A Tale of Two Xenias'

[the_buzz_m]

I am trying to figure out what is going on with one of my Xenia colonies. I had 4 colonies about a month ago. One was very small and faded away. I didn't worry much about it, chalked it up to not enough light as it was covered by one of the larger colonies.
But, I noticed the other day that one of the larger colonies was starting to look bad. Now, it is pretty much a goner. I have attached a few pics below. One is of the tank about 10 days ago. You can see that all three colonies looked great. The next two show the problem child. The brown slime was not there about 5 hours ago, so that just formed.
I did some tests, and the only thing that is out of whack is the nitrates, which are around 40-50. This is the highest I have ever seen them, so I take it that could be the problem.
Two questions:
1. Why would one colony fade like this and the other two that are right next to it be un-affected. That makes it hard for me to believe that it is a water quality problem.
2. What is the best way to lower the nitrates? I did a 10g water change today, so hopefully things will start to get under control. Is there something else that is good to use to help control it.
Thanks for the advise.
the_buzz_m

 

[fishyapol]

i had the same problem... how old is your tank and are they from the same colony?? because i got my first one and about after a month it did the same thing..it shriveled up and just died.. with in that same month i got another one and it did fine.. as the first one died the new one just started multiplying.. and i also had a problem with high nitrates.. did you keep the bio balls.. if you did take them all out becuase those from what i heard keep it high.. and when i took them out it went down a little... just do a water change every week and keep and eye on it... good luck

 

[fishyapol]

by the way nice tank..

 

[the_buzz_m]

Tank is about 7 months old now. All the xenia are from the same colony. I don't have any bio-balls in this system, just a sump with the blue filter pads. I went ahead and cleaned evrything in the sump, as it was looking nasty. In doing so, it allowed me to do an extra 15g water change on top of the 10g change the other day. Hopefully this will help start the process of getting it down. We will see.
Thanks for the "nice tank" comment.
the_buzz_m

 

[jacksdad]

Xenia colonies will do that, even in the wild. Whole forests of xenia will, for no appearent reason, die. I have yet to see an explanation for this. If the nitrates were that high before it started to wither that could have been the problem. I add Lugol's iodine twice a week and my xenia doubles in size every 2 weeks.
Sorry for the loss,
bob