALK 9.5 NH3 0 NO2 0 PH 8.0 this is low I added some PH buffer Had to do a 10% water change to get the mess out of the tank. There was one small rock with a tiny spot on it (not a sponge) I rinsed it well and put it back in the tank. Hoping it's another Xenia starting.
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/xeniidsysfaqs.htm I had one die too. I'm blaming poor water parameters. pH needs to be at least 8.3 and Alk near 12 dKH for Xeniids.
Not to hijack the thread, but you only feed your fish every 2-3 days? I was under the impression that if the fish eats with gusto, then it needed to be fed. So, I've been feeding frozen brine shrimp to my firefish and clown goby once a day. Those are the only fish in my 20g setup. Have I been misunderstanding?
OMG! I've been feeding my fish twice a day! Every 2 or 3 days for the invert's. Yes, my PH is always stable at 8.0. I added the soda but it didn't bring up the PH so I tried the buffer. I do dose with iodine every 3 day's or so, calcium too. I will add the phospate tests to my "Need" list. I have a scooter blenny that I hand feed and a shrimp in a sick tank. I use about a 3rd of a small block of brine shrimp each feeding (total for fish in both tanks). The bi-color catches what the scooter misses and the crabs run for the rest. I also dip the frozen clopeeze tip in every 2 day's.Could I be over feeding and that's why the PH is stasying so stable? Roberto you are fine. I have a bi-color blenny that act's like an idiot when it comes to feeding time. He dart's back and forth and starts picking on my snail shells. I feed him and he quit's.
I'll second the Nay vote on the SeaClone. That was my first skimmer. It pulled a lot of crap out of the water, and that made me think it was working. When I came across others' reviews of it, I was very surprised. One person even told me, as I'm passing on, you can't know the difference between a good skimmer and a bad one until you've used a good one. At that point I made all of the mods to the skimmer that improve performance. Fwiw, the mods work and it really started to skim out junk. I kept it for a couple years because I figured no one else really knew what they were talking about or they were pissed they paid $300 and I paid $75. <skip to the end> So after having yellow polyps, xenia, and zoanthids all fail to thrive in my tank, and the zoanthids completely die off, I started looking for things to change. I found a good deal on a Remora, as I heard it was the best HOT option, and now I'm kicking myself for not having got one in the beginning. It's difficult to quantify the difference. I live in North Little Rock if you want to see it. The yellow polyps and xenia are finally turning around, and I've only had it three months.
I'll take the bio wheel off. The skimmer was turned back on. What kind whould I get? The NO2 is actually 0.3. I have a laborette test kit and that's the lowest it show's. The CO2 is a fresh water test (brain fart there). I plan on getting a salt water test kit this week. 1 14w 10,000k daylight and 1 14wnm actinic. I would never get anything if I thought it would have died! The sacro was damaged in shipment, the spot's are already disappearing. I'm really discouraged now. I enjoy the tank and do take it seriously. That's the main reason for joining the club. To learn to help the animals thrive.I do thank you for your help!
Xenia. ...lousy shippers...also water quality has to be very high to get them to thrive. Also sensitive to changes or hot or cold...they just melt away.
Xenia is a good meter for water parameter changes. It will shrivil up in an instant when the water chemistry changes.
