cultivating? Xenia

[reavely]

the Xenia in my DT is thriving and has branched out and attached itself to an adjacent rock. The stem leading to this new atttachment from the old base seems to be thinning out. Will the new branch attachment sever itself from the original base? If I wanted to spread the Xenia around my tank, how do I separate the two attachments - the LFS guy said to "just separate them with a razor" OUCH! is that the way it's done? if so is there anything I should give the poor wounds to help them heal?

 

[lillylegs]

hi reavely,
the new piece will thin out as its detaching itself from the old. it will sever itself. if its growing well, you really won't have to do anything to get it to grow all over your tank. but what i do to thin them out or move them is take a clean pair of scisssors and cut them at the base. then put them on a rock in a low flow area. i wouldn't necessarily call them wounds. its like when you cut grass. they just grow right back!

 

[michelle13]

The two branches will seperate. I usually cut mine with a pair of sharp, sterilized sissors and then place them on a rock with bridal veil over them. They attatch in a few days and I remove the bridal veil...then I sell them to the LFS for good money! You can get some good info and I think a movie on garf.org that helped me a lot.

 

[reavely]

That Garf site is great!, I can;t wait to start spreading Xenia around the tank. I had no idea there were so many varieties as well. I love them and they hypnotize my 19 month old daughter!

 

[chinnyr]

Just be careful when you start putting it all over your tank.It will take off and grow everywhere.Try placing them on a rock "island".Something not close to the other rocks.They will have a harder time jumping from place to place that way.I have placed little pieces of rubble rock near the colony and let it move onto the small pieces and trade those in for store cerdit to get new stuff for my tank.And,you can either cut the streached out piece with a razor/scissors or just let it do it by itself.Hope it all works out for you!

 

[reavely]

I live in Hillsborough just north of Chapel Hill. I havn't been to JFpets, where is it? Of the other two I prefer FW only because I've seen many sick and dying specimens at TTF, though FW can be more expensive. If the Xenia start taking over the tank, I'd love to arange a trading relation with you. I'll be getting pics of my tank on the website listed below but I'm going away for some time next month so it may not be until late July before the pics get up there - you got a web site?

 

[reavely]

Just saw your sit, very nice, I'd love to get some of those mushrooms - did you get them up here or down in Charlotte?
I have a blu neon gobie to clean up my regal tang, though it seems the regal is prone to one sickness after another - I just got rid of the ich he brought into the tank and now he's got a white film of moldy looking stuff on him. I've been adding garlic x-treme to the food in hopes of boosting imune systems but I'm tempted to try the Maracyn approaches - I have to leave on fieldwork in three weeks and need to get all the fish back into the DT before I go _ I donlt want to overwhelm the "babysitter" by making them take care of the QT as well as the DT & the Cichlid tank.

 

[reavely]

I split the Xenia in two and each one of them have expanded considerably in the last three days. I've put a bunch of small chunks of base rock around the "mother" to form an island that I can begin cloning new colonies off for trade - I'll keep you in mind KIP when I get some new ones cultivated.

 

[elan]

in one month, my zenia has spread dramatically... the first pic is 4/28, the day after i got a frag from saltylakes (thanks bud!!)
it spread on either side of it... so i took the original piece and put it down on a bed of small rocks about a week ago... its already starting to spread on one of the smaller rocks...

 

[elan]

5/28/03